3 Key Trends in Collaborative Work Management Tools for 2022

Amid the unprecedented events and impacts of the recent past, arguably the most successful organizations have been those that are highly flexible and adaptive to change. As a result, more and more enterprises are now looking to Collaborative Work Management (CWM) tools/solutions to help their organizations and people stay nimble and connected as more change comes. 

Two overarching factors are contributing to the increased need for CWM solutions that effectively function as a unified hub for project planning and execution and enable distributed project management. The first factor is that more people across more roles are making project-critical decisions, performing project-critical tasks and implementing strategy shifts. Secondly, more work is being conducted remotely via dispersed teams spanning multiple time zones, geographies and environments. So, in 2022 and in the years to come, as more and more organizations set out to select a Collaborative Work and Project Management solution that best fits their organization, what trends and future-focused features should they pay attention to? 

Trend 1: Order to Delivery Solutions

Many would-be CWM solutions focus primarily on project planning and management once an order is closed. The problem with this approach is that it ignores other key parts of a project’s lifecycle – parts that begin in sales and opportunity phases and extend through to delivery. When any element of the project occurs in a silo, risk is introduced, and communication is degraded.

In 2022 and moving forward, enterprises managing complex projects need end-to-end CWM solutions that enable and empower business users to advance objectives and drive big-picture decisions at every step to promote efficiency, reduce risk and increase profitability. Adopting an order to delivery work and project management solution not only helps automate large-scale projects to boost organization wide efficiencies, but also helps organizations…

  • Achieve complete 360-degree visibility across project lifecycles
  • Fully orchestrate complex projects and tasks at every stage
  • Ensure team, partner, customer, and data alignment across every project phase  

Want to learn more about order to delivery work and project management? Check out our mini-cast Managing Complex Projects from Opportunity To Delivery.

Trend 2: Composable Solutions

Composable solutions, those solutions built with an adaptable framework, enable an organization to respond to change and improve functionality faster and with fewer resources. Because every organization is different, composable solutions rise above the rest, as they can be easily customized or configured to meet the evolving needs of internal or external business users without the need for custom development that typically involves high costs and resource drains. Solutions with composable components not only provide organizations with advances business agility, improved scalability and enhanced functionality, they also enable improved communications and collaboration, increased efficiencies and faster project delivery.

For example, because Leankor’s CWM solution is 100% native to the Salesforce platform, its composable architecture lets organizations customize it with ease while also extending the value of Salesforce’s wide ecosystem, even if the organization is not a Salesforce subscriber. This means, organizations can develop an even broader solution that extends outside of Leankor, including custom user interfaces to easily share project updates, summaries and dashboards to external users and stakeholders, or anyone who does not need access to the full project details. Leankor also enables easy integration with other powerful Salesforce applications like Tableau, Einstein, Vlocity and more.

Ultimately, composable CWM solutions provide next-level flexibility that drives efficiencies and accelerates project delivery. The best part is that as circumstances changes, strategies shift and processes evolve, a composable CWM solution can easily adjust to meet new needs. 

Explore how enterprise organizations can gain a highly scalable, extremely composable work management solution that improves performance, productivity, security and stability. Download the eBook.

Trend 3: Next-Gen Collaboration Solutions

As noted earlier, the rise of dispersed work teams and distributed project management is making it more challenging than ever for projects to be delivered on time, on budget and on spec in every instance. To contend with this challenge, enterprises need CWM solutions that remove communication barriers and foster tight collaboration, ensuring crystal clear project tracking and providing complete visibility over all information shared.

Understandably, work styles as well as communication norms and tools are different from organization to organization and even across departments. Solutions need to be able to support those unique characteristics, not work against them. That means CWM solutions need to be flexible in how they support collaboration – interconnecting siloed systems and processes to streamline communication and accelerate work, even outside of the core solution. Distributed teams use different methodologies and without implementing a solution that adapts to and connects each of these work styles, true collaboration will not be possible. Truly future-focused solutions should accommodate different methodologies, enabling hybrid approaches across projects, teams and departments. Next-gen solutions should also enable teams to communicate where and how they communicate best. This often means across platforms, including leading chatbots like Slack. 

With Leankor’s work and project management solution, users and teams can share individualized updates, summaries, and dashboards and collaborate in real-time without requiring expertise or access to the solution itself. Hybrid workstyles are supported and teams are encouraged to work the way they work most effectively. Seamless integration with Salesforce’s Slack further extends this enhanced collaboration with users and teams that rely on the application’s powerful capabilities. With built-in project queries and commands that can be initiated within Slack channels, where teams are actively communicating, and all conversations/activities are directly tied to Leankor project boards in real-time.  

Let Leankor Support Your Success

Change isn’t going anywhere. The organizations that will distinguish themselves from their competition and earn relationships with more customers in the years ahead will be those that manage people, projects and resources most effectively amid ongoing shifts. 

Collaborative Work Management solutions like Leankor are setting trends and helping enterprises to adopt and exemplify a future-forward approach that moves beyond basic project management to orchestrate large-scale projects and drive complex business strategies across the full project lifecycle. Leankor’s unique SaaS solution seamlessly integrates with upstream ordering systems and downstream field management platforms to ensure teams, partners, customers and data are aligned across all phases. It’s a true collaboration solution that unites people, processes and technology to drive efficiency and improve project profitability.