There are four components to efficient task management: spending, schedule, time and producing a satisfactory result. Professional PMs also try to make the organization of work better. Most undertakings employ such elements as people, funds, and tools to produce something of value and hit selected targets. To work with projects effectively one have to work on quite a few factors. You can see a few of these factors in the list below:

- Goal setting and reviewing progress.

- Managing uncertainty. The majority of projects have a certain level of risk.

- Assigning and managing resources.

- Defining the outcomes of the project.

- Overseeing the project in terms of who is performing what and at what time.

- Assuaring adequate quality.

- Managing changes. Circumstances change. When you start out on the project, you have to anticipate in what way it will develop with time.

- Exchanging information with project stakeholders.

To deal with these issues you can employ pencil and paper or perhaps a spreadsheet program. But you get some interesting pluses if you choose to employ project tracking software:

- It makes scheduling easy. The length of work can be adjusted automatically depending on the workload data. It is possible to set work time-tables for different resources. Managing work-in-progress also becomes less of a problem.

- Working with several projects and handling a set of requirements. Productivity tracking software allows project managers to seea larger picture and aggregate data on a number of projects.

- It assists you in finding the critical path. The critical path of a project consists of tasks that directly influence the real duration of the project. If a task on the critical path lasts longer than the manager planned, dates of work on other tasks will be changed. At the same time other activities that are not on the critical path may last longer or shorter and not change the duration of other activities in this project.

- Distributing data to project participants. Big projects demand a lof of information exchanges. Productivity tracking software makes distribution of data easier than it has ever been before.

Is it always a must to employ task tracking software?

Like any instrument, project tracking software has its limitation. It delivers the greatest value when used for a number of big projects. It might be more appropriate to manage smaller projects manually, so that there is no need to deal with large overhead connected with operating complex programs.