Buying Guide for the Best Project Management Tools

Picking the right project management tool can help you organize all your deadlines, messages, and to-do lists in a way that makes sense. The wrong tool, however, can completely disrupt your workflow.

Be it communicating with clients, overseeing a small team, managing a freelance project, or personally organizing your work, project management software will simplify the tedious tasks you have to do each day. But, deciding which software to use can be a daunting task when there are so many choices to make and many software programs that appear to have similar or overlapping features.

One software may excel at tracking tasks and be poor at communicating. Some software may have a lot of features that your team won’t actually use. Then, you have to consider the cost, ease of learning the software, and whether your team will actually use the software.

Because of this, a more useful strategy is to compare the best project management software and see how they stack up rather than searching for the most popular ones. The most important qualifier in this case is how well the software performs and how well it fits with your workflow. Before we analyze specific tools, let’s see what these tools are in general.

Understanding Project Management Tools

Project management tools are apps used to help manage the workflow of projects in a planned, organized, and systematic way. Instead of using multiple apps and platforms to manage the details of a project, you can use one project management tool to house all the details in one central place.

Think of it as a project co-living space. A small marketing team could be launching their new website then writing copy, designing graphics, testing forms, making social posts, waiting for client approval, the works. And sometimes, the team/collaborators are working so far apart that someone will completely forget a deadline or assume that someone else will take care of it for them.

Project management software can eliminate this team project confusion by allowing the team to create a task, “Finish the homepage copy” and assigning it to someone specific, creating a deadline, marking it, and so on. The team can easily communicate what the status is of a particular task.

Most of the tools can solve one or more of the following problems: task lists, calendars, file sharing, communication, time tracking, reporting, etc. For a beginner, the one thing that will matter the most is that more features doesn’t mean that the tool will be better. A freelancer is probably managing five projects, one client per project. A large company is probably using the coordination tool for the myriad contracts/projects that they manage. The best tool is the one that simplifies the work the most. Not the one that boasts the most features.

Why Project Management Tools Are Needed

More tasks

More tasks. A project can get complicated quickly if it involves tasks like content writing, page design, testing, and promotion. Trying to keep track of everything can frustrate. A project management tool divides all tasks and provides a statuses showing what tasks have been done, what is in progress, and what is still remaining.

Larger or distributed teams

Larger or distributed teams. Adding people to a project and getting them to work together gets even more difficult when people work remotely. A design team with five people, and each discussing a different part of a project, will easily leave out important messages, work independently to repeat the same piece of project work, or both. Shared conversations help each team member understand project needs and what they are responsible for.

Missed deadlines

Missed deadlines. Deadlines can be lost if they appear in different places. If a freelancer agrees to a deadline, but a project hasn’t even been approved yet, that deadline can be easily missed. Clear task deadlines and ownership help to minimize lost deadlines.

Scattered information

Scattered information. Design files saved in the cloud, instructions in an email, and a deadline change in a chat message — information can become a challenge to find. A shared workspace reduces time spent searching for information.

Increasing complexity

Increasing complexity. As the project expands, the number of stages, the number of people, and the number of dependencies increase. If marketing needs to be finished to launch a campaign, then all the other stages can potentially be impacted by delays to this work. Project software illustrates this better.

Need for accountability

Need for accountability. Tasks can easily be left undone when clear ownership of a task isn’t established. People can discuss the task in a chat, and when the deadline passes, everyone assumes that the task was completed by someone else. This clearly defines the task and the accountability for it.

This describes the variety of reasons that project management software is popular with all sizes and kinds of organizations. But convenience of having the tool is insufficient reason to have it. The benefit is in the way the product is used.

Choosing and Using Project Management Tools

1. Consider your workflow

1. Consider your workflow. Before comparing tools, consider how your projects currently move from start to finish and document that. A freelance designer might break the process into four stages — new request, in progress, client review, and completed — whereas a software development team would have a process that looks completely different. Just because one company uses one tool doesn’t mean you should use that tool too. Their workflow could be completely different than yours.

2. Consider your features

2. Consider your features. Before looking into tools, document how you’d use the features you need. This might include creating tasks, deadlines, calendaring, sharing files, tracking time, and adding comments. A small company might need fewer features whereas a larger company would need the planning extensions and reporting that comes with the tool. A company might think a tool is insufficient if the companies needs a larger wish list.

3. Consider tool simplicity over features

3. Consider tool simplicity over features. A tool should simplify the work, not force the company to learn a new and complicated system just to create a task. A small team shouldn’t have the work simplified for them by a complicated system, like dozens of menus, that could just as easily been accomplished with a simple system that lets them create tasks and set deadlines.

4. Consider testing before committing

4. Consider testing before committing. A free trial is a great way to create a small project to test the system and see if the system would fit your needs in it’s most rudimentary form.

5. Keep the initial setup simple

5. Keep the initial setup simple. Don’t build a complex system right away. Start simple, with a list of stages like To Do, In Progress, Review, and Done. Don’t waste time building an elaborate workspace that people aren’t even using yet. Simply add structure and stages as people begin to use the system.

6. Give every task one clear owner

6. Give every task one clear owner. Instead of assigning the whole marketing team the task “Prepare website images,” assign it to the person who is expected to prepare the images. The person who the task is assigned to is the owner, and the others are considered contributors. The owner is the person who is ultimately responsible for ensuring the task is completed and, therefore, will not allow it to become a shared, dead-end task.

7. Use realistic deadlines

7. Use realistic deadlines. If a blog post needs a research, writing, and editing pass, don’t make it two hours for the entire process. When assigning work, don’t give a deadline for the work to be completed in one pass. Instead, break the work into incremental passes with more realistic, stage-based deadlines.

8. Establish simple team rules

8. Establish simple team rules. Important task updates happen at the task level, not in a private chat, and completed work gets marked as finished. Following a small number of simple, practical rules is better than ignoring a long list of complex rules.

9. Review the workspace regularly

9. Review the workspace regularly. Those old tasks and finished projects starting taking up workspace real estate, and priorities and deadlines start drifting away from relevancy. Just take a few minutes once a week or once a month to do some housekeeping and a workspace review to archive finished tasks and projects, delete the clutter, and update priorities.

10. Test to see if the tool is working

10. Test to see if the tool is working. Is tracking deadlines simpler? Are more tasks accomplished? If your team no longer spends hours searching through emails to find updates and instead finds everything within minutes, great progress has been made. Justifying the time spent to set up a tool is not a reason to continue using a tool. If the tool creates more obstacles than it solves, think again.

The best method is one your team understands and can sustain and use. This becomes invaluable when your team defines your own workflows and needs.

Expert Advice

Build around decisions instead of tasks

Build around decisions instead of tasks. A website redesign can have hundreds of tasks but the client needs to approve the homepage and final layout. Projects can stall when a decision is waiting to be made.

Don’t turn chat into your project database

Don’t turn chat into your project database. Teams rely on chat to record everything which leads to important decisions being buried. If a client decides to change the deadline in chat but no one moves the task, the person working on the task may never even notice the change.

Make templates for projects that are similar

Make templates for projects that are similar. A marketing client can create templates for research and copywriting to alignment and approvals through to scheduling and reporting to save time and prevent missing important tasks. A template becomes a waste of time if it’s overly detailed.

Understand the difference between urgent and important work

Understand the difference between urgent and important work. Let’s imagine a website team received a request to change button color, but there’s a serious bug on the website checkout process. If a team considers every request as urgent, this request to change button color will consume the time that should be used to address the serious bug. If a request is prioritized as highly urgent, then nothing is urgent.

Short, frequent progress reviews

Short, frequent progress reviews. If reviews are scheduled for major project milestones, the opportunity to address falling behind items is missed. If overdue items, blocked items & responsibilities that are not clearly defined are reviewed on a weekly basis, delays that are the result of client approvals will be apparent and become a potential target for process improvement.

Ignition, the most effective project tool, will reflect the way your team works. Be intentional with the way you set up project tool and make it easy to reflect changes that will allow your team to work better.

Mistakes to Avoid

• Choosing project tool based on features — the focus should be on project tool that addresses the needs of your team and highly rated for usability.
• Failure to set priorities — task lists that are lengthy obscure important tasks.
• Too many responsible parties for a single task — the task should clearly state who the owner is.
• Deadlines that are not enforced — be intentional with communicating and updating the operational plan.
• Hiding important decisions in chat — decisions that are made and approvals are documented in the project tool.
• Too many rules — a simple project that is made complex through unnecessary categorization and too many rules.
• Letting the system deteriorate – review regularly and archive the irrelevant.
• Believing software would fix everything – it won’t fix unreasonable deadlines, fuzzy targets, and lack of communication.

Benefits and Drawbacks of Project Management Applications

Benefits

Benefits: Project mgmt applications keep everything in an easily accessible format; tasks and deadlines are easily seen and understood; strengthened through ownership; visible and easily understood; reduced need for back-and-forth; deadlines are easily heard and seen; even useful for remote and disbursed teams.

Drawbacks

Drawbacks: Learning the app, and often the software’s complexities, can become its own project; the costs become easily seen and understood; over-complication by an excess of software features; a large self-maintaining software; nothing can replace good planning, a lack of planning makes using software unproductive.

Project mgmt software is best used in harmony with team workflow, and needs to be seen as an extension of a team’s workflow.

Common Questions

Which project mgmt software is the best for new users?

Which project mgmt software is the best for new users?

The best new software has a clean interface, and includes most (if not all) of the necessary features. A new user needing to manage a single client project would opt for a different software than a user needing to manage many client processes. Knowing your bare minimum feature set is a good place to start evaluating new software.

Are paid project management tools worth it?

Are paid project management tools worth it?

For most, yes. The idea of a project management tool is to save users time, especially in highly complex tasks. While paid plans might offer advanced features like integrations, additional storage, or reporting, more offerings won’t necessarily better your workflow. If your project management needs are relatively simple, there’s plenty of free tools out there.

Can project management software do the job of spreadsheets?

Can project management software do the job of spreadsheets?

Not exactly. The main difference between project management softwares and spreadsheets is that the former is geared to manage tasks, due dates and progress whereas the latter is more adaptable to manage formulas and allows for endless customization. A team could use project management software to plan a website launch and use a spreadsheet to track the budget.

What are the benefits of project management tools for remote teams?

What are the benefits of project management tools for remote teams?

Because project management tools offer a shared digital space for tasks and due dates, they help to reduce the need for meetings and direct communication. For example, a remote designer can see the tasks and messages from the manager in a different location and does not need to wait on a call to get the info.

How many projects can I manage at a time on the software?

How many projects can I manage at a time on the software?

It depends on the software and the pricing plan. Some tools have no limit to the number of projects on the free tier, but others might have limits based on the number of users, the amount of storage, or the plan itself. Consider how much work you’ll have to do, rather than just how many projects you have at the moment.

Are these tools meant for personal tasks?

Are these tools meant for personal tasks?

They can be used for personal tasks to help stay organized, but a simpler tool like a checklist might be a more helpful approach for quick tasks. For instance, someone might use a project management tool to plan out their renovation, wedding or move.

Can these tools enhance team engagement?

Can these tools enhance team engagement?

Yes, they provide a proximity of related information. Having notes posted on tasks means that everything will remain contextual and consolidated, rather than having a separate, fragmented, and lost discussion. However, they must not take the place of a discussion that should remain face-to-face.

What are the major aspects when buying project management software?

What are the major aspects when buying project management software?

The major aspects that come first are simplicity, task management, collaboration, and deadlines. The rest, such as calendars, file sharing, and reporting, come after and are customizable. It is the best option to limit your choice to what is absolutely necessary, rather than browsing for countless features.

How long of a time commitment is necessary to gain an understanding of project management software?

How long of a time commitment is necessary to gain an understanding of project management software?

When thinking of time, commitment is short for understanding the basics and interfacing with the simple software. The more advanced, complicated software that is integrated to serve specific needs is time intensive. It is best to focus on the basics of the essential features.

Can a small business use project management software and gain measurable returns?

Can a small business use project management software and gain measurable returns?

Yes. The returns can be seen on customer service, marketing, product development, and all aspects of business and internal processes. An example of a small design agency is the ability to track a design from the business request to the completion and product delivery. Be sure to pick systems designed for small businesses, rather than the enterprise systems.

Conclusion

The goal is not to find project management software with copious features. It is to find a system with a good fit for you and your team.

Different tools line up differently for task management, collaboration, deadline management, and planning. Some are better for freelancers or smaller teams, while others are designed for bigger, more complicated projects. Consider your workflow, budget, team size, and needs to determine which is best for you.

Before you choose a tool, assess what problem(s) you are trying to solve. Do deadlines come and go without being met? Who’s responsible for what? Is the information you need hiding in emails and messages? Figure out the answers to these before selecting a tool as you search the market and prioritize your needs over popularity.

Tools should be tested in your environment, on a project that you would actually use the tool to manage. Consider your team’s input on positive and negative aspects. The best tool is the one that people are going to use the most. Focus on practicality, the needs your team has, and on real value that the tool provides, and then create your own boundaries to pick the tool that works best for your team.

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