Managing Project Mangement
Leveraging Software Tools to Streamline Project Management
Software tools have become essential to the modern entrepreneur. In both small and large companies, they have improved efficiency, reduced costs, and made it easier than ever to start a venture. I happen to be taking a course on this topic, exploring a variety of interesting tools that can be used to bolster the chances of creating a successful entrepreneurial venture. For an interesting list of some of these tools, curated by my professor, check out this link.
One of the largest software tool categories is project management. For the purpose of this post, project management software tools will be defined as software that assists with the process of planning and executing work. This is a very broad definition intentionally, as differently sized companies often have different needs within this realm.
During my internship, I became very familiar with our project management software, Jira. Jira facilitated a large amount of the tasks involved in operating under an Agile development cycle. Jira held everything from planning an entirely new project to the final tweaks being made on a specific feature. All of the various teams were then able to stay on the same page during a project. It wasn’t all roses, however. Many of my coworkers found it simply got in the way of working. This often lead me to the following question:
Why do companies need project management tools?
Projects are messy. There are often many pieces of a project being worked on, with a variety of departments working on them. One of my favourite quotes that helps to articulate this struggle is below.
This can often be true with bad project management practices. This quote comes from Fred Brooks, the author of The Mythical Man Month. It comes from Brooks’ experience of throwing more software developers onto an already late, unorganized project. It usually ended up doing much more harm than good.
A few reasons this can happen include work being duplicated, forgotten or simply misunderstood. Communication between team members can be very challenging and trying to “catch someone up to speed” happens to be a slow process. Understanding what work needs to get done, when it is due, and how it needs to be completed, are all essential to working efficiently with others. This is especially true when there are many projects being worked on at once. Regardless of industry, using a project management software tool can significantly reduce the number of errors, improve future work forecasting, and raise everyone’s quality of work.
Manual Project Management vs. Software Tools
Not everyone uses software to manage projects. Sticky note planning is still extremely common in the software industry.
Some arguments for utilizing manual methods of project management are simplicity and stability. When you have a system that holds all of the data you need to work, a small outage can result in a massive loss of productivity. Using sticky notes is also (almost) free. It is also very easy for someone to understand what is being worked on, and has almost no set up time. The benefits of using a software system (in my opinion) outweigh the number of complications that can come along.
Why Software?
Software-based project management tools have the advantage of being online. This allows for remote workers (which are becoming the new normal) to contribute as fully as on-site employees. This also provides a means for employees to use their phones to participate in project management, which is often desirable for those with long commutes or the need to stay updated to a project’s progress.
Ultimately, whatever tool is used to help manage a project, a team must be comfortable working in it. If the tool or process is consistently getting in the way of work, it might be worth reevaluating the utility of that tool. As simple as sticky-notes are, there are numerous software solutions that aim to capture that same simplicity. These tools also come with a variety of features that massively outweigh the overhead time to change processes.
Desirable Features of a Project Management Tool
Based on my own experiences with project management software, as well as various discussions with my own co-workers, other tech firms, entrepreneurs, and a variety of articles, I have curated this list of features that (in my opinion) are required for a good project management software.
- Simplicity — Not everyone is “technically gifted”. Project management software should not be getting in the way of work. It should make it easier. Therefore, everyone on the team should be able to understand what is happening in a project.
- Features — What is the scope of this tool. Will you need other tools to make up for this one’s shortcomings? Features tend to make the tool more complicated. Incorporating only the most essential features your team will help avoid reducing the simplicity and learnability of the tool.
- Price — This is a huge factor in all SAAS products. This is also essential for entrepreneurs as cash is king.
- Extendability — What other tools can this tool leverage to make project management easier? This tends to reduce the switching costs, allowing for existing processes to be unphased in the transition.
- Mobile Experience — Mobile experience is crucial to a well-designed project management tool, providing access to project updates and internal communications at all times.
- Stability— When the data required to work is stored on a project management system, it has to be reliable.
- Security — When sensitive data, like project information, is stored on a system, it must be secure.
A review of some of the many PM tools:
So what tools should the modern entrepreneur explore? I have curated this list of popular, unique or new project management tools, and given my two cents on each. I have also included some other major companies that leverage each tool using stack share, as well as the tools websites.
Asana
Used By: Uber, Airbnb, Deloitte, NASA
Price: Free — 20$/user per month (depending on plan)
Asana is a lightweight project management tool that provides a variety of features. It does a great job of maintaining simplicity. It offers a free plan for up to 15 users, with a significant amount of the features limited to the premium plan.
Asana is one of the most popular project management tools. It offers a wide variety of services for teams. The most basic features included in the free plan are the “board” and “list” view of tasks. These are very simple views with mostly, containing who a task is linked to, as well as a comment section for each task. This would be an excellent start to project management, but the limit on team size, as well as lack of features in the free mode, encourage teams to switch to their premium suite.
The premium subscription provides access to some powerful features, including timeline, custom fields, and task dependencies. These are features that can truly improve the flow of work. It also provides a means to create private projects, and SAML / branding support in the enterprise versions.
To top all of these features off, Asana has one of the best mobile experiences in the market. With actual Android and iOS applications, Asana has made a strong case for itself. However, there are a few things Asana lacks. Although Asana provides a REST API for further development and integration, there aren’t that many great extensions for Asana. On top of this, the customization in Asana comes at a large price increase per user. If you are looking for a highly customized view of a project, this might not be the best tool for you.
Trello
Used By: Adobe, Google, Kickstarter
Price: Free — $10/user per month
Trello is a kanban board based project management tool, focused on emulating the simplicity that the original post-it scrum boards provided. It is easy to use but lacks some of the more developed features other software solutions provide.
Although there is no limit to the number of users on per board, Trello provides extendability functions called “powerups” that are limited to 1 per board in the free mode. These are very powerful and offer a means to make up for the lack of features included in the base Trello application. This can include anything from Slack integration to calendar views. There is also a limited amount of attachment size (of 5mbs). To get an increase in this size to 1gb, as well as full enterprise-grade security and support, the premium mode is required.
Overall, Trello is an excellent answer to companies who want something simple, with very few bells and whistles, and are on a budget. It is very reliable and gets the job done.
Notion
Price: Free — $16/user per month (depending on plan)
Notion is a very new, very unique “notetaking” software. The philosophy behind the design of Notion is to reduce the amount of noise in tools required to operate. Many companies fall into the trap of using 10 different tools, creating clutter and distraction from work. Notion provides “workspace” for all project documentation in the form of living documents. These documents are made up of numerous components, designed to provide the functionality required to capture all of the information needed to manage a project. These can be anything from a calendar, to a kanban board. All of these pages are fully accessible on iOS or Android via a mobile app.
The beauty (and curse) of Notion is your team must decide how to use it. With a variety of provided templates, Notion aims to allow users to build whatever they need. These templates range from onboarding to simple task management. I personally use Notion to manage schoolwork and write up writing drafts. It is a tool with massive potential, but it can be intimidating to set up properly. With proper training (which can be found here), Notion is an excellent way to manage a project, provide a lightweight CRM, or keep track of an org chart!
Notion is free for an unlimited amount of users, but after 1000 “blocks” (any content entered into Notion) you are required to pay $8/user per month to continue using Notion. There is also a 5mb file upload limit, which is removed in the premium version. The enterprise version is $16/user per month and includes support.
Monday
Used By: Wix, McDonalds, Phillips, Fiverr
Price: $5–$25/user per month
Monday.com is like an extremely visually appealing spreadsheet. With an interface that is simple to understand, yet still very powerful, I was very tempted to continue with my subscription after my 14-day trial. I love how clean the UI is, and really wish there was a free version to continue using.
With a minimum price of $5/user per month, Monday is the only service in this article with no free tier. The software does feel developed enough to warrant this price tag, but the cost per user grows quickly. In order to get access to some of the most powerful features (like time tracking and chart displays), the cost per user rises to $12/user per month. For full enterprise-level security features, each user costs $24/month. This is a significant amount to pay, but you do get what you pay for.
Monday provides numerous views that are all interactive. Timelines are a great example of how to get a quick snapshot from a large amount of raw data. The custom fields are very easy to edit, and overall this feels like the path of least resistance when it comes to customizing a project.
It does, however, seem like it might get very busy with a large project. Monday also has an interesting integration strategy. They provide integration with both Jira and Asana, allowing those who wish to use Monday for the clean UI to do so at a premium price, while others can stick with their own PM software.
Overall, I feel like monday.com is the premium project management tool for small teams. It doesn’t offer the scalability or features than other tools do for the price but does offer an extremely attractive user interface. If you are willing to spend the extra money, it might be worth it in the long run by saving users time that would be spent fighting with the interface in other applications.
Basecamp
Used By: Groupon, LiveChat, 9GAG
Price: $99/month
Basecamp is a light project management tool, that is unique most in its pricing structure. Basecamp costs $99/month. This includes unlimited users, up to 500GB of file storage, and all features in the Basecamp software. It includes utilities like instant messaging, task management, file storage, calendar functionality and document editing. The major claim is that this all in one software will save you massive amounts of money, compared to using multiple tools to do the same job.
While this is a bold pricing strategy, something just felt inconsistent about Basecamp. Compared to a platform like monday.com, where every view is interactive and changes are applied globally, Basecamp has numerous different views that seem very separate from each other.
One interesting feature that Basecamp offers is called the “hill chart” feature. This is a form of project estimation that I hadn’t seen previously. Essentially, each task is represented as a dot and can be dragged along the timeline of work. While novel, I can imagine how bloated this would feel with more than a few ongoing tasks. Still, the interface seems intuitive and easy to learn.
Overall, Basecamp seems to be a compromise of a solution to save some money. I would personally recommend utilizing one of the free versions of Trello or Asana until Basecamp is proven to be more developed. It does have a 30-day free trial, so feel free to try it as it might just not have been in my personal taste.
Jira
Used By: Twitter, Paypal, Pinterest, Reddit
Pricing: $10 (one time) — $7/user per month
Developed by Atlassian, Jira is the largest issue tracking software. Today, Jira offers much more than simply issue tracking. With two main versions, the cloud version which is managed by Atlassian and the server version which is self-hosted, Jira offers two very different pricing structures and experiences.
Jira Cloud is only $10/month for up to 10 users, growing to $7/user per month for 10–100 users. It offers consistent stability and both iOS and Android applications. It is far less customizable but just works once you sign up.
Jira Server is a $10 one time payment and works for up to 10 users. To get up to 100 users, a one-time payment of $8300 is required. This does not include self-hosting costs but does provide the ability to hold all sensitive data on-premise (which very few other companies offer).
Jira also happens to be one of the most extendable and customizable offerings for project management. With full access to the backend using Jira Server, you can write any groovy script you can dream of! Our instance had full integration with our GitLab repository, allowing for tasks to be updated as soon as commits were made.
The tradeoff for Jira Server is the amount of work that can go into managing an instance. With Jira Server, a significant amount of time has to be invested in maintenance, project configuration and other administrative tasks. Ultimately the tradeoff becomes having the ability to create anything you wish while losing simplicity.
One interesting personal example was creating an external form for digital requests to be made. This allowed Jira to hold all responses, and easily transition them into tasks that could be managed.
Overall, I enjoyed working within Jira, but I can understand the frustration some less technical users have when using it. It is significantly less “frictionless” in design than numerous other tools.
Recommendations:
The bottom line of this review was to show the wide variety of tools that are available in this space and to encourage people to organize their projects with software. There are numerous other tools that I didn’t cover, largely for the sake of time. Of these tools, I would recommend the following:
For Small Teams
If you have less than 15 users, Asana is an excellent tool as it can be completely free! It is a great start to understanding the value in project management but does lack some of the reporting and development features available in other tools. One “tool” I didn’t go into in this post is GitLab/Github projects. This is a great tool for developers that are already using a version control repository, and need something simple to track features.
For Large Teams
Jira is a great answer in this case. While it can be somewhat expensive (both in time and money), you have access to so much customization. This is especially important for making sure your process is your process. Basecamp would also be worth checking out, as it could save your company thousands of dollars a month.
On a Budget
Trello is the no bells and whistles answer to a simple project management tool. If you are at all used to a physical scrum board and want to try getting used to a software version, Trello is very easy to get started with and quite cheap. Again, Basecamp can save you a lot of money if you are already purchasing premium versions of other tools, but I would recommend using the free alternative to those tools (or the free mode of those tools!).
Willing to Pay
Just try monday.com. It really is a clean experience and I would highly recommend it if it is within budget.
Keep an Eye On
Notion shows a lot of potential. If it continues to grow the way it has in the past two years, I expect very good things to come from it. Already, it is an excellent solution to teams that are willing to groom their content to avoid requiring the premium subscription, but I expect this tool to begin to see adoption in the near future.
Thanks For Reading!
On a side note, I have a few articles in the works and am very close to posting them! I have been quite offline for a while and would like to have more consistent article postings. Regardless, thanks for taking the time to read my article, and please let me know in the comments if you have any suggestions for others on project management tools!
