One of the greatest challenges for a project manager is to close the gap between what people are actually doing and the progress being reported.  In construction projects, this gap is generally small because the project manager can see what is happening.

However in most other projects, you cannot see what is happening.  Consequently you need to rely on a flow of information based on reporting progress against tasks and milestones. 

Unfortunately most people reporting to you do not have simple management methods that provide a similar discipline to that being employed by the project manager.  They use ad hoc methods that interface poorly with project tasks.  This leaves a gap and uncertainty between what is actually happening in project tasks and what is reported.

This gap causes information lags that make it difficult for project managers to be proactive.  Late information means the project manager’s picture of what is happening is historic, so real-time control and timely actions are not possible.

A matrix management method that provides a simple way for people contributing to one or many projects to proactively manage their work and to feed what is happening to project managers in real-time has been developed by TASKey.  The method provides project managers with the real-time information they need to feed project management methods and tools.

By linking the work people are doing to project management tools, even global projects can be easily managed 24x7.  Work can be distributed, so everyone does a little bit, instead of the project team wasting their time chasing critical information.