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Hey everyone,

Quick question that’s been on my mind—how are you all handling project collaboration between your IT teams and non-IT departments (like marketing, HR, etc.)?

I work with a few small teams, and I’ve noticed that:

IT folks want structured, technical task management (dependencies, Gantt charts, SLAs, etc.)
Other teams prefer simple checklists or spreadsheets
Nobody agrees on one tool or process

We’ve tried a few different approaches—shared docs, kanban boards, even homegrown trackers—but things either get too complex or fall apart due to lack of adoption.

I’m looking for ideas or examples:

How do you track cross-functional work without chaos?
Are you using any platforms that bridge technical and non-technical users well?
Or is this just one of those “pick your poison” situations?

Just trying to streamline things and avoid tool overload. Curious what’s actually working out there in real IT environments.

Thanks in advance!

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First, welcome to the community!

Next, you’re going to have to choose the project tracker/manager that hits the best of all requests and enforce use. Yes, no matter what you choose, you’re going to hurt feelings, step on toes, ruffle feathers, whatever…just pick something and make it happen. Granting choices will always have someone on the outside. Picking something yourself and making everyone standardize off it will cause people to think you’re heavy-handed (and in this case, you are) but it also eliminates the fight from the get-go, and you have a platform to do all your projects in (and if done correctly, a change-management tracker!!)

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Thanks so much for the welcome—and yeah, you’re totally right.

Trying to please everyone just ends up creating more chaos. I’ve seen teams default back to spreadsheets, email threads, or “just ping me on WhatsApp” because they didn’t like the chosen tool. It becomes a mess real fast.

I’ll admit, I’ve been a bit hesitant to play the “enforcer” role —but I’m starting to realize that unless someone just draws the line and says “this is what we’re using”, it’ll never stick.

Curious—when you rolled out your tool, did you run into resistance? And how did you deal with folks who were… let’s say, less than enthusiastic? Did training help? Or just setting the expectation and holding the line?

Also, did you find something that actually works for both technical (IT-style planning) and non-technical folks? That’s been my biggest challenge—balancing what works for both sides without overwhelming one or the other.

Appreciate your insights—this is exactly the kind of conversation I was hoping for when I started this thread.

–Trent Tie

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I run a small team and there was already a tool in place so it didn’t take any effort to get teams to adhere to the solution. However, in a previous role at a multi-national $Billion-Dollar corporation, IT was distributed to all the Business Units but belonged to corporate so we didn’t take orders from local VP/GM’s. That made it much easier to enforce “corporate standards” as we could step around local leadership and push from above their levels. If you’re beholden to the leadership of one facility, they will not comply to anything corporate pushes…

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When you consider manufacturing environments, the integration of IT and things like Engineering, Ops, Facilities is possibly even closer. In my experience those groups generally do not prioritize communication outside their group. To their credit, they tend to put their nose down and GO! But they often overlook IT requirements for their initiatives which end up being a (often very expensive) afterthought. The same goes for Facilities, utility requirements, etc.

The only solution I can think of to this problem, and I’ve seen varying levels of success, is an Executive Management mandate that any new major project include IT at the beginning, and that needs to include all aspects of IT from ERP to IT Security to storage, etc. The problem with this approach is defining what a “new major project” is. Only then can you worry about your GANTT and PERT charts a PM software…those don’t do any good if there’s no project in the system to track :slight_smile:

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That’s a great point! Having the execs force all projects to include IT from the outset saves a lot of time and often costs! Especially when those same execs come back from some vendor-hosted conference and want everything they’re selling!

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That makes a lot of sense—having corporate backing definitely makes adoption easier. I’m in a more decentralized setup, so getting everyone on the same page is a bit trickier.

Curious though, once the tool was rolled out, how did you handle different teams’ comfort levels with it? Especially the non-IT folks?

Appreciate you sharing—super helpful perspective!

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Totally agree—manufacturing and engineering teams are some of the most heads-down, get-it-done groups I’ve worked with. It’s impressive, but like you said, IT often gets looped in too late, and then it becomes a scramble to backfill things like network capacity, compliance, or integrations with existing systems.

That executive-level mandate idea really resonates. I’ve seen similar attempts too—sometimes they work, sometimes they’re ignored depending on how “major” the project feels to whoever is starting it :sweat_smile:

Do you think there’s a way to better surface those early-stage projects so IT (and others) can at least have visibility before it’s go-time? Maybe some kind of lightweight intake process that doesn’t feel like red tape but flags projects with downstream impact?

It’s a tough one for sure, but I love hearing how others are tackling it.

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By the time the tool was implemented in the first facility, two other facilities had already tried running their own non-corporate approved version (they were forced to pay for that solution, rip it out, put in the corporate-approved version and pay for that, too). So, to say it was a case of getting everyone on the same page is a bit…soft. It was a heavy-handed enforcement effort from the very top.

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I think this is a challenge for all organizations, and only gets harder the larger they are. It’s really a Business Governance (aka, Executive Management) problem and relies on leaders having visibility on all aspects of the business and effectively communicating. This is where tools like ERP can be useful, but there’s often no single source-of-truth. I wonder if AI may be useful for this sort of problem in the not so distant future. It is increasingly good at analyzing disparate data sources and aggregating them in to general models for prediction. That said, I don’t know that I’ve heard of a product aimed at that yet, so who knows…

In the shorter term, the only solution I really see solving this problem would be for IT to be implemented as an Internal Vendor. In many business, IT is currently a “G&A” (General Expense & Accounting) shared service between the other parts of the organization. That means that non-IT department heads may not even see the true costs of supporting their own efforts. If it were instead an Internal Vendor, where every expense, piece of hardware, IT technician time, etc., were billed to the other business units, they would think twice before committing to a project without considering the IT costs. Of course, this model would have its own social, accounting and governance problems. :slight_smile:

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The best method for this would be to make sure people who seem to be in every meeting or project are your close friend…they’ll tell you everything about every project as it’s being proposed. Then, magically, IT knows what leadership is thinking ahead of time!

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this might be bad but i just let each project team track the projects however they want to. in my case IT is just there as a support and to answer any technical questions so it doesn’t really matter to me how things are tracked as they will be doing the bulk of the work

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Yeah, but how big is the company and how often have you gotten stuck supporting something last-second with absolutely no heads-up or involvement?

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Totally agree—getting IT involved early saves a ton of time (and headaches) later. We had the same struggle between complex vs. simple tools, but found that using a platform with both Gantt charts and easy views for non-tech teams really helped.

Curious—has anyone else found a tool that both sides actually stick with?

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That’s a really thoughtful take—completely agree that this challenge often stems from a governance gap. Without leadership having a unified view and clear communication across departments, cross-functional work can feel scattered or reactive.

The lack of a single source-of-truth has been one of our biggest hurdles too. Marketing, HR, and Finance all have their own tools and processes, and IT ends up being the glue—but without visibility, things slip. We’ve started leaning on more integrated project management tools that help us centralize task tracking, timelines, and even budget views. It’s not perfect, but having everything in one place (with different views for different users) has improved collaboration and accountability.

I love your point about IT functioning more like an internal vendor. That shift in mindset—where each request is scoped, resourced, and valued—can make a huge difference. We’ve seen that when non-IT teams are made more aware of dependencies and timelines (through tools or reports), they plan more realistically.

AI will definitely be a game-changer here. If we can use it to synthesize project health, resource forecasts, or even identify bottlenecks across departments—that’s the kind of insight leadership needs to break silos. It’s still early, but I think we’re getting closer.

Curious if anyone here has tried platforms that integrate both task management and executive-level reporting?

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Haha, that’s definitely one way to stay in the loop! :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

Jokes aside, you’re right—those informal networks often give you better insight than official channels. We’ve found that building strong relationships across teams and having shared project dashboards really helps too. When everyone (including leadership) can see what’s in the pipeline and how it affects IT, it’s easier to plan resources and avoid last-minute chaos.

Still feels like a mix of strategy, tooling, and knowing the right people, though!

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That makes sense—if IT’s more in a support role, letting each team choose their method probably keeps things lightweight. But yeah, the trade-off we’ve seen is that without some kind of shared structure, it’s hard to get a big-picture view of timelines, priorities, or resource needs across teams.

We tried that “let everyone use what they want” approach for a while too, but once projects started overlapping or needing deeper coordination, we ran into silos and duplicated efforts. Having at least one central place for tracking—even if it just pulls in updates from other tools—made a big difference for us.

Curious if others here have a middle-ground approach that doesn’t feel too rigid?

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This is a common challenge — especially when you’re juggling multiple work styles under one roof.

At Eminence Technology, we’ve had similar friction points: engineering prefers structured systems with issue tracking, SLAs, and dependencies, while non-technical teams (like content, HR, and design) lean toward simpler tools and more fluid workflows.

What helped us wasn’t forcing everyone into one tool, but mapping out shared workflows — figuring out what information needs to flow between teams, and then keeping just that layer aligned. For example:

  • Devs manage their work in tools like Jira or GitHub.
  • Non-tech teams use lighter tools (Notion, Trello, etc.).
  • We maintain a shared “project overview” board that surfaces blockers, timelines, and dependencies — not the full task list, just what’s relevant cross-functionally.

We also learned that tooling isn’t the entire problem — clarity of ownership and communication rhythms (like short cross-team standups or async updates) make a bigger difference.

No one-size-fits-all, but combining purpose-built tools with a lean shared layer has kept things workable without overwhelming everyone.

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How does your shared layer work? Is it one of those lighter tools? A spreadsheet? Is it manually curated? I like this idea, just curious about specifics.

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