Strategies for optimising workflows in IT teams

Are there any good strategies for optimising processes and workflows for IT teams?

In this article, we will focus on the main problems IT companies face daily in project management and look at some solutions to solve them.

Twproject is well acquainted with workflow issues in projects, both through feedback from its users and through internal experience of its team.

This is why we believe we can share some useful strategies for dealing with the main issues and the best tools to handle them.

Foreword: the most relevant requirements for the IT sector

Before getting to know these tools, let’s start with the basics: how does the IT world approach process optimisation tools? How do IT project managers evaluate and choose tools?

This is a sector that is certainly open to new developments in technology and where the desire to optimise and speed up processes dominates.

Efficiency in project execution is certainly one of the most important goals in an IT company, and we will now see how it can be achieved.

The different instances of workflow management in IT teams

Let us now look at the specific challenges IT teams face every day, and at the same time see the main issues and tools that can help them change course.

IT departments highly value improved internal efficiency and corporate reputation, so we are confident that these strategies will prove useful.

It is always important to bear in mind that the whole team must be able to reap the benefits of using management tools. This will help to reduce the start-up phase and will immediately lead to an improvement in flows.

1. Co-existence of projects with different course and type

The first effort that IT project managers make every day concerns delivery times that are not always easy to meet.

Time schedules planned at the beginning are often postponed due to a non-linear workflow that gets jammed easily.

The main cause that in our opinion risks slowing down workflows in IT teams is the coexistence of projects of different natures.

In IT companies, in fact, it is very common for staff to deal with various types of projects at the same time in their daily work.

• There are the actual projects, with a beginning, a duration and an end, the load of which accumulate over the next days if not done on time.
  
• Then there is the maintenance activity that takes place on a more or less regular basis during the course of the year and that must also be counted in the operator’s load.
  
• Finally, there are the ‘tickets’, i.e. those activities that do not have a start and end date but represent micro-activities, such as bug fixes or small occasional requests.

The latter in particular can be a major cause of delays and bottlenecks as they interrupt the regular workflow.

As a matter of fact, each of these activities is inherently different and should not be treated in the same way.

There are strategies and tools designed specifically to manage this difference in projects and which greatly help to plan work by calculating how much time each of these activities requires from the project team.

1.1. Operator load calculation

The first problem caused by these different activities is that they affect the workload of the operators differently.

For example, in some cases these activities will accumulate over the next few days if not carried out promptly, and increase the daily work rate until the project deadline. In other cases they may be postponed, but it is always important to calculate their incidence in the team load.

Managing operator load is not an easy task and therefore it can be useful to use workload management software in projects that allows for detailed planning, taking into account the differences among projects, as seen so far.

Twproject, for example, allows each project to be assigned a different value from the three listed above and thus weight the workload of the operators, taking into account the fact that each project behaves differently depending on its type.

This helps to avoid overloading of team members and to optimise workflows in IT teams at an early stage of planning.

In fact, if we plan more carefully, taking into account this threefold task of team members, delivery times can be better met and the work as a whole will become smoother.

1.2. Integration with cost management

In addition, another reason for segmenting the different types of projects is the better reporting accuracy we will achieve.

For a company with many projects underway, of different types and trends, work reporting and invoicing can be a daunting task.

A good solution may be to use a work planning system with integrated cost management, which automatically records the work done by the team, but at the same time allows all incidental expenses to be recorded.

Using a comprehensive platform such as Twproject, the data will be updated automatically and a comparative analysis between estimated and actual work can be carried out.

Unlike many other project management software, Twproject offers timely and accurate work tracking, allowing you to stay up-to-date on internal costs, resource work and margins, providing transparency internally and to the customer.

2. Managing workflows and bottlenecks

Moving on to issues concerning project execution, we identified as a second problem the lack of focus on the sequencing of work phases.

As we have seen, a non-fluent work organisation can lead to the bottleneck phenomenon.

This is an annoying slippage in the time schedule for project execution. Causes of interruptions in the execution process on planned projects can be tickets to be processed, a technical urgency to be handled, and so on.

It is often difficult to pinpoint the exact point in the workflow where this blockage occurs; it may therefore make sense to equip oneself with tools that visually show the process steps and thus highlight the critical points.

The best example of these tools is the Gantt chart.

Once used as a simple initial planning schedule, today this tool has become much more dynamic and follows us for the entire project duration.

It is because of this interactivity that the Gantt diagram is now a recommended tool for all project teams, even the most agile ones such as IT teams.

2.1. Dependencies

A good Gantt chart allows us to link the different project phases together and set up their different types of dependencies.

First of all, we have to list the project activities and set up our WBS (Work Breakdown Structure), which as the name implies divides the project into hierarchically ordered work blocks.

Subsequently, our WBS can be visualised as a Gantt chart that will allow us to easily link activities together.

The more accurate and realistic the correlation between the phases and sub-phases, the more we will be able to identify problems causing delays, blockages or overruns.

If we use project management software such as Twproject, the Gantt chart can be created in just a few minutes: thanks to it, it is easy to realise how the work is organised and to easily assign tasks to the various assignees.

2.2. The timeline

When the work starts and it is therefore necessary to monitor and analyse workflows, the Gantt chart is particularly well suited to perform this analysis.

With Twproject, you can use the Project Timeline, a tool within the Gantt as well as on the statistics page, which allows you to easily identify the causes of project delays.

The Timeline represents the historical memory of the project, which records everything that was initially planned in the start-up phase.

Subsequently, the Timeline keeps track of all project variances automatically, without the project manager having to explicitly note them down.

If, for example, a delivery date is changed, this shift will be recorded in the timeline and at the end of the project it will be possible to review the exact moment when the timeline changed.

In the IT world, it is very easy for this to happen, especially due to the coexistence of several ongoing projects, as we have seen.

Knowing the causes of delays is very useful to plan more accurately in the future and helps to avoid the notorious bottlenecks we often run into if not wisely managed.

Agility in workflow management thanks to ToDo’s

So, after having carefully calculated the workload of operators and planned the work steps accurately, let’s finally see what is the last step to improve workflows in the execution phase.

One of the most difficult tasks during this phase is the optimisation in the distribution of deliveries and tasks, which if not done effectively can negatively affect the productivity of the team.

Often when embarking on a new project, the amount of information that needs to be communicated to the project team may seem overwhelming.

But if you break down all activities into small, precise tasks, not only do you communicate effectively with the team, but you get a clearer picture for the whole team.

IT teams usually like agile ways of managin workflows, and in this Twproject has several solutions that are highly appreciated by them.

Its ToDo’s are very flexible because they can contain a lot of information such as assignee, tag, type, attachments, etc.

We can add comments to them, mentioning the recipient. We can filter them in multiple ways and organise them by priority. In short, they have everything that can be useful to an agile team that needs an efficient and fast communication tool.

They can also be managed via the Twproject Kanban visual board, which contains some special functions such as the column sorting method. Not only priority, but also sorting by project, by assignee, by status and type.

ToDo’s are functional for any type of work, be it related to classic projects, maintenance or ticketing.

Twproject: the ideal tool for optimising workflows in IT teams

To sum up, we know that IT companies are those most attentive to new technological developments and those most inclined to adopt software tools to improve internal processes.

However, it is just as likely that IT companies will decide to make handmade systems, being software producers themselves.

But as we know today there is an increasing segmentation in the software industry and therefore the choice to internalise the development of business management systems is not always successful and can divert attention away from more profitable projects.

That is why it is best to turn to those who have decades of experience in the field and know how to anticipate and solve the needs of IT companies in project management.

Our customers working in the IT sector have no doubt: Twproject has everything they need to simplify IT project management.

In addition to what we have seen so far, Twproject has many other functionalities that can simplify the workflow within an IT team.

From the ability to manage staff, customers and suppliers on a single platform for more effective and immediate communication, to the combined waterfall and agile mode, and the very high flexibility and customisation of the system.

All you have to do is try it out free of charge for 15 days and develop your first IT projects with Twproject, with the help of our support team that will guide you through customisation.

Just like our current customers, we are sure you will never go back!