With the right project management tool, you can save you and your team valuable time and money as well as streamline your workflow and reduce stress. Having all your project information in one place ensures deadlines and details aren’t missed, and you’re better able to keep track of who is working on what and what roadblocks they may be facing.
However, not all project management tools are created equal, and this means you’ll need to be intentional about determining which tool will best fit your team’s needs. To help, nine members of Young Entrepreneur Council discuss factors you should consider when looking for the perfect project management tool for your team and how these will help you make the right decision for your company.
Members pictured from left to right.
Photos courtesy of the individual members.
1. The Types Of Projects Your Team Works On
Consider the specific needs of your team and the types of projects you are working on. Different project management tools are designed to support different types of workflows and can be more or less suitable depending on the needs of your team. If working on a complex project with many dependencies and stakeholders, you may consider a tool that offers strong collaboration features, such as assigning tasks, leaving comments and tracking progress. On the other hand, for a simpler project with fewer stakeholders, you may be able to get by with a more basic tool that just allows you to track tasks and deadlines. By considering the specific needs of your team and the types of projects you are working on, you can make a more informed decision about which project management tool is the right fit for your team. – Olufemi Shonubi, EduTech Global
2. Whether Or Not Your Team Will Use It
One factor to consider when looking for the perfect project management tool for your team is adherence. A tool that is easy to use and intuitive can help improve adoption and productivity among team members. If a tool is too complex or difficult to use, team members may become frustrated and may not use it consistently, which can hinder the overall effectiveness of the tool. It doesn’t matter how good a tool is. If your team doesn’t use it, then it does not matter. Talk with your team to understand what tools they like, and integrate the tool into your current processes as seamlessly as possible. This makes sure that the tool gets used on a regular basis and improves your business. – Michael Fellows, Solidity Beginner
3. What Task Your Team Needs Help Accomplishing
Select a tool that saves your team time, produces results and is easy and intuitive to use. Specifically, consider which tasks your team needs the most help in accomplishing—tracking data, budgeting, closing deals or anything else—and look for the tool that can help you sort your information clearly and in a way that all team members can access it, assign tasks, post updates and view project progress. A new tool will be useless if everyone is not trained in how to use it, so set aside some time to create a strong onboarding process to show your staff the new workflow process and all the time-saving benefits of the platform. Once they begin to use it and see how it can help them meet deadlines and accomplish their goals, it will be easier for you to monitor everyone’s progress on projects. – Greg Ashton, GROW
4. How Complex The Tool Is To Use
One factor to consider when looking for a project management tool for your team is the complexity of the tool. The core purpose of deploying the tool is to facilitate operations, not make them more difficult. So, an ideal project management tool for me is one that has no steep learning curve and can be operated by the masses with ease. There’s a variety of tools available in the market with more or less similar features and capabilities. So, what matters to me the most is leveraging the tool to its fullest, and if it takes weeks or months to do so then it’s sort of a deal breaker for me. – Stephanie Wells, Formidable Forms
5. User-Level Permissions Features
User-level permissions are crucial in project management as they ensure only relevant parties are involved in specific project discussions. This decreases overall organizational noise but also provides an additional layer of security since you can set permissions that limit users’ ability to access sensitive projects. You will also be able to invite vendors, contractors, external partners and freelancers into project-related discussions without exposing too much information. – Firas Kittaneh, Amerisleep Mattress
6. How Your Team Communicates
How does your team communicate most effectively? If you are considering a software that has a mobile app that isn’t that great, and your team is remote and in different time zones, you may want to reconsider. Communication is critical for project management. If there is a glitch in the transmission of a message, an update is not made on time or there are team members who do not use the type of device the management software operates on, you are going to run into communication problems. Regularly take the pulse of your team to discover how they are communicating and on what platforms and devices, then find the best project management software that conforms to their existing attitudes and usage patterns. Trying to retrofit communication into a new platform is not your best bet. – Matthew Capala, Alphametic
7. How The Tool Accounts For Team Diversity
Accounting for diversity is my rule of thumb when recommending a project management tool. Projects bring together people with different skills and aptitudes, from sales and marketing to tech, creative, analytics and management. Different roles and levels of seniority need different dashboards and levels of visibility. Some brains work better with lists, others like Kanban boards, Gantt charts or calendars. Utilizing a system that’s flexible and welcoming to different stakeholders is incredibly helpful in increasing adoption and utilization as well as team satisfaction and collaboration. – Mario Peshev, DevriX
8. The Tool’s Integration Capabilities
Post Covid, all of our employees work from home, so we are heavily reliant on software that helps us communicate efficiently within the company and with outside parties and vendors. We also bill hourly, so when a project management tool integrates with our existing platforms, it saves us time and the client money because we only have to enter information in one place a single time. It also automatically integrates with other systems so we don’t have to search for information in different places. Zapier is a software that integrates apps with other apps, so when we see that a project management tool uses Zapier, it’s an indicator that we can find loopholes to get around tech roadblocks. – Givelle Lamano, Lamano Law Office
9. How It Will Help Solve Your Biggest Pain Points
The first step is to really define your project management needs. What are some of the biggest issues your company faces today? Is there a lack of communication between departments? Are projects disorganized and deadlines frequently missed? Is there an uneven workload between team members? All of these pain points, among others, should play a huge role in determining which project management tool will work best for your business. Each tool you consider should meet these pain points, with the promise of simplifying processes and improving overall productivity. If the tool doesn’t solve any or all of those problems, remove the tool from your list and keep searching. – Blair Thomas, eMerchantBroker
