Project management is most essential in the current business world where competition has become very tight and time is of the essence. As it stands, managing projects could be easier said, especially when it comes to determined goals, which are the main essence of any startups or even large corporations in equal measure, than done, as it affects productivity, clients’ satisfaction and profitability. This has logically stimulated the growth and the demand for project management software. They are designed to provide different features that enhance the project ability to enhance the work flow, communication and make it easier for the team players.
Selecting a good project management software is not an easy task given the availability of many options in the market today. As promised, let me detail five of the most outstanding and popular project management software tools now available together with the elements that you need while picking one for your organization.
Key Features to Look for in Project Management Software
When choosing project management software, one should point out the features that would suit the work of the team most suitable. Here are some of the features to be taken into consideration:
Task Management
Tasking, that is the creation, assignment and tracking of tasks, is the very rudimentary skill. Search for the software that has an option to set-up the tasks, working time, and subtasks to include all the possible varieties.
Collaboration Tools
Communication is a vital component that plays an essential role in any project that is or is to be carried out in an organization. Select applications that will support such options and tools as communication, file sharing and real-time updates for the team.
Integration Capabilities
Your project management tool should also be compatible with other business applications that apply in your workplace including e-mail, calendar as well as storage systems. This helps in reducing the possibilities of interchanging between different platforms hence improving on productivity.
Customization and Flexibility
Different teams have different needs. Choose the tool that offers flexible configurations of the work process, layouts, and views for effective customization to your processes.
Reporting and Analytics
Getting access to reports and analytics tab is useful in monitoring the project’s progress and planning possible decisions. Include report generation as an important parameter for choosing tools and check if the tools provide options of data visualization.
User-Friendly Interface
The interface is also very friendly to the users, which means that your team will not take long to get used to the new tool hence, improving efficiency.
Scalability
When choosing the suitable product for your business, you should consider whether or not it meets the growth potential of your business. Make sure customers and project will exponentially increase with time without reducing the ability of the software to perform.
Security
Data security is paramount. Security is distinguished by data encryption, user’s authentication, and data backup; the developed software should have these features integrated.
Top 13 Project Management Software and Tools
There are many project management software that also contains portfolio management tools and program management tools apart from all other features of Project management software. Here at we have listed best project management software and tools that can help you to manage your projects effectively.
ClickUp
ClickUp is a great project management software that comes with lots of powerful features that will help you to manage and complete all the projects that a team has in a single place. It will also help you to schedule tasks, projects planning, and resource management in single and centralized space. Members of the team will communicate with each other, and work together in a single place and the work can be shared with guests.
ClickUp project management tool contains task management features like a checklist for tasks, templates, filtering, sorting, and searching for tasks in the easiest way possible for the team.
Other features of this project management program include document creating sharing and work sharing. Users of this program will be able to create Gantt charts, calendars, and other things that will help them to visualize tasks.
- Comes with 14 days free trial
- Price starts at $17/month for 2 users
Monday.com
monday.com is one of the best project management software that will make the work of managing a team very easy. This simple program contains a simple but intuitive layout that will help users to complete the work easily.
monday.com has different features that will help users to manage projects, track time, collaborate, and report. Users can also make comments, mention members, do other things to the files uploaded. This program also contains a dashboard that contains all the important information. Also this dashboard will collect data from different boards so that it will help you track all the progress.
monday.com contains simple tools that will help users to manage timelines, track time, and invoices. It is a customizable project management tool that will help you to work according to your needs.
Teamly
Teamly is a remote work-focused collaboration and productivity tool designed to help teams work efficiently. With its real-time chat feature, team members can easily communicate with each other, no matter where they are located, improving productivity and enabling teams to stay connected.
The workflow and task management features allow users to set goals, assign tasks, track progress, and generate reports in a organized and timely manner, ensuring everyone is on the same page. Teamly’s screen capture video & audio recording enables businesses to keep track of every detail of a project from start to finish, providing a full picture of what went on behind the scenes.
Employee time tracking & monitoring helps managers ensure that deadlines are met and provides insight into how much time was actually spent on each task or project. This allows project managers to make better decisions faster and keep everyone motivated and focused on their goals.
- Comes with free version
- Price from $5/user/month
Kintone
Kintone is a simple project management software that will help the project managers to track projects, prioritize tasks, and review the work. It is a great customizable tool that will help you to create project management tools according to your needs. It also contains a drag and drop feature that will help the non coders to create project management tools according to the needs.
Kintone has customization features that have the ability to create reminders, task filtering, and will help you to generate custom reports. Kintone has the ability to create reports, automated handoffs, and multistep workflows.
Users of this program also helps you to edit, manage, and update workflows. You can also do all the tasks using the mobile and desktop platforms.
One great feature of this program is its communication channel that is already built in. Its chat feature will help the team members to communicate with each other which will help in managing the task much easier and stay connected.
- Comes with 30 days free trial
- price $24 per user/month
Clarizen
Clarizen is a great professional level program that will help big organizations to manage their work easily. This program is designed to speedup the managing process by integrating content, work and process together neatly. Clarizen is a professional grade program that will make your work faster using different time saving work flows.
This program has a different task list, schedules, files and docs. This program will help in making communications between the team. It is a fully featured program that will help you to view timeline, manage different projects, budgets, and document sharing. This program will show all the information in real time like resources, tasks, and schedules. This program can work with different other enterprise tools. Salesforce, Jira, Tableau, Intact, and SharePoint etc.
- Comes with 30-day free trial
- Price stats at $60/user/month
Celoxis
Celoxis is a complete project management tool, it is also a web-based program that will help users to collaborate and manage different projects. This simple program is used by the different organizations.
Celoxis contains interactive Gantt charts that will help in managing real world projects. Using Celoxis project management tool companies can geographically distribute projects to users in working in different time zones, or working part time, and do resource swapping, this program contains various other features.
This program will help you to manage different tasks and will also help users to report bugs, manage internal tasks, and collaborate in a single tool. Team will get notifications of the tasks in the email and will be able to send updates directly.
- Comes with 30 day free trial
- Price $25/user/month
Forecast.app
Forecast is a simple but powerful project management tool that you can find. It is a great all in one project management tool that will also help you to manage resources. It also contains automation for the project management and using automation users can project delivery dates, improve efficiency and predict needs.
This program also contains drag and drop features that will help you to edit project management tools and make the program more efficient. This program will help you to track all the progress using time sheets and other modules.
- Comes with 14 day free trial
- Price from $29/seat/month
Teamwork
Teamwork is an inhouse project and work management tools that will help your inhouse management team to work efficiently. This simple program will increase visibility, accountability, and results. This is a great project management tool that will manage your entire project from start to finish.
You can create tasks, make lists, and manage subtasks, so that you can break the work for your team. This program will help you to add due dates, description, documents, tags, and priorities of your project.
- Has free version
- Comes with a 30 day free trial and credit card required.
- Price from $10/user/month
Wrike
Wrike is one of the best project management software tools that you can find for your team. This simple program will help you to manage the projects easily, also, you can use this program for unlimited numbers for the users. This tool is customizable and will help users to customize, dashboards, reports, and workflows.
Wrike is a simple program that has drag and drop Gantt charts. This program also contains features like schedules, file sharing, real-time communication, task lists and subtasks. This program also contains a performance reporting tool, and resource management so that your team can get all the details about the projects. IT has a simple user interface that will make project management very easy.
- Has free version
- Comes with 14 days free trial
- Price $9.80/user/month
Kissflow Project
Kissflow Project is a simple and elegant project management tool that will help you to collaborate, and coordinate a project. It also provides transparency, and increases productivity to a project. This program also contains tracking that will help users to get the clear view of a project.
Kissflow Project is a customizable tool that helps users take control of the project and will help you to manage user’s needs. This simple program will help you to share project information, documents, and other things needed for project completion. This tool has integration with Microsoft, and G suite and it offers REST API and webhooks.
- Has free version
- Comes with 30 days free trial
- Price $90/month which Includes 10 users
MeisterTask
MeisterTask is a simple web-based project management tool that will help with all your needs for project management. This program has a simple user interface that will make the project management easy.
The software has different designs that will make working on projects easier. This program also contains project boards that can be customized easily. Other features of this program include, time tracking, watchers, tags, due dates and other useful features.
- Has free version
- Price $8.25/month
ProofHub
ProofHub is a scalable and customizable project management and team collaboration tool that helps businesses and their teams to replace poor planning, low productivity, and cluttered work process with well-organized, streamlined workflows, high productivity, and timely project completion and delivery.
Using the tool’s Task Management feature, project managers can easily allocate tasks to multiple assignees, set deadlines, and track their progress at every stage. Multiple project views (Gantt, Board, Table, Calendar) help you to visualize the project progress and check out who’s doing what to ensure optimal resource utilization.
Worried about time wastage at work? The inbuilt Time-tracking feature helps you and your team record how much time it takes to complete various tasks. Procrastination takes a backseat as you set time estimates and start-end dates to tasks, which ensures that assignees can prioritize tasks to ensure timely completion and avoid project delays.
ProofHub takes team collaboration to another level with a suite of features, like Instant chat, Online proofing, File management, and Real-time updates. You can set custom workflows, create custom reports, and add as many users to your project.
- Comes with a free 14-day trial
- Starts with $45 per month when billed annually, unlimited users are allowed
Jotform Boards
Jotform Boards serves as a task management application created to enable teams for workflow organization and automation and collaborative work space integration. Users can perform task creation together with assignment management and tracking through an interface that offers built-in automation along with AI-driven functionality.
Users can operate tasks on Jotform Boards through a Kanban-style system which lets them establish priorities and shift work items via distinct stages. Real-time team communication allows members to maintain alignment so they do not require manual system updates.
The system includes multiple essential features including various form integration capabilities as well as sophisticated search filters and its functionality works across multiple devices. The platform generates automated tools for shifting form data into tasks that lead to decreased manual work and optimized workflows.
- Has free version
- Starts from $34/month with annual plan.
How to Choose the Right Project Management Software
Choosing the best project management tool for your project requires compiling the type of requirements that your team will need and comparing them with the qualities and functions of the software. In the following, you will find a lowdown to guide you on how to start in order to make an informed choice:
Assess Your Needs
Firstly, define what can be perceived as major issues within a team in the process of project management. You might want to find out which items for task tracking, team cooperation or analytics are critical for your organization’s processes.
Define Your Budget
In this case, the various tools that are available are in many different categories according to price. Determine on the amount of money you would wish to spend and look at the cost in relation with the services offered by the software. Nevertheless, it should be noted that the freeware can be less functional than the paid counterpart.
Research and Shortlist
Compare the differences between different project tools and come up with the most preferable tools according to the requirements. With reviews, case studies, and testimonials, you can gather various information about the people’s experience and reviews of the software.
Request Demos and Trials
Basically, most of the available software providers also have samples or trial versions of the software they offer. I did not find a lot of opportunities of exploring the tools in the given websites until now and it is high time to benefit from the provided possibilities. Here, determine whether the specific user interface, some features, and general usability meet the requirements for your team.
Evaluate Integration Capabilities
It is also crucial to make sure that the software you have adopts to other tools used in your team or organization. Ensure that it is compatible with the existing systems and it is easy to integrate in your organizations system.
Consider Scalability
Conduct research on how incremental that will determine if the software can grow with your business. Aspects that would help in this case include the number of users that the system can accommodate and the capacity to accommodate growth of a number of projects that a certain project management tool can hold.
Check Customer Support
As for the work with the client, definite and substantial support is important, particularly at the beginning of the project. Some tips which can be followed are searching for software providers that offer their users round-the-clock support through instant chat, email, and phone.
Make an Informed Decision
From the evaluation make the best judgment to choose a software that meet your team’s needs, your budget and your company’s long-term objectives. It must possess the right features, flexibility, and compliance support that are required in the management of the project.
Conclusion
Finally, it is noted that selection of a proper software solution is undoubtedly vital for the entire working of any project, for communication between colleagues and for the very overall achievements of a company.
After reviewing the tool characteristics and when taking the steps in each criterion and criterion level outlined above, it is possible to select the tool that is the most suitable for your business needs and effectively bring your projects to success.
Instead, the aim when it comes to choosing between the best project management tool is to choose the one that supports the team in achieving its goals and tasks.
