The Importance of Project Management in the Banking Industry
Nowadays project management is widely used in many spheres and industries from construction and healthcare to innovative IT software companies. How to streamline PM in the banking industry? We’ve found the article that describes the experience of Exchange Bank that successfully streamlined its project management. Here’re the most interesting points from the article:
The Exchange Bank in Santa Rose, California, like many small banks, found itself managing projects without an official project manager. The bank was also drowning in emails, meetings, and spreadsheets. The employees were slowed by long email chains, drawn-out meeting, and inconsistent practices.
One day, bank executives decided to invest in project management and collaboration technology that, they say, has enabled workers to operate much more efficiently. The issues Exchange faced are common, especially among community banks that lack dedicated project management staff or mature project management processes.
The reforms took time. The bank decided to try the collaborative work platform Projectplace. The bank initially implemented the software as a pilot in October 2015 with 20 users, mostly IT personnel.
The software’s simplicity was important because some were information-technology power users familiar with project management software, and others had kept track of things on a notepad and paper.
The number of participants has expanded to 110, more than a quarter of the bank’s employees. The results have been good so far. Exchange has identified aspects of about half of its projects that can be streamlined.
Small banks need these kinds of tools not just from a productivity perspective but a regulatory and compliance perspective as well.
Most employees have embraced the new system, though some did so quicker than others. But even the “pen and paper” crowd has started to come around.
Ultimately, the bank’s management hopes everyone gets comfortable using the software because “it’s much easier with everyone in the same tool, and there’s one pathway we can all agree on.”