What Does a Project Management Software Do?

Project management software is a tech-driven solution designed for facilitating project managers and teams in project planning, task assignment and scheduling, communication and collaboration, resource allocation and management.

Project management software provides tools to centralize and streamline various elements of project management and enables project managers and users to monitor and manage projects with ease, meet deadlines and budget constraints without compromising on quality of the promised deliverables.

In this article, we shall discuss the key features of project management software, their significance, and some of the popular choices over the past year.

Some key features that you can expect from well-developed, and reliable project management software solutions are:

• Affordability.
• User-friendly interface.
• Space for fitting in previously unscheduled tasks.
• Seamless integration with Google Calendar and Google Drive.
• The option for adding repetitious task segmentation and building a critical path.
• Accessibility on different operating systems.
• Compatibility with commonly used apps.
• Option for adding more people on a project team.

Project management software have become an integral requirement of businesses, both large-scale and small. Packed with both common features and advanced attributes, and providing enhanced project visibility and a high-level view of task status using professional Gantt Charts and other interactive charts, some top choices of these software are:

1. Asana
2. Basecamp
3. Brief
4. ClickUp
5. Huddle
6. Jira Software
7. LeanKit
8. Primavera P6 Enterprise Project Portfolio Management
9. Trello
10. Wrike

There is a range of options available for project management solutions and team collaboration. When looking for the right fit for your organization, check for the following chief functions:

• Project Planning: making use of previous track record and enabling ease in data-driven project planning.
• Ease in team collaboration: enabling ease in commenting, communicating, and providing a log of all communications.
• Easy of use: being hassle free and not cumbersome.
• Task scheduling and management: being intuitive in task assignment and correct allocation, ensuring no one is over or under assigned.
• Resource allocation and management: rightly allocating resources and prioritizing tasks based on data.
• Tracking project constraints and consumption: capable of delivering within budget and time limitations, warning and regrouping if and when needed.
• Managing project budgets: tracking budget allocation and consumption in real-time.
• Work-breakdown structure method: supporting the preferred method of an organization for breaking down finances, resources, and tasks.

If you’re unsure whether your business needs a project management solution, here is an insight into the various benefits offered by most:

• Effortless Project Planning

Enterprises have embraced the proverb that ‘time is money’ and that is a key reason why project management software are a big thing. Enabled with AI predictions, project management tools capture and manage constraints of cost, time, and scope with perfect ease and high accuracy. These tools help project teams to test the key deliverables prior to execution, and timely complete the key deliverables.

• Improved Team Collaboration

Project management software enable easy collaboration regarding task dependencies and timelines, etc.

• Effective Communication

Not only do project management software allow easy collaboration between colleagues but also offer clients to log in and view project data relevant to them and provide direct feedback and make changes, if required.

• Project Budget Management

Project management software help in monitoring and controlling the allocated budget’s consumption in real time, starting from the initiation of a project to its final delivery.

• Balanced Resource Management

The resource management tools provide insights regarding resource constraints and visibility of the workload on the team members, enabling better allocation of budget and tasks.

• Enhanced Customer Satisfaction

Enabling the completion of a project on time and within budget provides a satisfying customer experience and helps organizations secure loyal customers.

Depending on the nature and complexity of different projects, preferences of project teams, and the most helpful features of various tools, the most popular choices for project management solutions are:

• Basecamp for team collaboration needs.
• LiquidPlanner for great software features.
• Microsoft Project for large-scale and complex projects.
• Teamwork Projects for simple yet powerful solutions.
• Trello for beginners.
• Wrike for quick set up.
• Zoho Projects for cost-effective solutions.

Microsoft Project and Microsoft Planner are often used in conjunction with one another for full project and task management. MS Teams integrates with MS Project, which provides a needed collaboration element for team projects as well. Microsoft Project offers many more features and project tools than Excel alone, making it a great option for corporate and team projects. 

With a bunch of cool planning software available, each with its own strength, it would be unfair to pick one as the ‘best’. Depending on the requirements of an individual user or a project team, while one planning software might be an ideal choice based on its automation features, another would be a winner for its performance in domains such as resource planning, expense tracking and budget tracking.

That said, some of the top-ranking planning software are:

• Celoxis
• GanttPRO
• Hive
• Kissflow Project
• Monday.com
• Nutcache
• ProjectManager
• Teamweek
• Wrike
• Zoho Projects

Another popular option for smaller companies or businesses with simple project planning needs is to use various apps provided by Google Workspace. Google doesn't have a dedicated project management app, but with integrated apps like Google Sheets, Google Tasks, and Google Calendar, many companies find they can manage project works with these tools. Google Sheets is better for project work than Excel because sheets can be shared and used for collaboration on teams without having to worry about version control of Excel spreadsheets. Google Tasks is similar to MS Planner and can help manage to do lists for a project's team members.

Architects require project management software that can cater to their essential need of clever budgeting, financial planning and effective time management.

Architectural projects require tools facilitating in easy communication with logs of all relevant data. Here’s a list of some top, reliable choices for architectural projects:

• Asana
• Basecamp
• Deltek Ajera
• Monday.com
• Monograph
• Notion
• Taimer
• TeamGantt
• Teamwork
• Wrike

As a business grows or plans to expand, it needs to cater to multiple projects simultaneously, which without aid can be quite overwhelming for the project team.

Finding the right fit of a project management solution can facilitate project managers and team leaders in effectively planning and assigning tasks, better human resource management, scheduling tasks and meetings, improved team collaboration and real-time resource management, etc.

Therefore, it’s safe to say that using a project management software for the team collaboration and project completion requirements of a business can help an organization in gaining a competitive edge in the market and securing a satisfied customer base.