Can lack of integration disrupt Microsoft Project?

A new report by ProjectManager.com Research, which polled over 300,000 project management (PM) pros on LinkedIn, has uncovered interesting results about integration practices with leading PM tools. A majority of project management professionals cite a lack of integration as a leading source of frustration with their current project management software, leading to growing dissatisfaction primarily with Microsoft Project.

The 2016 PM Community Linkedin Survey: Project Management Tools in Practice report revealed large dissatisfaction with the dominant project management software players, Microsoft Project and Excel, citing "lack of integration with other tools" as a leading factor with nearly 48 percent of all respondents. Overall dissatisfaction with Microsoft tools as a whole (nearly 75 percent use Excel in addition to other tools and 40-60 percent use either MS Project or MS Project Server), is marked, with 44 percent unhappy with their current tool. Significantly, a whopping 95 percent of the participants use more than one tool to manage their projects, so integration can be seen to be a clear need.

Other notable tools in the sector, outside of Microsoft tools, are Trello (7 percent), ProjectManager.com (6.5 percent) and Basecamp (5.5 percent). The dominance of IT professionals (nearly 44 percent of respondents) is notable in terms of overall project tool use of MS Project, but further emphasizes increasing frustration of PMs with their tools' inability to integrate with other apps and platforms, given that IT pros have capabilities that could support integrations if those were readily available.

Other data in the report reveals increasing practice of hybrid methodologies in project management, with Agile and Waterfall in the clear lead. The changing nature of project methods in practice are also likely contributing to frustration, with the need to integrate to more agile tools a possible factor.

Notably, the report also revealed a lack of use of collaboration featured within the tools with only 25 percent using collaboration features in the tool and 84 percent reporting that they don’t use their tool’s mobile app. During the past decade, major project management software platforms sought to implement collaboration tools such as chat, mobile, and document sharing. The lack of adoption of collaboration tools within the PM space is surprising, especially given the dominance of mobile in recent years. Yet seen in concert with frustration around integration capabilities, we can draw conclusions that tool use in the industry is changing overall in surprising ways.

Further research needs to be conducted, but changing use of PM tools is indisputable as is an increasing demand for project tools to support integration with a variety of other tools.

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Stephanie Ray is the Content Director at ProjectManager.com and the author of the LinkedIn PM Community research report. She writes regularly on project management, product management and collaboration. In addition to her editorial background, she has deep experience in product management and the development of mobile collaboration platforms and tools.