Comparison of Popular Project Management Software Tools
Evaluating project performance in the project stages utilising well-known project management software, Asana, Basecamp, Jira Software, Trello, and Wrike
According to the research, usage of project management software tools has a positive correlation with project performance thus we can observe that the ownership trend of project management software tools is increasing (Pellerin et al., 2013).
These tools essentially help project managers in the initial planning stages to focus more on processes and provide better estimations to achieve project success(Nakayama & Chen, 2016).
In recent years, projects need more demand and challenges because of digitalisation and also customizations, data import and export abilities, user-friendly interface, integration capabilities with third-party products, network capabilities, speed and reliability of the product, the support level of operation systems, training and consulting services, and the ability to adapt various machines became critical considerations in selecting project management software(Kliem, 2000).
In this study, Asana, Basecamp, Jira, Trello, and Wrike will be examined with their features in terms of impacts of initiation, planning and execution stages.
1. ASANA
Asana is a flexible project management software which can be used for tracking both ongoing work and long-term projects coordinating people with its wide range integration abilities It gives the opportunity to manage different type of complex projects. Board, list and calendar view features give a chance for users visualize tasks and project actions.
Ease of Use: Simple, colourful, user-friendly, and customisable design make Asana easy to understand and use. Also this software has good navigation and fast with its features.
User Characteristics: Asana is quite easy to use the platform.
Other Organisational Considerations: Accessing the platform from every device provides project members flexibility and time advantage and reaction time and quality increase with this accessibility feature. Also, Asana has a very flexible customisable interface that is placed according to a project and individual needs to increase efficiency in the project. Users can design individual interface how he or she can work effectively and this ability can be decreased vapidity level of a working environment. The company may use the platform costs as a service expense for the tax deduction.
Functionality: Asana has a successful task assignment and tracking ability that update users instantly for every changing and progress of task or sub-tasks. The collaboration tool and client portal features decrease classic email traffic and increase communication efficiency. The project data store in the cloud that may give the chance to protected documents and access from different locations.
(Capterra.com 2019a) (Graw 2019), (Asana 2020)
Asana would not be useful for single user in a small business such as sole consultant and freelancer because these single user’s all tasks will not be shown up in the task section so it would require more time effort.
Ease of Use: Feature variety and performance problems would decrease speed and productivity for projects. Moreover, new product managers would not adapt quickly all these customised screens, schedules and tasks therefore they will require more time to learn the application.
User Characteristics: Reaching problems to online support would create huge financial costs for the same projects.
Other Organisational Considerations: Asana has no 2-factor authentication and all data are in the Asana cloud so it could increase the risk of data security. Also, third party software integrations would be risky because of limited integration abilities. Moreover, Asana monthly payment model may create financial risk because of its dependency.
Functionality: Users could not see combined calendar for multi-projects. Tasks could be only assigned to one person and if the person could not available to do this task, there will be a case to resolve. The most important shortcoming of Asana is not having time tracking features for every task so it would affect cost and resource management negatively. Asana has no live chat to provide communication instantly in the project so it would have a negative impact on efficiency. Limited data export and import abilities may decrease efficiency and flexibility. Asana also has no document editing feature that is one of the most important elements for document management in the project.
(Capterra.com 2019) (Graw 2019) (Santos 2019a)
2. BASECAMP
Basecamp is a flexible web-based project management software which can be used for managing projects with high level of collaboration and coordinating inside and outside teams. It gives project teams wide range document management abilities.
Ease of Use: User-friendly and project dedicated design make dashboard so understandable and creating tasks and due dates and assigning abilities at the same page increases productivity.
User Characteristics: It is quite easy to use Basecamp without educational input.
Other Organisational Considerations: Accessing the platform from different devices with fully featured provides project members flexibility and time advantage and reaction time and quality increase with this accessibility feature. Its fix monthly or yearly price model without per user additional price structure could decrease the cost for bigger projects and also it would be deducted from tax as a service expense.
Functionality: Easy tracking ability may be sent reminders for team. Basecamp’s collaboration tool assist team works by storing conversations, documents, and to do lists to increase project efficiency. Also all key stakeholders may be invited easily to discuss project. It is quite simple to onboard all project members both inside and outside teams to increase synergy and agility. Its live chat would be critical for harmony and time limited tasks. Basecamp has intuitive document space that users can drop or drag even their large size files to share each other so this document. Project data and pictures store in the cloud that may give the chance to protect documents and access from different locations without time limit.
(Capterra.com 2018) (Parker 2019) (Duffy 2017) (Webrevolve.co.uk 2020) (Basecamp 2020)
Basecamp has no classical project management views such as Gantt chart and milestones therefore the projects that are demanded to report these type of graphs would not prefer to use this platform.
Ease of Use: Basecamp’s navigation does not help people to be quick and users can confuse when they are working on many projects at the same time. Moreover, Basecamp is more focus on task and collaboration management than project management because of this perspective its features limited or simple opposed to other project management software tools. It has limited customisation capabilities decrease efficiency.
Other Organisational Considerations: All data are in the Basecamp cloud structure so it could increase the risk of data security. Also, Basecamp’s minimalist structure limit project managers to customise existing structure or implement new services or applications to the platform. Fix price level would have negative financial impacts for small project and monthly payment model may create financial risk because of its dependency.
Functionality: Basecamp has no time tracking abilities for each task. Basecamp may not be proper solution for the company that needs to track all expenses for billing. Although the platform has quite good information management, reports could not be shared readable formats to clients so it would be so deficient for analysing and reporting step.
(Capterra.com 2018a) (Parker 2019) (Duffy 2017) (Santos 2019b)
3. JIRA SOFTWARE
Jira is best for either agile projects and all type of projects with its Kanban and Scrum boards supports also it is so useful to visualise the whole picture of projects with its integrated roadmaps.
Ease of Use: Clear, customisable, simple dashboard structure and productive task view features make more productive the project team. Moreover, project templates and custom filters are other important efficient features for users.
User Characteristics: Jira is hard to learn software that’s why educational sources are so various.
Other Organisational Considerations: Accessing from every device provides project members flexibility and time advantage. Also, High customisation and integration capabilities of Jira and more than Its 1000 add-ons provide project teams flexibility, productivity and agility. Jira could use big projects that have large project members with its capabilities therefore it is one of most important project software tools in the market. The company may use the platform costs as a service expense for the tax deduction.
Functionality: Users may prioritise their tasks better understanding which tasks have to be finished immediately and which one has time to do therefore this function is so effective for critical deadlines and working on different projects. Jira has great time and task tracking features that are focused on increasing efficiency in the project. Communication management abilities are provided with many collaborative features. Jira has flexible analytical tool that provide real-time reports. Project data store in the cloud that protect documents and access from different locations.
(Capterra Inc. 2018b) (DumbFunded 2017) (Sangal 2018) (Pardo — Bunte 2020a) (Atlassian 2020)
Jira’s learning curve is useless aspect for non-technical persons thus it would not fit for only business purpose works.
Ease of Use: Jira’s complex features and navigation need more effort to use.
User Characteristics: Users need to high level training before the use and Jira completes the same of its functionality gaps with its marketplace for a small fee.
Other Organisational Considerations: All data are in the cloud so it could increase the risk of data security. Also, some of the complex integrations would consume more time and demand more capital. Furthermore, Jira’s marketplace structure and monthly payment model create financial risk.
Functionality: Jira may not be a proper solution for the company that needs to track time-expense for billing. Although Jira has high collaboration and communication capabilities, it has no client portal so this platform cannot manage procurements. Reports are not allowed to download as image format to reuse. The platform is limit to 10MB document size for uploading, therefore, users try to find other unreliable solution for document management. There are no resource management features in this tool.
(Capterra Inc. 2018b) (Pardo-Bunte 2020a) (Santos 2019c)
4. TRELLO
Trello is not only a project management software tool but also it could use for individual purposes such as managing budget, time tracking, organising an event and this software visualise task successfully to increase productivity.
Ease of Use: User-friendly, clean design, easy set-up feature, and ready templates increase speed and productivity for usage. Additionally, it has visual progress that makes it easy for navigation.
User Characteristics: Learning is quite easy the platform so there is no need for high-level training therefore Trello organise webinars and tutorials for this tool.
Other Organisational Considerations: Accessing from every device such as mobile, tablet and computer provides project members flexibility and time advantage. Also, Trello has a very flexible customisable interface that is placed according to a project and individual needs to increase efficiency in the project. Users can design individual interface how he or she can work effectively and this ability can be decreased vapidity level of a working environment. Trello allows for unlimited integration ability on the same specific applications such as Slack, Google Hangout, Salesforce, GitHub, and Evernote. The company may use the platform costs as a service expense for the tax deduction.
Functionality: Trello has a successful task assignment and tracking ability that notify users instantly for every change and progress of the task. Its collaboration tool composes of sharing files, sending emoji, making comment, tagging people and increase communication efficiency. The project data store in the cloud that may give the chance to protected documents and access from different locations.
(Capterra Inc. 2018c) (Projectmanagement 2019) (Drake 2018) (Kulakov 2017) (Pardo-Bunte 2020b) (Trello 2020)
Trello is a virtual Kanban whiteboard to show workflow but huge number of tasks may not virtualise thus Agile, complex and large projects are not suitable for this tool.
Ease of Use: Dashboard would be crowded and cluttered for large projects.
Other Organisational Considerations: All data are in the cloud so it could increase the risk of data security. Also, users may not import MS Project files that are a common file format and mostly manual operations are required to transfer other API data to Trello. Kanban board structure, limited collaboration abilities, and other limited capabilities do not allow us to use this tool in large organisations. Moreover, Trello’s monthly payment model may create financial risk because of its dependencies in the long run.
Functionality: Trello has limited task management ability because there are no sub-task and dependency functionalities. Trello may not ensure projects are on time and under the budget because of lack of time — expense tracking. Project member may communicate by using a comment section that is so weak collaboration feature for a project. Lack of time — expense tracking and client portal undergo Trello for procurement management. The reporting structure is so simple and insufficient for a project management software tool.
(Capterra Inc. 2018c) (Kulakov 2017) (Pardo-Bunte 2020b) (Santos 2019d)
5. WRIKE
Its user-friendly and aesthetic design provides project members to use the platform without spending learning-curve period also its navigation is so simple and tracking all tasks and communicate in one point decrease effort to use this platform. The platform response performance is quite fast. Users can access the platform from everywhere by using mobile.
Ease of Use: User-friendly, aesthetic design, simple navigation and tracking all tasks and communicate in one-point features decreases usage effort and increase speed.
User Characteristics: Wrike does not need to demand high level training.
Other Organisational Considerations: Accessing the platform from every device provides project members flexibility and time advantage. Also, it has a very flexible customisable interface that is placed according to a project and individual needs to increase efficiency in the project. Many business applications such as Gmail, Microsoft Office, Google Drive, Jira, Dropbox, Zapier, Salesforce, and Dropbox, would be integrated with Wrike easily. Wrike could be used for large scale organisations easily because of its high capacity features. The company may use the platform costs as a service expense for the tax deduction.
Functionality: Wrike has a successful task assignment and tracking ability that updates users instantly for every change and progress of tasks. Its time-expense tracking and resource management features provide the company to manage all expenses and procurements very efficiently in the same tool. Real-time collaboration tools and client portal features decrease classic email traffic and increase communication efficiency and productivity. Real-time reporting and analysing capabilities are so sufficient and also it provides the company transparency. The project data store in the cloud that may give the chance to protected documents and access from different locations.
(Capterra Inc. 2018d) (Wax Marketing 2016) (Andre 2019) (Smiljanic 2018) (Wrike Inc 2020)
Same integrations such as Microsoft Outlook create performance problems which decelerate project speed and cause to miss important issues and lack of templates which can be customisable could decrease productivity.
Ease of Use: Same integrations such as Microsoft Outlook create performance problems which decelerate project speed and cause to miss important issues and lack of templates which can be customisable could decrease productivity.
Other Organisational Considerations: All data are in the Wrike cloud so it could increase the risk of data security. Also, third party software integrations would be risky because of their performance problems. Wrike’s price structure is not suitable for small organisations and the monthly payment model may create financial risk because of its dependency.
Functionality: Even though Wrike’s collaboration and communication tools are sufficient for project management, it has no live-chat structure that can be increased productivity and speed for teams.
(Capterra Inc. 2018d) (Santos 2019e) (Gilbert 2020)
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