So you on the search for a new tool and you might find yourself asking What is Best Tool for Project Management?
Project management tools remain crucial in 2024 for steering projects toward success.
Whether it's complex ventures requiring extensive planning, task assignment, deadline establishment, adherence, and time monitoring, or simpler tasks demanding only a checklist, the right tool can make a significant difference.
Superior tools are vital for accurate measurement, categorization, assignment, and management of tasks.
With numerous options available, identifying what is best tool for project management can be challenging, especially for newcomers.
Therefore, we have meticulously selected the best project management tools for managers, ensuring a well-informed choice.
What are project management tools?
Project management tools are specifically crafted to aid individuals or teams in effectively overseeing their projects and tasks, look at project management apps like Remote Collaboration Tools that allow members to come together to complete projects.
The term "PM tools" typically encompasses project management software, which can be either purchased or utilized online for free.
In the contemporary, high-speed business landscape, project management plays a pivotal role in ensuring organizational success.
Successful project management entails the meticulous planning, organization, and resource management required to accomplish specific objectives within a defined timeframe. Nevertheless, manual project management can prove challenging, time-intensive, and prone to errors.
To address these challenges, project management software has emerged as a viable solution, offering a diverse array of features and functionalities.
This article delves into the realm of project management tools, examining their nature, the various types available, and the advantages they bring. Furthermore, we will provide insights into selecting the most suitable tool for your business and offer tips on optimizing your project management endeavors.
What makes a good Project Management Software?
From overseeing deliverables to resource management, budget tracking to team collaboration, the considerations in running and managing projects are numerous.
This is equally true when selecting the appropriate project management software tool.
Here's a breakdown of the top five crucial functional aspects to guide your decision-making process:
- Task Lists: The ability to assign and update task statuses ensures that everyone on your team is aligned and informed.
- Schedules: Many tools provide calendars, Gantt charts, or milestone features to help you comprehend a task's place in the overall project and the time available for its completion.
- File Sharing: The capability to share and organize crucial project documents eliminates the time wasted searching for files.
- Communication: Smooth communication is pivotal in project management, facilitating quick and easy problem-solving.
- Reporting: Essential for all team members to stay updated on the project as a whole, reporting is also a significant asset for project managers ensuring timely progress and task completion.
With these aspects in mind, let's explore the top 15 best project management software options.
Benefits of using project management tools
Determine the Right Timing Among various project management tools, Gantt chart software proves most effective in accommodating delays. Zoho Projects' Gantt chart software allows for capturing and managing task dependencies and their impact on task completion time.
Avoid Ambiguous Scopes Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) serves as a vital project planning tool, aiding in ideation and playing a crucial role in the planning phase. It offers an outline for establishing costs, schedules, and work hours, while also assisting in risk identification.
Constrain Your Costs The cost baseline involves comparing your initial estimate with the actual project spending. It closely aligns with schedule and scope baselines, recognizing their interconnected nature, thus preventing project costs from deviating from the planned budget.
Foster Collaboration to Unlock Opportunities Effective team communication is promoted by the best project management tools for teams. These tools encourage team members to ask questions, ensure balanced workloads, discuss potentially unsuccessful ideas, and ultimately achieve success in their work.
Bridge the Communication Gap Streamlining cross-functional communication through proper project planning tools ensures that all stakeholders are informed about accessing relevant information.
Project management tools play a crucial role in preventing delays in important decisions and ensuring the smooth progression of all project activities.
How to choose the best project management tool
Let's acknowledge the reality: the market is flooded with a diverse array of project management tools, each equipped with numerous features tailored to the specific needs of various businesses.
Navigating through this plethora of options to choose the right project management app can be nothing short of confusing. However, fear not, as we're here to guide you through the decision-making process. Here's a set of questions to ponder before you commit to the significant choice:
Let's acknowledge the reality: the market is flooded with a diverse array of project management tools, each equipped with numerous features tailored to the specific needs of various businesses.
Navigating through this plethora of options to choose the right project management app can be nothing short of confusing. However, fear not, as we're here to guide you through the decision-making process.
Here's a set of questions to ponder before you commit to the significant choice:
What are Your Needs? Every business grapples with its own set of challenges, and yours is undoubtedly no exception. Take a moment to compile a list of these pain points, which may include issues such as:
- Overwhelming email volume with low open rates
- Frequent missed deadlines
- Inconsistent and unproductive meetings
- Uneven distribution of workloads
- Time wasted on non-essential tasks
- Existence of silos within teams
Essential Features in Online Project Management Tools
Discover the top six indispensable features in project management tools that are vital for leading and executing successful projects.
- Task Management: Projects comprise numerous tasks, some sequential, others concurrent, all contributing to a singular goal. Assigning these tasks accurately within the project team is critical. Task management may seem mundane, but it's a core component of project management, necessitating tools that streamline and facilitate this process effectively.
- To-do Lists: A to-do list, while elementary, is an essential tool for project execution. Storing this list in a central, easily accessible location ensures that every team member stays informed about completed tasks and pending work. Effective project management tools should incorporate a to-do list feature, enabling team-wide visibility and coordination. Notion templates by Template Road offer customizable to-do lists that can be shared across teams, ensuring tasks are tracked in real time and everyone stays aligned on priorities. These templates streamline task management, making it easier to monitor progress and meet deadlines.
- Time Tracker: Time tracking is a complex yet essential aspect of project management. At a project's conclusion, understanding time allocation per task can be challenging without previous tracking. A robust time tracker aids in precise billing, insightful team management, and meticulous planning. It's especially useful in preparing for similar future projects by providing a reference for time allocation for various tasks and phases. Desktop time trackers, in particular, offer a seamless and integrated way to monitor and manage time directly from your workstation, ensuring accuracy and ease in capturing every detail of your work process.
- Collaboration: Collaboration is essential, whether your team consists of a few individuals or several hundred. A robust project management system must incorporate advanced collaboration features to facilitate seamless interaction and coordination among team members, regardless of their location. Essential collaboration tools include real-time updates, seamless communication, and automated notifications, ensuring efficient teamwork.
- Integration: Considering the complexity of projects, it's crucial to understand how changes in one aspect affect others. Effective project management tools should offer features that assist in analyzing these trade-offs and understanding how resource reallocation impacts the project timeline.
- Detailed Reporting: Strategic overviews of a project's status are best achieved through detailed reports. Project management tools should be capable of compiling comprehensive information on schedule, cost, team performance, and resource utilization. The ability to generate insightful project reports that highlight completion status, budget adherence, inefficiencies, and more is invaluable. Moreover, customization options for these reports can significantly enhance their utility.
What is Best Tool for Project Management? in 2024
Project management tools remain crucial in 2023 for steering projects toward success.
Whether it's complex ventures requiring extensive planning, task assignment, deadline establishment, adherence, and time monitoring, or simpler tasks demanding only a checklist, the right tool can make a significant difference.
Superior tools are vital for accurate measurement, categorization, assignment, and management of tasks.
With numerous options available, identifying what is best tool for project management can be challenging, especially for newcomers.
Therefore, we have meticulously selected the best project management tools for managers, ensuring a well-informed choice.
Top 7 Free Project Management Tools to Explore
When scouting for a project management tool in 2023, consider this curated list of the best tools, featuring both complimentary and subscription-based options, each with its unique set of features.
Your might be aksing what is the best tool for project management free? Well here is the project management tools list, not all are free but check it out.
1.AgilityPortal Projects
AgilityPortal stands out as a top-tier project management tool.
Perfect for both seasoned functional project managers and novices, it offers a comprehensive array of features, ensuring robust project management. Its intuitive and visually appealing interface makes it a universally suitable choice for diverse organizational needs.
AgilityPortal is particularly tailored for functional managers who take on project management roles informally rather than for certified project management professionals.
Key features of AgilityPortal project management
- Versatile project perspectives, encompassing Gantt, Kanban, calendar, table, and portfolio views.
- Capability to append comments, sub-actions, dependencies, and attachments to action cards.
- Time-tracking and timesheet features.
- Resource management functionalities.
- Integration with over 1,000 tools
- AgilityPortal Goals application for goal setting and tracking.
- Native chat and email integrations enhancing connectivity.
- Collaborative note-taking tool.
AgilityPortal Pricing Structure
AgilityPortal offers four pricing models:
- Small (P1): A fixed monthly or annual rate.
- Medium (P2): Begins at $3 per user/month, $30 total. Ideal for SMEs with remote teams needing quick access to key documents and tools.
- Large (P3): Starting from $5 per user/month, $50 total. Best for expanding businesses looking to revamp their intranet for enhanced communication and celebration.
- Enterprise (P4): From $10.00 per user/month, $100 total. Suited for large, complex organizations seeking an advanced intranet to connect and unify diverse departments.
Who It's For
- Project teams: AgilityPortal provides a centralized space for project teams to collaborate on tasks, track progress, and communicate with each other. It also offers Kanban boards, Gantt charts, and other project management tools.
- Sales teams: AgilityPortal can be used to manage leads, track sales pipelines, and collaborate with colleagues on sales activities. It also offers features for generating proposals, contracts, and invoices.
- Marketing teams: AgilityPortal can be used to manage marketing campaigns, track marketing metrics, and share marketing content with team members. It also offers features for creating newsletters, social media posts, and landing pages.
- Customer service teams: AgilityPortal can be used to manage customer interactions, track customer satisfaction, and collaborate with colleagues on customer support issues. It also offers features for creating knowledge bases, FAQs, and support tickets.
- HR teams: AgilityPortal can be used to manage employee onboarding, track employee performance, and collaborate with colleagues on HR tasks. It also offers features for creating employee handbooks, training materials, and performance reviews.
2.Trello
Trello stands as a prominent web-based project management solution featuring collaborative tools essential for team projects.
It's known for its user-friendly interface, employing boards, lists, and cards for task organization and team coordination. Users can interact within these cards, exchanging files and comments for seamless collaboration.
However, Trello does lack in-depth reporting and project tracking capabilities compared to alternatives like AgilityPortal. It's best suited for individuals or smaller teams handling a limited number of projects concurrently.
Key features of Trello project management
- Trello utilizes boards, cards, and lists as integral components in project management.
- Checklists within a card facilitate the creation of subtasks.
- Allocation of tasks to multiple members ensures timely notifications of any card updates.
- Tasks can be assigned deadlines for effective time management.
- An activity log provides real-time updates to keep the team informed.
- The inclusion of attachments streamlines the efficient organization of resources.
- Trello's built-in automation tool, Butler, minimizes tedious tasks by leveraging the power of automation.
- Regular backups of Trello boards protect your data from accidental deletions or technical issues.
Trello pricing struture
Trello offers a complimentary basic plan. Its paid tiers include enhanced features like automation, integrations, and priority support.
Who It's For
Trello is commonly utilized by project teams, development teams, marketing teams, remote teams, and collaborative groups looking for an intuitive platform to manage tasks, projects, and workflows. Its adaptability and ease of use make it applicable to a wide range of professional settings.
3. Asana
Asana, a versatile SaaS platform for project management, emphasizes collaborative workflows.
It offers automated systems for routine tasks and features various task views, custom fields, and forms. Unlimited guest users can be invited, with the option to create custom rules and approval processes.
While Asana excels in productivity and collaboration, its core project management functions often rely on external integrations, which might not be preferable for every user. Suited for businesses of all sizes, it's less ideal for freelance professionals.
Despite some users finding its interface too simplistic and its framework somewhat inflexible, Asana shines in task management and team collaboration. For those aligning with Asana's project organization style, it proves to be a highly effective tool.
Key features of Asana project management
- Organize your work into projects: Asana allows you to create projects to manage specific initiatives, tasks, or campaigns. You can break down projects into smaller tasks, assign them to team members, and set deadlines.
- Visualize your work with Kanban boards: Asana offers Kanban boards, which are a visual way to manage tasks. You can drag and drop tasks between columns to represent their progress, such as "To Do," "In Progress," and "Done."
- Track progress with timelines: Asana's Timeline view allows you to see a timeline of your projects, with tasks connected by dependencies. This helps you identify potential roadblocks and plan your work accordingly.
- Communicate and collaborate with team members: Asana provides a central space for team members to collaborate on tasks, share files, and leave comments. You can also use @mentions to notify specific team members.
Asana pricing struture
- Asana's free plan accommodates up to 15 users, offering various task viewing options like lists, calendars, and Kanban boards.
- The Premium plan, at $10.99 per user/month, includes timelines, reporting, custom fields, and automation.
- The Business plan, at $24.99 per user/month when billed annually, adds advanced features like approvals, portfolios, rule builders, workload management, and sophisticated integrations.
Who It's For
- Project teams: Asana provides a centralized space for project teams to collaborate on tasks, track progress, and communicate with each other. It also offers Kanban boards, Gantt charts, and other project management tools.
- Sales teams: Asana can be used to manage leads, track sales pipelines, and collaborate with colleagues on sales activities. It also offers features for generating proposals, contracts, and invoices.
- Marketing teams: Asana can be used to manage marketing campaigns, track marketing metrics, and share marketing content with team members. It also offers features for creating newsletters, social media posts, and landing pages.
- Customer service teams: Asana can be used to manage customer interactions, track customer satisfaction, and collaborate with colleagues on customer support issues. It also offers features for creating knowledge bases, FAQs, and support tickets.
- HR teams: Asana can be used to manage employee onboarding, track employee performance, and collaborate with colleagues on HR tasks. It also offers features for creating employee handbooks, training materials, and performance reviews.
- Creative teams: Asana can be used to manage creative projects, share files, and collaborate on designs. It also offers features for creating mood boards, wireframes, and presentations.
- Technical teams: Asana can be used to manage software development projects, track bug reports, and collaborate on code reviews. It also offers features for creating kanban boards, Gantt charts,
4. Zoho Projects
Zoho Projects emerges as a robust solution from Zoho's suite, aimed at enhancing task tracking, collaboration, bug tracking, and generating insightful reports.
This online project management tool incorporates features such as Gantt charts and the capacity to track billable hours across various projects. It also includes an impressive array of communication tools, like real-time chat and forums.
Some users, however, find the Gantt charts challenging to navigate and report that the reporting feature may not meet the needs of larger teams. Document sharing within the tool is a notable feature.
Key features of Zoho project management
- Task management: Zoho Projects allows you to break down projects into smaller tasks, assign them to team members, and set deadlines. It also provides a variety of task views, including a Kanban board, a Gantt chart, and a list view.
- Issue tracking: Zoho Projects allows you to track and manage issues that arise during the project lifecycle. It provides a variety of issue views, including a priority view, a severity view, and a status view.
- Time tracking: Zoho Projects allows you to track the time you spend on tasks. This can help you identify areas where you can be more efficient and generate accurate timesheets.
- Reporting: Zoho Projects provides a variety of reports that you can use to track progress, identify trends, and measure the success of your projects.
- Communication: Zoho Projects provides a central space for team members to collaborate on tasks, share files, and leave comments.
- Integrations: Zoho Projects integrates with a variety of other tools, including popular productivity apps like Gmail, Slack, and Dropbox.
- Gantt charts: Zoho Projects provides a Gantt chart view that allows you to visualize the dependencies between tasks and track the progress
Asana pricing struture
Asana offers a variety of pricing plans to suit different team sizes and needs. Here is a breakdown of the plans and their pricing:
- Personal Plan (Free)
- Starter Plan ($10.99 per user per month)
- Premium Plan ($24.99 per user per month)
- Business Plan ($30.49 per user per month)
Who It's For
Product development teams: Zoho Projects can be used to manage the entire product development lifecycle, from planning and design to development and testing. It can help teams to track progress, identify and resolve issues, and ensure that projects are completed on time and within budget.
5. Wrike
Wrike, a cloud-based project management platform, streamlines project planning, deadline monitoring, and stakeholder collaboration. It boasts advanced features like task management, Gantt Charts, and a real-time newsfeed. Task prioritization and a variety of integration options enhance its functionality as a comprehensive project management suite.
Despite its array of features, new users may find Wrike's abundance of options overwhelming and its interface somewhat non-intuitive. It suits varied organizational teams such as marketing, software development, and professional services.
Key features of wrike project management
- Kanban Board Wrike's Kanban board allows you to visualize your work in progress and move tasks through the pipeline from left to right, as they are completed.
- Gantt Chart Wrike's Gantt chart allows you to see all of your tasks laid out on a timeline, so you can easily see how they relate to each other.
- Subtasks Wrike allows you to break down large tasks into smaller subtasks, so you can track your progress more easily.
- Custom fields Wrike allows you to add custom fields to your tasks, so you can track additional information that is important to your workflow.
- Templates Wrike offers a variety of pre-built templates that you can use to get started with your projects quickly and easily.
- Third-party integrations Wrike integrates with a variety of other tools, so you can connect it to the rest of your workflow.
- Mobile apps Wrike offers mobile apps for iOS and Android, so you can access your projects and tasks from anywhere.
- Real-time collaboration Wrike is designed for real-time collaboration, so you can work with your team members in real time.
- Reporting Wrike provides a variety of reports that you can use to track your progress and measure the success of your projects.
- Security Wrike is a secure platform that is HIPAA, SOC 2, and ISO 27001 compliant.
Wrike pricing struture
- Wrike offers a free version with basic capabilities for up to five users.
- The paid plans begin at $9.80 per user/month.
- The Business plan, at $24.80 per user/month, includes subtasks, Gantt charts, time-tracking, and workflow features.
Who It's For
- Small businesses
- Mid size businesses
- Large enterprises
6. Monday.com
Monday.com merges an aesthetically pleasing interface with effective project visualization tools, resulting in a straightforward project management application. Its flexibility and transparent organizational style make it a strong choice.
Users can start with project templates and customize their own boards, enjoying various display options like map and calendar views.
However, the absence of recurring tasks is a noted shortfall, and some find the mobile app cumbersome. Despite these drawbacks, Monday.com excels in security, robust functionalities, and customization options.
Key features of Monday.com project management
- Customizable Workflows: Monday.com allows users to create and customize workflows tailored to their specific project management needs.
- Visual Project Tracking: The platform provides a visual interface for tracking project progress, tasks, and timelines, enhancing clarity and collaboration.
- Task Management: Robust task management tools facilitate the organization, assignment, and tracking of tasks throughout the project lifecycle.
- Collaboration Tools: Monday.com fosters team collaboration through features such as real-time communication, file sharing, and collaborative decision-making.
- Automation: Automation features streamline repetitive tasks, reducing manual effort and improving overall workflow efficiency.
- Integrations: The platform offers integrations with a variety of third-party tools, allowing users to connect and sync data with other applications.
Monday pricing struture
- FREE: Wrike's
- Team: $9.80 per user/month
- Business: $24.80 per user/month billed annually
- Enterprise: To receive accurate pricing, contact Wrike directly.
- Pinnacle: To receive accurate pricing, contact Wrike directly
Who It's For
- Project Teams: Teams involved in project management, planning, and execution.
- Marketing Teams: Marketing departments utilize Monday.com for campaign planning, content creation, and task management.
- Sales Teams: Sales teams use the platform for lead tracking, sales pipeline management, and collaboration.
- Development and IT Teams: IT departments and development teams use Monday.com for project tracking, bug resolution, and development workflows.
- HR and Recruitment Teams: Human resources and recruitment teams manage hiring processes, employee onboarding, and HR workflows.
7.Artwork Flow
Artwork Flow is a project management software custom-built for marketing, design, new product development, and regulatory teams to streamline their artwork management workflows. With AI native features such as workflow automation, online proofing, and label compliance, this tool helps brands around the globe hit the shelves faster.
Key features of Artwork Flow
- Workflow automation: Build workflows at scale, tackle complex projects, and fast track approvals.
- Team collaboration: Bring your entire team to the same page with efficient collaboration features such as comments, annotations, markup, and more from a rich proofing toolkit.
- Label compliance: Take proofing to the next level by running automated compliance checks on packaging labels based on rules you customize.
- Integrations: Integrate with monday.com, Figma, Slack, Illustrator, and other tools in your existing tech stack to keep your workflows smooth.
Artwork Flow pricing structure
- Artwork Flow's Free plan accommodates up to 3 users and has limited collaboration features.
- The Professional plan is for creative agencies and growing brands, and is priced at $39 per user per month.
- The Enterprise plan has the most flexible and customizable project management features, and the pricing is shared by the Sales team after initial discovery.
Who is it for?
Artwork Flow is for different departments and team members. Here are some of the main beneficiaries of such a platform:
- Project managers: Managing packaging projects is complex and time-consuming. Artwork Flow's workflow automation feature eases this burden.
- New product development: NPD teams use Artwork Flow to help with packaging innovation and product development.
- Regulatory affairs: Artwork Flow's AI-led label compliance helps regulatory teams streamline compliance with regulatory bodies.
Creative teams: Marketing, copywriters, design teams, and anyone else who works on the more creative aspects of packaging and marketing collateral also benefit from a tool like Artwork Flow.