The Need For An Issue Tracker Tool And Why You Need It
See, there are going to be difficulties with your idea. This isn't a column for New Age advice, but the problems are true. So you need a way to monitor these problems and prioritise them, so you can handle them constructively.
The problems are red flags that have potential problems for them. They are different from the risk that you prepared for the best you could while you were preparing the project. Threat is potential. This could happen, and now you're checking for it. A problem, however, is looming or happening right now. You have to deal instantly, not abstract concepts, with it.
How're you doing that? You should have a problem tracker, either a spreadsheet or a PM software, to catch it until an issue happens in your project. A question is like a pest that threatens the crop of a farmer. It must first be identified by the farmer, then tracked and finally disposed of. You can do the same, which is why when handling a project, a problem monitoring tool is important.
What other kind of issue tracker are you looking for?
A basic problem log can be used by anybody to chart the problems, such as the free Excel problem logging template that we have mentioned above. It functions as a quick list where you can add challenges as they occur and note modified priorities and owners and dates as well. But in time to retain it in an updated state, it will take more time on your part than you would like to do with all the data entry. And then there's the issue that you're writing on a static paper in isolation.
Then there are software monitoring systems that allow problem tracking a more interactive task, one that can have broader scope and function more efficiently on solving the project's problems.
Any of the things that apps can do that are not feasible with an Excel spreadsheet involve:
Assign squad problems
Monitoring the work to fix the problem
Managing the problem resolution workflow
Work collaboratively on documentation and intervention issues
During the entire process, automate and inform
Collect debates around the subject
What would you need in the Issue Tracking Software?
When you handle your project challenges, you constantly track their success. But it's important that you have both consistency and versatility to remain on top of all the challenges when you choose problem management apps. It should have at least) these 3 functions, whichever problem tracking tool you settle on.
Advanced Project Management Attributes
Preferably, your problem monitoring can be built into your programme for project management. Inside a PM instrument, certain individuals actually log their concerns as activities. Other tools provide dedicated monitoring capabilities for issues.
Your problem tracker should get all the functionality that you need in your project and should be able to be completely compliant with other common applications such as Microsoft Office or Google Apps, even though it does. Data doesn't get dead-ended in that sense, but runs through all the systems.
When you're using a spreadsheet or even more than one tool, for instance, either you like to have a programme that can quickly upload your problems, or you're going to spend most of your day switching from one app to another.
Integration helps with efficiency by putting all the knowledge under one roof, so you and your colleagues can quickly access it. Calendars, records, all in one place are updated when you and your staff can access and edit everything without overwriting or lost details.
Prioritizing
All challenges are not generated fairly. If you start applying attention to any challenge that occurs, it is possible that you will focus hard on a problem that will not actually effect your project in any significant way, while those that might lead projects to fail are overlooked. That's why setting the focus for each of the problems listed is important.
Therefore once you realise that the project has a challenge, you would like it to be prioritised as high, medium or low. Making these decisions based on the effect on the overall project that the concern could have.
High would suggest that there is no solution or quick remedy, stopping the project from continuing to advance and thereby achieving its completion. Medium is still a problem that can not be avoided, but only a non-central aspect of the project will be impacted. A low priority may have a workaround or may only be a superficial or insignificant problem that can be dealt with later.
Coordination
You must focus on addressing these challenges so that you have software that will put all the different data tools you need to one place and you have taken that knowledge and prioritised it. To encourage the teamwork required to get all the tools together and solve those problems faster, you want your problem tracker.
It is important to provide problem monitoring tools online to build the groundwork for a coordinated solution to any problem. Teams now have a shared ground in discussion on concepts, exchanging files and archiving their information in one place, rather than in the cramped folder of their email inbox, or in the same physical room or dispersed globally across the globe.
Conclusion
Issues will arise, and you have to have the right technology i.e. an issue tracking tool to ensure that they don't get lost, that you wouldn't waste precious time trying to find out what's going on and designate the appropriate member of the team to lead the work to solve the problem.
