Best Project Management Software

How To Choose the Best Project Management Software

To choose a project management software, consider each provider’s cost and added fees, overall features and functionality offerings, reporting, integration capabilities, necessary features vs. feature overload, customer reviews and customer support. In this section, we walk you through how to approach this assessment.  

Essential Project Management Software Features 

Project management software has basic features that most projects need to be successful. However, extra or unique features make some software options better for certain teams or businesses. It’s important to do your research to understand what unique features might make your project more successful based on your team approach, type of business or type of project. Some highly utilized project management tools and features include:  

Budget planning tools:

Budget planning tools allow you to upload your set budget, then track expenses and invoices to compare project costs to the planned budget. By tracking this variance, you can determine if you are running into a budgeting problem. Financial forecasting tools further help you to ensure you don’t run over budget or, worse, have to stop the project because of lack of funds. 

Resource management tools: 

Resource utilization tools allow you to plan, track and record where resources—such as your talent—are used in the project’s execution. In doing so, it helps to reveal gaps in availability or when certain team members are overused (risking burnout), then adjust resource allocation to prevent problems. 

Task management features: 

Task management features include automations (that eliminate redundant tasks from to-do lists). Examples include automating invoicing, the identification of critical project changes and managing project workflows. Other task management tools include boards (to visualize moving tasks through their stages to completion), calendars, timeline views, scheduling, task tracking and task prioritization. 

Risk management features: 

Common project risks include finishing over budget, with a lower-quality outcome than expected or not finishing on time. Many tools within a project management software can help you balance competing demands to finish the project as intended, including critical path charts, checklists, scheduling tools, cost breakdowns, cost variance reports and timelines. 

Reports and charts: 

Project management software offers digital charts for planning, tracking and readjusting your projects’ timelines, budget and quality as needed. For example, Kanban charts show tasks on a timeline board and their status. Gantt charts also give an overview of a project’s timeline complete with its phases, tasks and outputs. You can gather or feed data into these charts to update in real time. 

Mobile app: 

Mobile apps help teams easily track, manage and deliver project deliverables from anywhere, helping to ensure all members are always in the know no matter where they are. Real-time knowledge can help them make smart decisions that keep projects progressing as planned. Apps also offer personalized content so team members know the tasks, activities and milestones they must complete each day. 

Integrations: 

Integrations help to boost a project management software’s performance and cater it to your needs. Slack and Google Drive integrations, for example, allow team members to collaborate within the software on project deliverables. Stripe also allows your team to invoice clients for deliverables. Many project management software offer hundreds or even thousands of integration options. 

Client management tools: 

Many project management software offer various features for including your clients in the project’s execution, keeping them up to date on the project’s status and maintaining a professional relationship. Such tools include video-conferencing tools, invoicing and the ability to add clients as users to the project management software while maintaining control over what they can and cannot see. 

Collaboration tools: 

Many project management platforms offer tools to help project execution team members work together seamlessly, even across locations. Some come in the form of integrations, such as Slack. Others, however, are built in. Such built-in tools often include shared calendars, group chats, document sharing, chat forums and team email. 

Demos and team feedback: 

Project management software may have all the right features but, if your team isn’t comfortable with it, it may underperform in project execution. For this reason, many software programs offer demos your team can use to test them, even allowing you to pilot them in a real project. From there, you can gather team feedback to learn the software’s appropriateness for your team and needs.

User-Friendliness

Search for tools and designs that simplify the use of software for your organization, regardless of existing challenges such as limited knowledge of best practices or the heavy daily task load. Selecting user-friendly features depends on several factors, including your organization's familiarity with technology and its size. However, some user-friendly features commonly found in small to mid-sized companies include:

Templates: 

Templates in project management software incorporate proven project management strategies.

Educational Resources and Opportunities: 

Software knowledge bases provide project managers and team members with resources to learn the software's functionalities using straightforward definitions and visuals. Demonstrations offer a chance to interact live with experts who explain the software’s capabilities and respond to queries in simple terms.

Automations: 

Automations streamline complex tasks by automating repetitive and often tedious activities, reducing manual involvement. This makes managing projects simpler, and preset automation setups add to the intuitiveness of this feature.

Mobile Apps: 

Mobile apps enhance accessibility by allowing team members to gather and share necessary information and complete tasks promptly. For instance, project field workers can update essential project details on the go, eliminating the need to return to the office to enter data.

Reporting and Analytics

Effective reporting in project management software conveys crucial data in an accessible manner, aiding in understanding project successes or areas needing improvement. The top project management tools feature dashboards that organize data into graphs, tables, and other formats for quick and intuitive insights.

Identify the key performance indicators (KPIs) you need to monitor and the types of reports necessary for tracking them. Review the reporting and analytics capabilities of the software you're considering to ensure it meets your needs.

Typical reports useful in project management software might cover project status, health, team availability, risks, variances, and timelines. Common KPIs might include task completion rates, return on investment (ROI), schedule variances, planned versus actual hours, and projected project value.

Next, consider if the software will continue to fulfill your needs as they evolve by checking if you can customize the reports or dashboards.

Customer Reviews

Customer reviews provide firsthand insights into using your chosen software and its provider. Look up your software on tech review platforms like Capterra and TrustRadius to read feedback from past and current users. This can reveal software bugs, undisclosed costs, and how the software stacks up against competitors.

Customer Support

Reliable customer support is crucial to ensure that software glitches don't completely disrupt your projects. Investigate the customer support offerings of your chosen provider on platforms like TrustRadius and understand the support plans to gauge what will be accessible to you and when. Ensure that the support is available during your business hours and through communication methods your team prefers.

Business Size Considerations

When exploring features, remember that startups and large enterprises have different project management needs. For example, large corporations may need to manage projects that span across global locations, whereas startups might only operate across one or two sites. Demonstrations can clarify which tools are beneficial for your organization's size and which might complicate learning.

Although one software plan or tool might be ideal for your organization at its current size, these needs will likely change as you expand. For instance, as your company grows, you may require more advanced automation capabilities to scale operations or increased file storage capacity. Thus, it's crucial to select software that avoids unnecessary features while also ensuring it can meet your evolving needs.