GamePlan – For Accurate Project Scheduling and Costing

According to data, in order to achieve project success, project managers need to evaluate project complexity accurately and allocate the necessary resources optimally. Any misstep or miscalculation and the project can derail. 

This is where a visual project management software such as GamePlan can help organizations navigate the complex project scheduling-costing matrix.

How GamePlan Helps Organizations Stay on Schedule and Within Budget

GamePlan is a visual project management tool that empowers businesses to complete their projects on time and within budget. Here’s what makes this visual project planning tool different from its competitors:

#Problem Area 1: Unrealistic Project Schedules

According to the Project Management Institute, poor scheduling is one of the major reasons why projects fail. As the schedule slips, it also leads to cost overruns, missed milestones, and inaccurate performance measurements. 

Some of the most important reasons for poor project scheduling include:

• Intense competition, which may lead to project managers proposing unrealistic schedules to give the company an ‘edge’
• Absence of a penalty for poor schedule performance 
• Constant and last-minute changes to project requirements, which may lead to adverse effects on the project schedule
• Lack of experience in project planning
• Lack of a database of schedule and cost performance, which can lead to inaccurate project schedule estimates
• Minimal and/or insufficient time spent on developing schedules
• Not taking into account the relevant factors that influence the realism of project schedules

How GamePlan can Solve It

First things first, it is important to understand that GamePlan enables behavioral and managerial change in project management.

This visual project management tool offers a unique and innovative virtual whiteboard that allows project managers to plan ‘smarter’ and extract real bottom-line benefits for the organization. 

Here’s how this tool works:

Traditional Scheduling Software	GamePlan’s Visual Planning Software
In other scheduling software, you need to create a project schedule by typing a list of tasks into a chart–a tedious process. As a result, project managers may not be engaged enough and may rush, or worse, skip, the project scheduling process altogether. This is an ineffective way to plan a project and leads to poor planning, which leads to projects running over time (and over budget).	GamePlan takes a different approach where you can plan projects by: Brainstorming with the team in a conference room and creating a multi-dimensional list of tasks Using the room’s whiteboard to dynamically map out the project and leveraging a combination of symbols, text, and arrows to show tasks and dependencies

 

All you need to do is:

Step 1: Plan your projects by simply drawing your project workflow on the virtual Whiteboard:

Image Source

Step 2: GamePlan’s powerful scheduling engine ‘takes over.’ Any change that is done on the Whiteboard is taken into account by the tool’s Scheduler.

Step 3: This Scheduler automatically updates the project schedule and displays it in the form of an easy-to-comprehend Gantt chart.

#Problem Area 2: Inaccurate Resource Allocation

According to a survey done by PMI in 2020, an average of 11.4% of investment is wasted due to poor project performance. And one of the biggest drivers of poor project planning is inaccurate resource allocation. Here are some of the challenges of resource allocation and management:

• Absence of data relating to resource availability in real-time
• Overburdened resources as a result of working on concurrent projects, leading to burnout

How GamePlan can Solve It

GamePlan’s Gantt chart software shows users the entire project timeline, including when all the deliverables need to be met and when the project will be completed. The schedule is resourced-leveled, which means that no one is ever double-booked.

Due to this, the schedule deadlines are achievable and realistic, providing project managers with greater confidence to publish their deliverable dates. 

The tool also:

• Produces a daily agenda for everyone to follow, so the team gets a clear direction of who needs to do what tasks and when they need to do them
• Helps track the project, preventing unforeseen delays in tracking
• Allows managers to mark tasks as completed or enter timesheets, ensuring that your project status is always up-to-date–even when there is a delay in the project
• Shows project managers exactly how the delay affects the overall project deliverables and it the team the required tools to determine how best to bring the project back on schedule
• Provides unparalleled project planning, scheduling, and tracking features 
• Delivers true resource-level project scheduling via a visual whiteboard user experience, keeping projects on time and within budget 

GamePlan’s Gantt Chart maker online allows for accurate project planning, taking into account resource availability as the demands evolve in real-time. This creative and dynamic tool helps lend a positive user experience, allowing managers to plan their projects smarter and execute them better.

#Problem Area 3: Underestimated Costs or Inadequate Cost Control

Inaccurate costing is another big culprit of project failure. Your project costs may be inaccurate assumptions due to the following reasons:

• Underestimating the project cost constantly
• Factoring in ill-defined factors or obsolete procedures
• Consistent delays in estimating
• Lack of robust data
• Changes to contract post contractor selection
• Incorrect cost allocation
• Inaccurate comparison of proposed estimates and budgets with actual costs
• Addition of unrelatable cost elements within the cost proposal

How GamePlan can Solve It

GamePlan allows project managers to estimate costs properly and control them every step of the way. It will enable businesses to:

• Manage cash flow
• Forecast costs correctly and stay on budget
• Calculates precisely how much projects will cost so that you can create accurate budgets
• Create cost schedules that show when expenses will be incurred
• Understand any change to a project inadvertently affects the project cost in real-time

#Problem Area 4: Unclear Project Communication 

The absence of clear communication can lead to numerous problems such as:

• Inaccurate scheduling, estimating, and resource allocation
• Incomplete and inaccurate understanding of the project objectives, design, and implementation
• Lack of focus on definite work statements
• Project or profit orientation of resources that is weak
• Lack of a strict approach to fundamentals of management

How GamePlan can Solve It

For projects to succeed, communication is key. Whether you want to communicate business plans internally with your team or externally to the board, investors, and clients; the GamePlan tool lays the foundation for effective collaboration and communication by:

• Letting everyone understand the project plan easily, presented in an easy-to-digest visual Whiteboard
• Ensuring that the project plan gets buy-in from everyone on the team
• Encouraging relevant questions from the board
• Giving clients and investors greater confidence in the company

#Problem Area 5: Improper Project Tracking

Businesses continuously face unpredictable variables, which can cause unknown delays. This prevents project managers from getting a single source of truth relating to project progress and status.

In simpler words, project tracking becomes difficult due to inaccurate data being fed into the system.

How GamePlan can Solve It

GamePlan immediately shows:

• How project delays affect your deliverable dates
• How to easily test changes to your plan if the due date cannot slide
• How you can add or reduce scope automatically

Finally, GamePlan arms teams with the right information they need to bring the deliverable dates back on time.

The Takeaway

GamePlan is a Gantt Chart project management software that automatically adjusts the project schedule and cost basis of the team capability. Depending on the inputs provided by the project manager, the project schedule and cost might change.

Instead of manually estimating timelines and costing like in other tools, GamePlan’s automated Scheduler does the grunt work for you and automatically estimates the project schedule and costs. 

If you want to access a Gantt Chart online software that drives effective communication and enables you to keep your projects on track, GamePlan is a great tool to get started.

To wrap up, here are its 360-degree benefits:

• Makes visual planning easy and eliminates mistakes
• The automatic project scheduling feature allows teams to understand when deliverables will be achieved realistically
• Project costing shows the true cost of the project minus any gaps or inaccuracies
• An end-to-end visual communication plan ensures everyone understands the plan and is on the same page at all times
• Provides clear directions, keeping varying projects on time
• Helps track projects and keeps the schedule up to date
• The automatic scheduling and project costing features are a boon for project managers. It reduces their workload while allowing them to use the ‘saved’ time for more complex tasks requiring creative problem-solving, strategic thinking, and a ‘human touch.’