As a LiquidPlanner sales development representative, I speak to a lot of IT Directors who are at their wits end with how their teams manage projects. Schedules are never up to date. It’s time consuming to make changes. Nobody really knows how their work connects to a bigger picture, deadlines are missed—the list goes on. Many have tried traditional tools, spreadsheets, or built their own software—but still no change. This is exactly why LiquidPlanner got into the project management software game in the first place: to offer a realistic and reliable solution to the challenges and demands of managing projects in the real world.

With this in mind, I wanted to walk you through three ways LiquidPlanner has helped our customers build reliable project schedules that helps drive business forward.

1. Accurate resource management
As an IT Director, you’re asked to take on new projects every day. You’re also asked for status and reports on the progress of those projects. If you’re using a project management tool (or a spreadsheet) that requires manual updating, it’s pretty impossible to give accurate reports or predictions on the progress of your team and what they’re working on.

LiquidPlanner is one of the only resource-driven project management tools on the market. This means you get accurate data and insight into how your budget and team members are allocated.

This information also tells you if you can take on more projects. It takes away the fear of blindly working on more projects than your team can handle. Before using LiquidPlanner, customer Cristina Griggs, CFO of inbound marketing agency Inflow, was constantly in the dark about her team’s progress, how resources were allocated and if the company was capable of taking on a new project. LiquidPlanner gave her insight into how her team and her budget were allocated across projects—and in real time. As a result, she no longer struggles with accessing updated resource reports. These days, she knows at a moment’s notice where the company stands on resources, capacity planning and the progress of current projects. (You can read the case study here.)

2. Realistic schedule predictions
Trying to give a guesstimation on the progress of all projects and when they’ll be completed is impossible using a spreadsheet or a deterministic project management solution. LiquidPlanner’s predictive scheduling engine lets you make ranged estimates based on best case/worst case estimates. This takes the guessing out of project timelines, and gives you reliable plans for the company.

LiquidPlanner customer and Director of IS, Jim Burger at Taghleef Industries was sick of Microsoft Project. Making schedule changes was difficult and the schedules were never realistic. Even worse, every little change or problem that popped up threw the entire project off—and it would need to be rebuilt from scratch.

Since using LiquidPlanner’s reality-based approach of scheduling, Burger’s team can now set priorities and see an accurate picture of progress that is always current and realistic. The use of ranged estimates take the stress out of estimating because the best and worst case scenario is taken into account, giving customers and teams accurate predictions of project completion. (Read more information on why Jim made the move to LiquidPlanner here.)

3. Manage growth
When a company experiences rapid growth, it’s exciting and overwhelming. You need to hire more people, make schedule changes and balance an influx of concurrent projects. Methods that worked in the past—white boards, email chains and spreadsheets—don’t keep anything organized. LiquidPlanner’s priority-based scheduling guarantees that projects are being worked on in the correct order and gives managers insight into all the changes that have been made on tasks and projects.

David Cantu, COO and Co-Founder of Redapt started his company with only 500 dollars and an idea. The last thing on his mind was scheduling multiple projects and people. In a short period of time his company took off and in order to stay on top of all the work they had, he began the search for a project management solution.

LiquidPlanner immediately stood out to David because he saw it as the next generation project management solution that would allow the company to make the necessary changes to keep up with growth. Redapt program manager, Zach Milne was thrilled with the implementation, especially since it brought structure and order to flying in the dark. Since implementing LiquidPlanner, Zach is confident that when he assigns a task or project to a team member it will get done. Projects and progress are no longer lost in email but contained in one central, accessible location that keeps the company on track and moving forward.

These are just a few examples of how LiquidPlanner has helped some of our customers organize their projects and get more done. Learn more about what makes us different by checking out our key features or by starting a trial.