5 Most Used Project Management Software

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Now more than ever, digital project management is key to keeping your business organized and up to date on the latest company-wide activities. Whether you work in-person or remotely with your team, high-level project organization is critical to ensure deadlines are met on-time and you are able to evaluate the success of your various focuses. Remote works are specifically experiencing the negative effects of poor project management – 88% of remote workers face inconsistent leadership and miscommunications with other team members. Understanding the prevalent effect poor project management can have on workers, you want to ensure you are consistently communicating and collaborating with your teams effectively to avoid project burnout.

Offering much more than your typical calendar or email application could ever do, these project management tools can be updated across platforms in real-time for top notch organization. Project management software helps you navigate various projects and their status, making for a more effective overall business strategy.

When it comes to choosing the best project management software for your organization, there are a lot of options to consider. Depending on the size of your organization, the various verticals you manage, your overall reach and more will help you determine which software is best for you. Different options, for example, are better fit for personal project management, while others are ideal for enterprise-wide management opportunities.

In general, however, there are some project management software options that shine across all businesses and industries. Multiple organizations take advantage of these project management software options, making them the most used software choices to date. They are highly customizable, allowing you to merge various types of projects and activities to best manage your organization’s projects effectively. Here are five great project management software options to help you organize your business activities:

1. Hive

First on the list, Hive integrates multiple functionalities to give you the all-in-one project management experience. The software is flexible to you – you can change how you view different projects to best fit how you like to keep yourself organized. Gantt, calendar, table views and more are all available for you to take advantage of when utilizing Hive for your business. These options allow you to choose a view that works best for your overall team, making it simple for everyone to stay on track.

Hive also allows you to streamline your organization’s communications activities, pulling your work email into the platform to allow for single platform management. Through individual projects, you can assign tasks and make comments for your team members to keep everyone on track and up to date on the latest information across focuses. If you need to have a quick conversation with team members, Hive also enables Hive Chat, giving you the ability to drop specific tasks right in the chat function for immediate action.

Hive is extremely compatible with other applications as well – the software integrates with Slack, Salesforce, Microsoft Teams, OneDrive, Quickbooks and so much more to function as a one-stop-shop for all your project management activities. This minimizes the need to access different applications for your varied project needs. You can be confident in your overall management using Hive for your business, ensuring everything you need is located in one place.

Hive offers a Base package at $12 per individual per month. Individuals can enable specific add-ons, including timesheets, security and analytics for $4-$6 extra a month depending on the add-on. For organizations that wish to take advantage of Hive, they also offer an Enterprise package that is enabled with all available add-ons and varies in price depending on the size of your organization. To learn more about Hive, visit their website here.

2. Microsoft Project Management

By now, many of us are highly familiar with Microsoft’s various products available for organizational use. It is easy to find a Microsoft tool that fits the exact needs of your business and can easily integrate into your organization’s everyday tasks. Microsoft Project Management Software is no exception – this tool is a popular choice amongst many businesses big and small.

Another highly flexible tool, Microsoft Project allows you to customize your own personal view, as well as get a look at the “bigger picture” of your organization’s various projects. This is particularly helpful for larger organizations with separate projects that intersect at various points. Microsoft Project gives you confidence in your organization’s overall structure and allows for long-term planning.

Microsoft Project also enables analytics views of your various projects, giving you the ability to track progress by integrating analytics related to number of tasks completed, overdue, time spent, percentage completed and more. This gives you a snapshot of your overall organization’s progress in real time, making it easy to make predictions on where your organization will be in future time intervals. From here, you can evaluate which projects are performing at or above expectations, and see which projects are not meeting the mark with the opportunity to reevaluate.

Microsoft Project has both cloud-based and on-premises solutions available to fit your organization’s specific preferences. The cloud-based solutions have 3 plans available that range in abilities offered. The cloud-based plans start at $10 a month for each user. The on-premise solutions start at $620 for the standard package, which does not include collaboration tools or advanced features. To learn more about Microsoft Project, visit their website here.

3. Asana

Many organizations across wildly different industries can benefit from leveraging project management software. Asana project management software is a highly popular project management solution specifically for larger corporations across a variety of industries. Asana is a particularly great choice for project management focused in engineering, marketing, sales and human resources industries. Asana offers tools to assist you in planning and tracking marketing campaigns, streamlining operational practices, support deal closures and customer relations, and strategize the building and release of products. Across these fields, you can tailor your project management platforms to reflect key priorities in your business and ensure all your employees are clued in on the most updated pieces of each project.

Asana comes with a breadth of features, including the ability to break down projects into tasks and subtasks for smaller and more manageable project completion processes. This is helpful to manage tasks in a more detailed level, The software also integrates forms and approvals to streamline your processes and ensure projects are completed as soon as possible, with any issues immediately identified and worked through easily. The software gives you the ability to create custom project templates that fit your organizational preferences, allowing your team to manage projects in ways that best work for them.

In addition to the breadth of capabilities offered through this project management software, Asana also has the “Asana Academy”, which includes multiple interactive courses and webinars to help learn about what Asana has to offer and how to use each tool to its fullest capacity. These in-depth courses range from beginner how-to’s to advanced tips and tricks to help organizations maximize their use of Asana.

Asana offers four tiered plans, starting with their Basic plan which is free to use. For more advanced features, you will need to take advantage of their Premium, Business or Enterprise packages depending on the size of your organization and which capabilities you are looking to use. To learn more about Asana and what the software has to offer, visit their website here.

4. Trello

Another widely used project management software, Trello is ideal for managing your personal projects. It digitizes the concept of a personal to-do list in a customizable layout to keep you organized in both your personal and professional life. Tasks are laid out in cards for easy-to-view tasks, which you can share with others for collaboration. From simple everyday tasks list, to in-depth marketing campaign launches, Trello has you covered for your various project management needs.

Trello can be highly personalized as well, allowing you to add custom backgrounds and photos to your project management. It is simple to use and view, providing the perfect solution to any individual regardless of their technical know-how. When collaborating with others, Trello also allows users to leave notes on different tasks to keep everyone on track and organized. It also has capabilities to track progress so you can evaluate where a project is at a glance.

Trello is ideal for users who do not have any coding knowledge. The software’s automation is done by the built-in automation tool, Butler, that helps to minimize the amount of repetitive tasks you do within your project management. As you use Trello, Butler will remind you and your team of upcoming due dates, create custom buttons to move your processes along faster, schedule assignments amongst your team, and much more to make your Trello experience richer.

Trello is another tool that easily integrates with tons of other applications, including Slack, Dropbox, Google Drive and more to help organize all your tools and communications in one place. This is particularly helpful for internal organization.

Trello has three packages available, starting with their Free plan best for individuals and small teams. To take advantage of more unlimited capabilities, they offer a Business Class and Enterprise plan depending on the size of your team. To learn more about Trello and its uses, visit their website here.

5. Airtable

Finally, Airtable is another common and intuitive project management software option. Airtable allows you to first create your projects in bases, giving you the opportunity to take advantage of different views that fit your needs best: including a grid, form, calendar, Kanban, Gantt, and gallery view. You can assign different properties to each column, allowing for high-level organization that fits different types of data perfectly.

Airtable also has easy-to-use automation capabilities, allowing you to integrate different sheets focused on various projects for better overall organization. Beyond simple organizations including populating other sheets with data, you can also set automations to send weekly digests, post to various social media platforms, send emails and slack messages, and much more. This gives you the opportunity to manage your projects outside of Airtable itself. These capabilities will help you minimize the amount of repetitive tasks amongst your team, allowing you to focus on higher level projects for longer periods of time.

Additionally, Airtable offers different applications within the software, including charts, pivot tables, organization charts and much more. Depending on the needs of your specific organization, these tools can be key to customizing your project management to reflect exactly what your business needs. Airtable also has scripting capabilities, giving you the freedom to create custom scripts for organization-specific needs within your management platform.

Airtable offers four different platforms, beginning with their Free plan that offers unlimited bases and up to 2 GB of attachments per base. For more data per base, you will need to take advantage of their Plus, Pro or Enterprise plans depending on the size of your organization and the amount of data you are looking to keep within your Airtable account. To learn more about Airtable, visit their website here.

The Bottom Line

There are plenty of project management software options available to choose from for your team. While this can be overwhelming at first, these five software choices are guaranteed to help you organize your team’s overall projects in a way that works for you and your team. They are popular amongst many organizations involved in various industries as their top choices for project management software.

To decide which option is best for you, you will want to consider the size of your team, the amount of automations necessary for various projects’ management, and the types of applications you are looking to integrate into your overall project management platform. From here, you will be able to narrow down options that best fit with the various needs of your organization. If you choose any of these tools, you can be confident your project management will soar and your team will be more organized than ever before!