Asana vs. Redbooth — Online Project Management & Communication
The two project management tools I found are Asana and Redbooth. Both tools aim to simplify online communication in relation to specific tasks and projects.
Asana
Asana is a project management tool that utilizes essentially two interfaces to help teams stay organized — timeline maps and boards. Being an online tool, Asana supports virtual work through the use of visualizing project steps, deadlines, and tasks. I think the addition of the teammate photo next to each task is a nice touch for remote teams because it puts a face with a name.
I really like the timeline map Asana offers (shown below) because it enables teammates to see how the task they are assigned affects the success of others getting their own tasks done.
The board concept seems to be really popular in most project management tools and creates groups for tasks to fall into. For example, groups could be called “in progress”, “blocked”, or “completed” and the tasks would then fall into their respective groups, with certain teammates assigned to each with specific due dates.
I think that Asana holds great future potential because it seems more collaborative than most other project management tools — allowing team members to see what other members are working on in a simplistic manner creates a work direction that is easy to see and understand. Another feature Asana offers that holds a lot of potential for future teams is the “team objectives” dashboard. This paints a larger picture for the team and can be really helpful in staying on track to accomplish long-term goals.
The Asana website also mentions that it has some automated features, which could be another potential future advantage. Asana gives users the ability to create “rules” that can be applied to routine tasks to save time and eliminate repetitiveness. There are also project templates that can be created, which could be very useful for certain industries. For example, at my internship, we have a very repetitive process to onboard new vendors. The process is the same each time, so a template would be helpful to have to keep things organized without thinking too much about it.
Redbooth
Redbooth also offers a form of collaborative project management. To support virtual work, Redbooth offers a dashboard interface to easily view project status while also allowing users to share/convert files, chat, and video chat via Zoom within the app.
Like Asana, Redbooth also offers a project timeline, but it isn’t quite as collaborative or connected. One unique feature of Redbooth is that they offer detailed productivity reports (shown below). I think these reports offer a good way to see the status of many tasks at once, as well as identify team members that may need help completing tasks if they are behind or team members who need more responsibility.
Redbooth also offers some automated “learning” and can begin to understand which team members are typically responsible for certain tasks. They also offer project templates like Asana.
Redbooth doesn’t offer as many tools or dashboards like Asana, but it does offer more communication routes, including chat and video chat, to keep all necessary communication surrounding a project in one place.
Project Management, Virtually
Asana and Redbooth both offer tools to help virtual and remote teams work on projects together — and each tool has its own advantages. With Asana, teams can keep project updates, tasks, company objectives, and KPI’s all in one place in an easy to use and well-designed interface. With Redbooth, team members can communicate within the application, keeping task efficiency high while creating a space to collaborate and organize ideas.
Personally, I can see myself using Asana — I really like the fact that it’s easy to see big-picture objectives while still having a tool that can help team members focus on the small details and deadlines.
