Top 10 Project Management Tools for Small and Medium Businesses
Managing a business is not a simple task. It requires efforts, collaboration and communication with the overall team that enhances the workflow. As you are in the starting stages of business, managing your tasks at regular intervals is key to skyrocket your business. Managing multiple tasks cannot be done manually. You will need a tool that balances your work, reminds you of the important tasks and meetings. This is where project management tool comes to action. A project management tool can increase the efficiency of work.
Knowing briefly about project management,
It is the process of inducing established principles, procedures and policies that will guide you to find conceptual pathways throughout the process. Project management or PM Ensures that the whole project is completed in such a way that it meets all the standards delivering a great outcome. Risk management is necessary in order to maintain the difficult situations that may cause delays and rescheduling the projects.
Components of project management
- Define why your project is necessary
- Look into the project requirements estimating the quality of deliverables
- Secured agreement
- Develop and implement a project plan
- Motivate your team to excel in their tasks
- Manage the changes, risks and issues in the project
- Close the project in an appropriate manner
Here are the 10 project management tools
1. ActiveCollab
ActiveCollab fulfils all your marketing needs allowing you to have full control over your marketing needs. You get notified immediately when you have a due work. Establish a process that works well for both you and your clients. Create a workflow and never miss an element. Organize and track your teams work.
Features
- Work and collab
- Collaborate and communicate
- Organize
- Track and Analyze
Price
$7/month with all the features
2. Basecamp
Got too many things scattered and don’t know how to work on them. It seems hard to work on when things aren’t organized. Basecamp camp can be your saviour. It increases accountability and helps you to communicate effectively with your team holding everyone on the same page. You can create a to-do list and distribute the work among your team. This will remind you about overdue tasks. Add notes and comments to the attached files directly. Message boards will allow placing a conversation about a topic on a single page.
Schedule your projects, this displays the dates and time for your to do’s and projects. Integrate with Google Docs and upload files with a simple drag and drop. “Campfire” is a Basecamp’s real-time group chat where you can instantly have a talk with your team.
Effortlessly work with your team and client in a single place. With Basecamp you do a lot more like the direct message, email forwardings, and track records.
Price
$99/month/ unlimited users
3. Trello
Get most of your work done with Trello by working collaboratively with your team. Organize projects and in a compelling way with its customizable cards, lists, and boards.you can add comments, attachments and due dates to your files. It is a handy tool with the collection of all your previous data.
Integrate with the apps into your workflow and meet up with your team needs. Collaborate with your team from any place you are as Trello is compatible with the mobiles too. It is available on the App store as well as google play. Trello is a free project managing tool with all the benefits you need.
4. Smartsheet
Smartsheet will allow you to plan, manage and automate your work. Get to know of your team ideas and enhance your workflow. Provide your organization with a management tool that can induce a lucrative workflow. It is armed with grids, calendars, dashboards, cards, portals, forms, automation, integrations tools and control centre.
Manage your work and automate your workflow. Are you Launching a store or planning for an event? Don’t worry. Get everything organized in your smart sheet. Integrate with your favourite enterprise tools and apps that are required for your work.
Features
- Multiple views into your work
- Attach and collaborate files
- Integrate with leading chat tools
- Integrate with your mobile applications
Price
- Individual – ($14/month)
- Business – ($25/month)
- Enterprises – you need to quote a price.
5. Teamwork
Organize and achieve more with Teamwork. Focus your work on a big picture. Irrespective of team size, set goals, see with whom your team is working with and what they are working on. Remind your team about your upcoming tasks. Teamwork is a simple tool that You don’t need any specific methodologies to get your work done. Organize in a most effective manner and get the results desired.
Features
Plan
Get a Gantt view of your projects that gives you the vast view of your projects, highlighting your milestones. Breakdown your workload by dividing them into categories like task and subtasks and allocate the task to your team. Give your team a clear vision about your goals and milestones. Assign a team leader for each of your projects that increases the accountability with the clarity.
Collaborate
Collaborate with your team and grant permissions for your team and decide when and how your notifications are sent. With the advanced privacy settings, you can specify the access rights to your users. Use the messaging feature to communicate and follow up with your team. Save your files all in a place to determine progress clearly. Add project notes and observe the changes by comparing with the original versions.
Deliver
Determine your workflow with the dashboards and provide your team with the workload by assigning tasks to your team. Group your work into categories and tag them to find quickly. Manage risks that are associated with projects and make them visible to your team. Create a default template to track the time spent on specific tasks.
Report
Track the milestones reached by your team to improve the visibility. Save your project information with the filters and save them for future use. Create dashboards to analyze the metrics and track your work with activity timelines.
Price
- you can claim a free version for 5 users
- Pro version ($9/month/5users)
- Premium ($15/month/5users)
- Enterprise services are billed annually
6. Clarizen
Clarizen will allow you to simplify and benefit your work. Determine your goals to accountability. Increase work effectiveness as you can opt for different work styles and hybrid methodologies that can empower your business. It ensures the visibility and flexibility to make any alterations in the schedules and budgets.
Collaborate and share the information. You can realign the shared information and take the required action. Clarizen project management is a free project management tool.
7. Monday.com
Plan, organize and track all in a place. Hook up with your team by using simple onboarding features. As different team perform different tasks design workflow with vast flexibility. Monday.com will allow you to manage all simple and complex tasks with ease.
Customize your dashboard to generate an overview of your work. Find a template that is compatible with you and create a workflow that you need. Use columns for easy visibility and track time to see who’s working on what. You can also add locations, numbers, text and links. When you’ve set everything, share your workflow with your team and allocate them with a specific work. Keep all your files, tracks and checklists in a place and view them when required.
A feature called “kanban” will allow you to plan the templates and ensure that the tasks are performed on time.
Price
- Basic – $4/user/month
- Standard – $5.1/user/month
- Pro – $10.02/user/month
8. Project manager
Project manager will provide you with the flexible project view to perfectly collab with your team. Kanban allows you to manage work with drag and drop templates. Update your projects in real time by using “Gantt charts”. Assign tasks to your team. Add start and end dates to track the projects in real time. It is compatible with both mac and windows. It equips you with the perfect managing, scheduling and collaboration tools.
Plan your projects with ease by using interactive Gantt charts. Reschedule your tasks with drag and drop templates using kanban. View and update your tasks either on the mobile or on desktop. Add comments to the files to keep all the project information together. You can collaborate and manage tasks with collaboration tools provided. Managing your team is made easy as you can see who is fully satiated with tasks and who are available. Integrate with the sheets to manage your time. Share the timesheets with your team as they can notice the amount of time they worked. With the real-time dashboards, track projects accomplished and the team’s progress on all the tasks.
Price
- Personal – ($15/user/month)
- Team – ( $20/user/month0
- Business – ($25/user/month)
9. Zoho projects
Get all your work done in the prefered time. Plan your activities, manage and collaborate with your team and get your tasks accomplished on time with Zoho Projects. Timesheets will allow you to manage your miscellaneous tasks to simple manageable ones. Create blueprints to automate your work process. You get the detailed insights with the Gantt charts and with which you can visualize the performance of your tasks.
Easily track the working and non-working hours in a timesheet. Track the workflow and fix code changes. Collectively work with your team on the documents, projects with the online documentation tool. Integrate with other apps like Google, slack and other Zoho apps.
Features
- Task management
- Social project management
- Manage charts and reports
- Track timesheets, and invoices
- Timely reports
Price
- Standard – $150.23/ 1-6 users
- Express – $480.73/ 1-15 users
- Premium – $1021. 56/ 1-20 users
10. Asana
Asana will allow you to organize, plan and structure your work that would remunerative for your business. Set goals and share task goals with your team. Follow up with the work in each stage of execution. Create plans to make everyone aligned with the goals. Map your tasks and get notified with the deadlines. You will get a screenshot of the amount of work done by your team. Get your team notified with the rescheduled tasks.
Price
- Basic – Free for individuals
- Premium- $9.99/month/user
- Business – $19.99/month/user
- Enterprise – Quote a price
Conclusion
Like the adage, In any business or anywhere great things are achieved by a team. Managing your team is not something which can be done manually. You will need a managing tool that manages your business right from creating a workflow to generating reports. Choose a project managing tool depending on the number of employees to complete your tasks on time.