Step up a gear with the right project management tools
What project management tools can your company use?
Today's organisations are increasingly structured around projects. Projects that are becoming more complex and involving more stakeholders.
The consequence? Project managers and their teams have to deal with numerous parameters, while ensuring the success of the project and meeting deadlines.
Planning, resource allocation, task monitoring... only the use of project management tools can ensure the success of your actions. But which ones are they?
In this article, we take a look at the essentials of project management, illustrated by specific examples.
What is a project management tool?
A project management tool is a device, and in some cases software, designed to facilitate the implementation of actions to achieve project objectives and improve performance. This is why this type of tool is both
- strategic,
- and operational.
However, project management encompasses a large number of activities and processes:
- planning the project
- allocating resources
- managing the budget
- monitoring project progress and KPIs, etc.
As a result, there are many tools to support project management. Here are the main ones.
☝️ Note, of course, that tool requirements differ from one organisation to another, depending on the size of its projects, the number of staff involved and the nature of its activities.
What are the project management tools?
Dashboards
By providing an overview of your project, a dashboard gives you at-a-glance access to all the important data. As a result, this tool :
- supports operational activities: thanks to the information visible on the dashboard, you can steer and control the project more precisely, and manoeuvre proactively ;
- supports strategic decision-making: a dashboard is an excellent reporting tool for monitoring your KPIs:
- project progress,
- completion times
- budget, etc. This enables you to compare the actual with the forecast, and redirect your actions if necessary.
🛠️ Bubble Plan is a comprehensive yet simple project management solution, including a dashboard for monitoring a portfolio of projects. This feature enables the project manager or PMO to focus on their key indicators and project weather: they can quickly see whether objectives have been achieved or not.
Bubble Plan
🛠 monday.com is a simple, comprehensive and ultra-intuitivework management platform that facilitates your project management thanks to fun dashboards that are 100% customisable. Thanks to the 15 widgets available, you can create your dashboard to suit your needs: budget, workload, project progress... make decisions based on figures that are updated in real time!
monday.com
Planning tools
Depending on the organisation, planning may or may not be part of the management process itself. However, it is undoubtedly one of the first steps in project management in general.
But what exactly is planning?
Drawing up a project schedule involves, among other things :
- identifying the tasks required to develop the project
- prioritising and linking these tasks together, using the PERT diagram in particular,
- defining their duration and deadlines,
- setting up a timetable or visual aid to represent this planning. A Gantt chart is generally used, as it provides a good representation of :
- the different tasks to be carried out over time
- the overall progress of the project,
- important milestones.
🛠️ GanttPRO is a project management and planning solution based on the principle of the Gantt chart. Among other things, it makes it possible to plan and control several projects at the same time. It also encourages collaborative working and internal communication:
- creation of workspaces
- transfer attachments
- adding comments, etc.
GanttPRO
Resource management tools
Once the planning has been carried out, we need to know what material and human resources will be deployed to carry out the various tasks. This is what is known as resource management, the activity of matching resource capacities with the company's needs.
This can be done using capacity planning, a tool that provides a strategic vision of resource allocation, with the aim of reconciling :
- employee well-being: everyone's skills are put to good use and excessive workloads are avoided ;
- and timely achievement of objectives.
🛠️ Mavenlink is project management software that focuses primarily on resource management. With this tool, you know at a glance which employee is best placed to carry out a given task, based on :
- their skills
- their availability.
Task management tools
With task management, you can concentrate more on operational matters.
A task management tool, or task manager, lets you :
- track the progress of different tasks :
- those that have been completed
- those in progress
- those still to be done.
- assign the right tasks to the right people.
One of the most widely used project monitoring tools is the Kanban method. It consists of representing tasks in the form of labels, which are moved up or down in columns ("to do", "in progress", "to test", etc.) according to their progress.
🛠️ Thanks to Taskworld's timeline, a tool featuring Kanban boards and interactive tasks, you'll be able to visualise your projects more clearly. You'll get an overview of their progress, and your teams will be able to work more closely together.
Time management tools
To manage a project, you need good time management, so you know how many hours were needed to complete certain tasks. This way you can :
- anticipate any delays so that you can readjust your deadlines or resource requirements, for example;
- get a more precise idea of the time required for each activity : in this way, you'll have better control over your future planning.
🛠️ Gryzzly is a project profitability management tool. Thanks to a chatbot integrated into Slack, recording hours worked is easier and more regular, while relying on a non-intrusive reporting system . As a result, companies and agencies are able to control their customer budgets thanks to more reliable and accurate indicators (Average Daily Rate, man costs, gross and net margins).
Gryzzly
Communication and collaboration tools
Project management requires optimum communication and collaboration with all stakeholders, in order to streamline processes and improve productivity.
For organisations, this means being able to :
- exchange information in real time
- share data and files
- work on the same documents
- create collaborative workspaces, etc.
🛠️ Thanks to NetExplorer Workspace, a file sharing and storage solution, you can collaborate with your internal teams as well as with external service providers. In particular, you can use this tool to create shared workspaces, manage access rights and track actions taken on various documents.
Project management tools
What if you could avoid the proliferation of tools thanks to a solution that centralises all the essential project management functions?
There are project management software packages that act as 'co-pilots' for the project manager and the teams, providing an overview of all activities.
🛠️ Have you heard of Jira, the project management software for developers and agile teams? It allows you to prioritise tasks based on the Scrum and Kanban methodologies. But the tool is also good for building roadmaps and generating reports. Teams then have the data they need to adopt the best action plan.
Jira
Project portfolio management tools
If your company is large enough to have a significant number of projects, managing them means having to take an even greater view of the operational side of things (deciding which projects should be given priority, for example).
In this case, it's best to opt for project portfolio management software, or PPM software.
🛠️ Clarizen is particularly well suited to large accounts and multinational companies. It offers complete integration of all needs, from collaborative working to complex project management, by connecting exchanges and documentation with the tasks concerned. Its reporting functions are easy to use, and the tool can be configured independently.
Clarizen
🛠️ SuitePro-G covers the entire spectrum of project portfolio management, with dashboards, time and resource tracking and planning. It helps to align innovation, strategy and operations, and to unite all teams. Its main strength is its pragmatic, intuitive approach, which gives all contributors (PMOs, project managers, IT Departments, etc.) a genuine culture of project mode.
SuitePro-G
🛠️ Triskell is a project portfolio management software package designed for SMEs and key accounts. Its main advantage? It goes further than a simple PPM, positioning itself as a genuine strategic governance tool. It addresses the entire value chain from company management to operations, with a focus on capacity and resource management. At the same time, the software remains easy to use and learn, and its agility meets all your specific needs.
Triskell Software
🛠️ Z0 Gravity centralises your data in a single environment. A highly customisable, all-in-one solution, it manages every aspect of your projects, from your budget and task planning to document management and time recording. What's more, it's quick to get to grips with, thanks to well-thought-out ergonomics and fluid navigation.
z0 Gravity
A free project management tool?
Finally, there are some 'free' project management tools.
Gladys, for example, is a complete solution (task management, resource allocation, task costing, collaborative functions, etc.). But above all, it's free for the following scope: 2 workspaces, 5 guests per space, 2 GB of storage.
If you're looking for free project management software, you'll always come up against constraints:
- limited number of users
- limited functionality
- insufficient storage space, etc.
However, these "free" solutions are often a good way of testing the tool, to see if it meets your needs, before moving on to a paid version.
Gladys
The success of your project depends on your toolbox
When it comes to project management, choosing the right tools is not a luxury, it's a necessity. They enable you to stay on course, coordinate teams and optimise resources.
Whether you opt for specialised solutions like Jira or versatile ones like monday.com, the most important thing is to select tools that are adapted to the size, complexity and objectives of your project.
Take the time to try out different options because, after all, a good project is like a recipe: it's all about the right ingredients!
Article translated from French
Currently Editorial Manager, Jennifer Montérémal joined the Appvizer team in 2019. Since then, she's been putting her expertise in web copywriting, copywriting and SEO optimisation to work for the company, with her sights set on reader satisfaction 😀 !
A medievalist by training, Jennifer took a short break from fortified castles and other manuscripts to discover her passion for content marketing. She took away from her studies the skills expected of a good copywriter: understanding and analysing the subject, conveying the information, with a real mastery of the pen (without systematically resorting to a certain AI 🤫).
An anecdote about Jennifer? She stood out at Appvizer for her karaoke skills and her boundless knowledge of musical dreck 🎤.