Project Management Software

Regardless of the business size and type, whether a start-up or a large enterprise, it has to positively manage many projects, tasks, operations, plans, and people. Gone are the days of managing projects using spreadsheets and whiteboards. Businesses are now looking forward to providing an excellent customer experience, staying ahead of the competition, and adapting the best project management tools to streamline their project workflows.

With so many options available for project management software, it can really become quite confusing as to which one to deploy for the type of business you own and manage. So, this guide aims to help you gain knowledge about the basics of project management and pick the best project management tool for your business.

Project management pertains to applying knowledge, skills, tools & techniques to achieve the pre-defined goals within a specific time. Project management is all about evaluating the requirements, designing the strategy, cost management, development, and successfully analyzing the results.

Systematic project management can make projects successful:   

Aligned Strategic Planning

Every project has specific goals, and project management ensures to achieve those goals through aligned strategic planning.

Meeting  Schedules and Deadlines

The project management establishes the task schedule and defines the timeframe within which those tasks need to be completed. This helps in streamlining the project and ensuring that it gets completed within specified deadlines.

Optimum Use of Resources

Resources, whether people or money, can prove too expensive if not used for the right purpose. Project management ensures that the resources are being used efficiently and economically to maximize ROI.

Managing Change

Change is inevitable in any project. Project management helps in predicting future changes in a project.

Retaining Quality

Project management helps identify the problems in the project at an early stage and maintain the quality of the end-product or service. This results in delivering high-quality products or services to the clients and the growth of the business.

Integrating Business Processes

The success of a project is not possible without integrating different business processes. For example, you cannot create a sales system without integrating it with marketing and accounting processes. Project management helps in identifying and managing the integration.

Controlling Cost

A project costing crossing a specified budget can become a liability for a business. Project management can help in determining the projects crossing the budget limit, and control the cost from the initial phase of the project itself.

Learning from Success and Failures

Projects can succeed or fail. Project management helps in learning from the failures and successes, ensuring that the right strategies are applied, and the same mistakes are not committed while commencing projects in the future with proper documentation. 

The below-mentioned project management process applies to almost all the projects regardless of the industry or the type of outcome require

Step 1: Initiating

Determining the project concept and feasibility is the first step towards accomplishing the goal. Various tasks are done during this phase, like defining the project scope, selecting project managers and stakeholders, calculating an estimated budget, ascertaining the deadline of project completion, and identifying potential risks.

Step 2: Planning

The next move would be to create a blueprint of the plan as to how to go about it. This will include the scope of the project, required resources, financial strategy, communication methods, execution plan, and proposal for ongoing maintenance. A well-designed project plan also helps in attaining proposals from the key stakeholders if required.

Step 3: Executing

Executing the project requires proper resource allocation to ensure that the project is being carried out within a specified budget and timeframe. All the tasks are being done on time and in an organized manner. 

Step 4: Monitoring and Control

During this process, the project managers, team members, stakeholders, and whoever is associated with the project closely monitor the growth of the project to ensure that it is on the right path and developing the way it has been planned. Monitoring helps in detecting errors in the project so that the right action can be taken at the right time to eliminate any risk.

Step 5: Closing

The closing process starts once the project has been completed and delivered. In this phase, the stakeholders validate and approve the results of the project; the project manager would end the contracts with the people temporarily associated with the project like suppliers, consultants, etc. The final project report with complete analysis is generated, which helps planning business strategies in the future.

We have listed six different types of project management methodologies, which you need to choose from depending on your project type and desired results.

Waterfall Project Management

This method is one of the oldest project management methods. This style involves working in steps, where the next step depends on the previous step. Until one step doesn't complete, another one cannot start. This method is ideal for projects requiring predictability and a structured way of working. 

Agile Project Management

Agile project management refers to breaking down the entire project into small sections. Each section is delegated to a different team so that the entire project can be completed quickly. The benefit of using Agile methodology is that you can address the project's issues as and when they arise, which ultimately saves resources and helps you deliver a successful project.

Scrum Project Management

Scrum is the subset of agile project management, which is based on time-based pieces. Scrum follows the method of delivering incremental builds to the clients every 2-3 weeks. This method is used in projects requiring rapid changes.

Kanban Project Management

Similar to Scrum, Kanban is another variant of agile project management. Instead of time, Kanban focuses on the number of tasks in a project. It is a method in which the tasks are divided into small groups, streamlined, and reduced, if possible, to complete the project as quickly as possible.

Lean Project Management

Lean project management is based on a customer-centric approach. It is all about how the tasks in a project can be trimmed to deliver more value, the best quality, affordable, and timely experience to the customers without wasting time, resources, and money. 

Six Sigma Project Management

The six sigma project management focuses on improving the quality of the project results. Contrary to lean project management, where the project results are found less than satisfactory, Six Sigma is emphasized to provide high-quality results for the customers.

• Miscommunication between team members and stakeholders may cause chaos.
• Unrealistic deadlines can cause critical issues for the project.
• Poor team skills and lack of technical knowledge
• Lack of accountability when the team members are not ready to take responsibility for their tasks and roles
• Managing risks such as uncertainty in the financial market, scarcity of resources, or external factors is a challenge.
• Changes in client expectations, and unpredictable demands of clients amidst project

The Project Management system is a set of application tools that help project managers manage costs and ensure that they are completed within the committed time frame and meet the standard quality guidelines. Moreover, it is also used by project managers, users, and stakeholders as a communication, collaboration, documentation, and knowledge sharing tool. It is also used for managing changes like an increase in the cost of a specific product or service and sudden unavailability of particular resources. 

• Easy collaboration of team members and sharing documents on a real-time basis
• Effortless delegation of tasks and feeding instructions to each team member 
• Provide easy access to project status to clients, superior s and management
• Monitor and control project costs, budgets, and expenditures
• Keep track of tasks, deadlines, and human resources
• Streamlines all processes, reduces errors, and increases productivity
• Foresee the future risks and take action at the right time
• Automated emails, notifications, alerts about project information to team members 
• Get task visibility and track time so that the team members become accountable for their roles and responsibilities

Project management software for Construction & Architecture Projects: 

This software is specifically designed to cater to the objectives, processes, and workflows required while building residential & commercial properties. It works by automating administrative tasks, billings, centralizing documentation, and facilitating planning and scheduling. 

Project management software for IT Projects: 

Software & mobile app development companies can deploy cross-platform project management tools that take care of the whole IT project delivery lifecycle. It caters to development teams and helps IT professionals in delivering projects on time. 

Project management tool for Entertainment Projects: 

Producing movies, plays, songs, etc., requires a lot of planning, resources, and time. A project management tool for the entertainment industry helps manage project schedules, timelines, costs, etc., and reduces deviation. 

Project Management Software for Manufacturing Projects: 

A project management system for manufacturing units assists project managers in creating, dividing, and assigning, and tracking work given to production teams. From packaging to the delivery of consignments, the project management application keeps workflows intact. 

Project Management software for the Pharmaceutical industry: 

A project management system helps pharma companies allocate resources, improve decision making, mitigate risks, handle vaccine production projects, and retain regulatory requirements compliance. 

Project management systems for small businesses provide project managers the flexibility to wear multiple hats and control various phases of projects from a centralized dashboard. The tool makes workflows organized, integrates with other tools for efficient management and quick wireframing. With features for advanced scheduling, active collaboration, and tasks automation, project management applications eases project managers' work for small businesses.

Planning and Scheduling: Project management software has tools that help you prioritize, plan, schedule, delegate, and manage projects and related tasks. You can create a project timeline, set up deadlines for clear communication and transparency among team members and clients. 

Communication & Collaboration: A project collaboration software helps team members to share documents, calendars, contact lists, customer data, etc., and communicate with each other quickly in an organized manner. 

Resource Management: The project management tool helps you identify the availability of resources such as liquidity, staff, machines, equipment, and time. It enables minimum waste of resources and maximum output in terms of productivity. 

Project Budget Management: The project tracking software provides real-time updates about your project expenses so that you can take immediate action if unnecessary expenditures impact your projects' profitability. 

Documentation: Your project management system works as a centralized hub for storing and accessing all the documents relating to the projects planned, completed, and in the process. The documents can be retrieved easily for compliance and regulatory purposes. 

Reporting: The best project management tools provide insightful reports that provide complete knowledge about the shortcomings and issues that require quick attention. 

Gantt Charts: A project management tool is also a Gantt Chart software that allows teams to visualize their projects' progress on well-structured Gantt charts. 

Task Automation: Teams can automate simple and complex workflows using the task automation feature. Daily reports, emails, notifications, scheduling, etc., can be automated to save time. 

Some vendors mention the project management software price clearly on their websites, whereas some ask for the detailed company or business requirements before sending the quote. There are two pricing models that project control software providers offer: 

Licensing Pricing model  - In this case, the companies buy the software license straight away from the software providers and host it on their server. It can be either a one-time payment for the software or an annual payment for the software's support or regular upgrades. This option is mostly chosen by large enterprises having security issues and requiring to host the software on their server.

Subscription Pricing Model - Generally, this pricing model is applicable for cloud-based software hosted on the software provider's server. The price needs to be paid for a weekly, monthly, or annual subscription. This type of software is also available on a free trial basis with some limitations so that you can check whether it has features that suit your business or not before purchasing it.

Additional Costs to be Considered

Most of the services are included in the one-time license purchase or subscription price of the project management software. Still, there are some services for which the software providers might charge extra, and those are -

• Software Implementation-Some software providers charge extra for implementing the project management software or integrating with other systems already being used in your organization. These charges may vary depending on the software provider and complexities at the time of implementation and integration.
• Training - Many software providers provide free training but some charge for this service, especially if the training is held at your site.
• Support - Most of the time, email and chat support offered by software providers are free of charge. Some software providers offer advanced support like a dedicated service manager, which can be on a chargeable basis.

Besides investing in project management software, you can also go for free project management software such as Paymo, Backlog, or Open Project. There are many free and open-source project management software available online such as TaskJuggler, FreedCamp, ProjectLibre, etc. 

Selecting the free or paid project management tool depends on the features you require and the budget of your organization. And if you are planning to invest a huge amount in project planning software, make sure it has a trial version so that you can check whether it works as per your business strategies or not.

If you are looking forward to investing in paid project management software, there are several solutions available, ranging from $2.99/month to $99/month. Here, we have given two examples with minimum and maximum price packages for your selection as per your budget. You can also go through the complete list of the best project control software here to view their prices, as well. nTask is a project management tool at a starting price of $2.99/month. You can also add unlimited users if you opt for this package. They also offer other packages with upgraded features at $7.99/month. Basecamp is one of the most all-in-one project management solutions that can replace a bunch of tools like Asana, Slack, DropBox, and GSuite. It costs you $99/month for your team. Whether you have 5 people or 50 people in your team, the price remains the same. 

With so many project management apps available having different features, it might become overwhelming to select the one. So, below-mentioned are the factors to consider while buying a project management software - 

Easy to Collaborate

The best online project management tools you select should be easy for the project manager, team members, and stakeholders of the project to collaborate so that they can work together, whether on-site or remotely, to accomplish the common goals.

Easy to Customize

You cannot change the workflow of your entire organization to accommodate a new system. Just make sure that the business project management software you buy can be customized as per your business logic and requirements.

Ability to Scale

Your business cannot be stagnant even for a while, so why should your project management software be? Select the project management software whose features can enhance as your business grows.

User-Friendly

Many project management tools are difficult to use and require several days to train people using it. You need to ensure that the project management software you choose should be quick to learn and easy to use.

Real-Time Reporting

Reporting on a real-time basis would help you in determining the problems on an instant basis and take the required action at the right time to avoid failures and losses. Thus, you need to ensure that your project management software facilitates you to pull out the reports relevant to your projects' current status.

Data Security

Having software with excellent functionality can be a good choice, but if your data is not safe, then that functionality is of no use. Ensure that the project management software you select uses the right encryption method to keep your data safe from malware attacks.

Ability to Integrate

The project tracking system may have to work with other systems in your company used for communication, accounting, sales, operations, etc. Ensure to invest in the project management software, which has the ability to integrate with the tools already being used in your organization.

Includes Timesheets

The timesheets would allow you to monitor whether the tasks are being done on time or not. You can get early warnings relating to project delays and the negligence of any of your team members. Thus, you need to opt for project management software that includes easy to use timesheets.

All-In-One System

There are many tasks involved with project management, and using a different tool for each of them would become complicated, time-consuming, and prone to errors. Ensure that you choose an all-in-one project management system, which allows you to complete multiple tasks from a single interface. It should be a combination of workflow management software, task management software, project planner software, project scheduling software, collaboration software, project tracking system, and Gantt chart software. 

It is always better to upgrade with the current trends in project management to run a sustainable business. So, here are some popular trends which you need to consider while selecting a project management software.

IoT in Project Management 

Project management using IoT can help team members collaborate and communicate without involving manual efforts, resulting in improved response time and reduced errors.

Artificial Intelligence in Project Management 

AI-enabled project management applications empower project management tasks and workflow, enhancing the overall process and approach to managing projects.

Focus Towards Real-Time Data

The project managers can now pay close attention to real-time data to overcome the challenges before they arise. Analytical tools in project management help in collecting real-time data reflecting the results accurately.

Managing Remote Team 

It is no more difficult task to manage people and remote teams from different geographical locations with the help of user-friendly project tracking software available these days.

When it comes to picking the best project management system, even the most skilled and highly-qualified project managers can get confused with so many tools available in the market. GoodFirms is the most reliable B2B research, review, and listing platform where you can access the list of Best Project Management Software with unbiased reviews for each one of them. 

GoodFirms includes listings of only the world's most efficient and well-performing software solutions and service providers. We follow the efficacious and visionary research process to develop the only best software solutions, which you can sort based on reviews, ratings, features, pricing, and your business requirement.

• GoodFirms includes more than 60000 software and services providing companies with their detailed information.
• GoodFirms has around 30k+ unbiased reviews on different companies and software, helping you make your selection process easier.
• The critical and authentic research conducted by GoodFirms is based on the industry's trends and technologies, and so is trusted by several reputed companies and software vendors.

The trends in project management software continuously change, and businesses also keep on upgrading their processes. The project control software you select can be the driving force of your success in the future. If you have experienced the changes a project management software has brought into your business or transformed your approach, bringing positive results, please do share your experience with us in the comment section below.