Difficulty in handling Project Management Software? Here’s Cloud to the rescue!

November 30, 2017 Off By David
The latest known introduction of Cloud Computing that the millennials are aware of is from 2006 when Amazon introduces its Elastic Compute Cloud. Cloud computing today has changed the entire process of hosting and accessing applications in the businesses worldwide.

The introduction of cloud computing played a gigantic role in changing the business computing landscape. Being a Project Manager, one should be well aware of this evolution and be capable of recognizing the scope of Cloud Computing in the near future.

What does a Project Management Software do?

A Project management software is basically a software used by Managers in general for planning and scheduling of the Project and also for resource allocation. One additional feature which the software give is change management.

It allows the Project Managers and sometimes the stakeholders to have a control over the costs and manage the budget accordingly. It also helps with quality of the project and documentation of the features and process. As an addition it can also be used as an Administrative System.

This software can be termed as the main mode of communication between the Project Manager and the Stakeholder. 

Also, any Project Management software must automate majority of the tedious and monotonous functions of a Project. Such a Software workings mainly on the Scheduling Domain using graphs, statistics, Gantt charts, time based excel sheets etc. 

So, how do we introduce Cloud Computing here? 

Let’s go with the understand how things work on Cloud first and it’s benefits and risks. 

Cloud Computing is basically providing the services such as servers, Softwares, databases, storage etc on demand over the internet.

There are various benefits that we list down of doing so-

  • Cloud services are flexible. When I say so, I mean anyone can demand services from Cloud, may it be for personal use or for business. One can scale down the services to their personal use. The agility Cloud Computing brings can be nearly heavenly for Business.
  • Clouds have a good Disaster recovery system. Since every information is stored over the internet, the chances of data loss at any point of time is very slim.
  • Clouds ensure good collaboration of a team working over a certain Project. Good data sharing and liberty for anyone to work from any geographical location.
  • The best part is automatic software updates. Since every service in Cloud is handled by the service provider, every time you can demand for the latest software or operating system or server and many more. It reduces the overheads of upgrading the services every time there’s a new version launched.

These are a few advantages we can say Cloud Computing has brought to us. But how can these things hold good for Project Managers? 

To start with, introducing Cloud Computing in Project Management Softwares modernized the data storage. Data storage has become more efficient and the risks related to it have reduced to being almost obsolete.

Project Management softwares on Cloud can cut down the Heavy Expenditure on the Hardware. All that is required is a subscription to the Service provider to access anything on the Cloud.

The data and services are available to the user irrespective of their geographical locations. The Project team members can work from anywhere, anytime. 

A high-end Project Manager must be well versed with the Top and best companies providing Cloud Computing Services such as- 

  • VMware
  • Amazon Web Services
  • IBM Cloud
  • Google Cloud Platform
  • Microsoft Azure
  • Adobe

These are a few Services that I’ve listed down, there are many more available online.

Clouds are flexible in terms of size. Once an organization gets a cloud it can can always downsize it depending on their support teams.

Apart from this, the organization will require a good number of business analysts and technical architects to maintain and manage the cloud as an when required. They should be capable of negotiating and communicating with the merchant in compliance with the company’s progress.

Are there any risks in this?

We’ve seen all good about Cloud Computing in Project Management Softwares. It’s time to check out the risks related to it. Saying this we hit the major concern in Cloud Computing,"How secure is the Cloud?"

Security in Cloud computing has been a concern since its introduction. The major risks relative to this can be Loss of Intellectual Property of the user or the organization, Chances of getting infected with Viruses or Worms are more, Attacks like Denial of Service can escalate to a very high scale in a Cloud.

The data in the Cloud is exposed to the Service Provider. Thus, the risk of Data Breaches can be considered really high.

Apart from this, the other problems a Cloud buyer may face are –

  • Any problem or delay from the Cloud provider will stay unsolved until he rectifies it.
  • The backup of all data is recommended to be done in house.
  • Working over the internet with heavy data may cause the internet to get slower. The Project Manager has to maintain a high speed internet all the time.

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About the Author 

Maria Thomas, Content Marketing Manager and Product Specialist at GreyCampus, has eight years rich experience on professional certification courses like PMI- Project Management Professional, PMI-ACP, Prince2, ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library), Big Data, Cloud, Digital Marketing and Six Sigma.