21 Interesting Project Management Tools 2016

Thanks to some outstanding project management tools out there handling your project has never been easier. Whether you are nibbling away at a personal project by yourself, managing a small project team or working on a full portfolio, you now have access to a wide range of products and services that will cater to your specific needs.

Over the last couple of years I have seen a new trend appearing: productivity. Everybody is talking about it, with Microsoft being the most vocal out there, or so it seems to me. Also there has been an increased focus on collaboration and team work.

Project Management Tools – The List

So without further ado, lets review some of the better solutions out there. With features ranging from simple task lists to work spaces, conferencing and multi project managers.

Asana

Very well designed, focused on managing task management and team workflows. Feature rich, developed using HTML5 will give you a very fast and responsive application. The free Asana version will support up to 15 team members. On the other hand, no offline capabilities which is to be expected from this type of project management tools. Also not recommended if you work on graphic intensive projects.

Asana is specialized on helping teams manage workflows, and it’s the perfect tool for the job. A beautiful design, fluid, interactive, and a generous free version, puts it among the most powerful project management apps on the market.

Costs: Premium account will come up to $8.33/user/month. For smaller teams the price will be reduced.

Azendoo

Azendoo helps teams synchronize their work and improve productivity. It is an intuitive and easy to use application at the cross between three worlds: collaborative tools, task management and project management. Azendoo joins a select club of project management tools that provide a new way of getting things done as a team.

With features like: integrated emails, real time communication, notifications, file sharing, Evernote, Dropbox, Box and Google Drive integration, mobile support, profiles, it will deliver on it’s promise, Teamwork Smarter, Faster, Better.

Pricing: Azendoo starts at $7.50/user/month with a yearly subscription and $9/user/month if you opt for month to month subscription. Plus they offer a 30 days free trial.

Casual

Casual is a cloud-based project management tool with a simple yet practical approach, visual workflows. It shows you all the information you need at a glance. Helps team members plan and execute tasks as visual workflows, similar to how we usually organize ideas in our mind. More complex solutions will require users to create endless task lists, complex charts or use limited visual boards, but here comes Casual, with its shockingly easy way of managing projects, ideas and tasks as simple mind maps.

Ideal for small and growing project teams
, non-project managers, repeatable projects.

Pricing: $9/month for 2 users and 2Gb storage, $29/month for 5 users and 5Gb storage, $49/month 10users and 10Gb, $99 for 25 users and 50Gb, and $189/month for 50 users and 100Gb. All plans include unlimited projects, SSL encryption and daily backups.

Evernote

Evernote is a work space app and service that allows users to jot down notes, collect information, and use them to present information in a meaningful way. It is on par with other project management tools to run on most platforms with support for Windows, Mac, iOS and Android. Perform tasks from anywhere and at the same time have your work space organized and in sync with your team.

Key features like web clipper, reminders,  share notes, collaborate on files, split notebooks will provide you with a very interesting solution for everyday task management.

Evernote is for individuals and teams that need an effective way of collecting information, creating work, and presenting without location or platform limitation.

Pricing: Evernote has both free and premium services. The Basic service provides basic notes taking as well as syncing of all devices. Plus £19.99/per user/per year, Premium £34.99/ per user/per year, Business £96 per user / per year.

HyperOffice

HyperOffice is a tightly integrated online collaboration service that offers a wide range of features such as:

• customizable portal,
• simple task management,
• easy and secure document management,
• online calendar functionality,
• mobile support,
• and user management configuration,

all designed to offer you a fully hosted alternative to building your own Microsoft Exchange and SharePoint servers.

Sporting a modern appearance, a good online help system, and a very responsive support team, quick to acknowledge the problems and also fixing them. On the other hand, you can run into minor UI bugs and some complex settings for the average user.

Pricing: Core $5/user/month, Enterprise $12/user/month or A la Carte where you are encouraged to contact for pricing.

Kanban Tool

Kanban Tool is a visual collaboration tool that lets users share files and workflows, analyze and improve processes, to help teams function more efficiently. You can manage multiple projects simultaneously, and have the ability to communicate with your team members in real-time. Furthermore, Kanban Tools will provide insightful and useful analytical information that help you make informed decisions.

Use Kanban cards, colors, swim-lanes, tags and due dates to compose work on Kanban board. Analyze and constantly improve your process to increase business efficiency.

Pricing: Free for 2 users/2 boards, Team €3,5 user/month, Enterprise €6,5 user/month.

Microsoft OneNote

Microsoft OneNote: the application that integrates, organizes, and shares files in a sleek, totally searchable system. Who knew keeping track of all aspects of your projects could be so easy?

The Microsoft Office Suite has long been utilized by project managers for its wide range of functionality, organization, and accessibility. While praises of Project, Excel, and Word have been sung for years, OneNote has been often overlooked and under appreciated for its usability as a project management tool.

Sporting the same design language as Office, OneNote offers to replace your notepads, meeting agendas, file cabinets, and email archives with its electronic “notebook” system that can organize, search, and share every aspect of your project records from to-do lists to video clips. Cross platform, available on most devices, PC, tablets, phones, and boasting features like: shared notebooks, task planner, web clipping, OneNote is a versatile solution for personal and small projects.

Pricing: Part of the Office 365 suite and starting at $5 user/month it’s very competitive.

Smartsheet

Smartsheet joins a select group of project management tools as a cloud-based project management solution offering an integrated platform, while combining essential tools for work management, file sharing, and collaboration. Making use of a familiar spreadsheet interface that requires a minimal learning curve, it enables organizations to coordinate work, from a product launch to structuring budgets or deal pipelines.

Flexible and customizable, you can mold it to your liking, instead of you adapting to it. With all your tasks, files, documents, and processes in one centralized place that your team and collaborators can access anytime, anywhere, running your day-to-day operations doesn’t have to involve numerous phone calls, email or SMS exchanges to get things done.

Smartsheet offers automated workflows, Gantt charts, file sharing, sub-tasks, dependencies, a deep integration with Google Apps and Drive, mobile and tablets apps, and much more.

Pricing (when paid anually): Basic £7/user/month, Team £10 user/month, Enterprise Contact them for quote

Teamwork

Teamwork brings a large feature set to a simple project management tool. The key features are team collaboration and email integration capabilities.

Teamwork makes me think of Basecamp, for those who are familiar. The look and feel is similar. However, there is a major difference: Teamwork has more features. Actually, Teamwork is packing more features than most simple-to-use project management software out there. It has a central file management system, messages and shareable notes, email integration, Google Drive integration.

You may run into some issues with the way task management is handled, no way to import and edit tasks in bulk, which can be slow and inefficient.

Trello

Trello is a collaboration/task management tool that allows users to organize things into cards and boards, Kanban style. It provides a flexible and visual way of organizing projects. Trello is available on a wide variety of platforms (Android, Web, iOS, Kindle Fire, and Windows) and devices.

Trello is ideal for everyone who has tasks that need proper management. This can include, but not limited to freelancers, startups, small and large companies. Users are connected across devices and are to work as a team. Companies that have a team of people working would benefit largely from this program.

Key features: real-time collaboration, fast search, developer API, email notifications, activity log, lists, back-ups.

Pricing (when payed anually): Free, Business Class $8,33 user/month, Enterprise $20,83 user/month.

Wimi

Wimi is an all-in-one collaboration tool for businesses. Wimi proposes dedicated work-spaces that will give you access to: file sharing & drive, task management, calendar sharing, instant messaging and video conferencing, issue tracking, notifications and more.

Wimi is easy to implement, and its intuitive interface guarantees high usage from its users and added value to your business. Intended as many other project management tools for freelancers, small and medium business, non profits.

Pricing: Doc 8€ user/month, Team €12 user/month, Enterprise €15 user/month.

Wrike

Wrike is best when it comes to project management and email integration. While everyone else tend to move away from email, Wrike users are embracing it.

It focuses on individual task management, and proposes we view tasks as mini projects. While that may be easy for users who are just working on tasks that are given to them, it falls short on the project manager’s perspective. Things become messy when you start to get a lot of tasks and folders into Wrike. Be aware that this product also comes with a steep learning curve.

With features like: email integration, desktop notifications, very good file management, a full text search engine, Wrike can offer an interesting solution.

Pricing: Free for 5 users, Professional starting at $49/5 users/month, Enterprise available after quote.

Breeze

Breeze is a simple project management tool that will allow you to see your projects and tasks in one place. Visualize your workflow through simple and effective boards.

Breeze excels when it comes to task management by giving you a wide array of tools to work with: upcoming tasks view, deadlines, feedback from team, discussions, easy to use editor, calendar integration, time tracking to name just a few. Unfortunately it doesn’t come with a Gantt chart tool, but it does offer a calendar view that is similar to what you would normally see in a Gantt chart.

Pricing: Freelancers $29/5 users/month, Small Business $59/12 users/month, Large Team $129/ 30 users/ month, Enterprise $249/ 60 users/ month.

Basecamp

Basecamp has been know as the user-friendly tool that is the ideal set of project management tools for handling simple projects. Basecamp keeps project management simple, but sometimes, too simple. The service is simple to use and very quick to set up, but it’s not as robust as other online based project management tools.

Key features: flexible with a selection of plug-in services, handles visual assets well. The not so good part: doesn’t foster communication within teams, some third-party apps require additional services to connect.

Pricing: $29/unlimited users/month, $79/unlimited users and clients/month.

BinFire

BinFire was originally developed as an online file hosting service with some collaborative features, but since then it morphed into a sleek and complex project management software. Designed for flexibility and to suit a wide range of industries, Binfire can support many different project management methodologies, Scrum, Agile, Waterfall, and work-breakdown structure.

Key features include: great task management, interactive Gantt, bug tracking, resource loading and portfolio management for managing multiple projects. Also they have a very good support team. Recommended for startups and small businesses.

Pricing: Basic $19/ 6 users/ month, Pro $49/ 12 users/month, Biz $129/ 30 users/month, Corp $390/ 100 users/month, Enterprise $690/ 300 users/month.

Conceptboard

Conceptboard is a collaboration app for distributed and cross-functional teams working visually on projects in product development, product design, and business and service design. Focused on images and visual communication, Conceptboard is where teams come together to innovate, discuss, and present their products and services.

Key features: chat/messaging, contact management, content management, cooperative writing, discussion boards, document management, email integration, group calendars, synchronous editing, task management, version control.

Pricing: Team $28,5/ 3users/month, Enterprise starting at $590/ 10 users/ month.

Flow

Flow provides project management tools specially designed to simplify teamwork. As the name suggests, it is well suited for organizing projects, delegating assignments, prioritizing tasks, scheduling due dates and collaborating with team members.

Available to both public and private sectors, it provides a project management tool with many perks. Flow provides project and design strategies as well as client representation. It puts a ‘fresh spin’ on traditional strategies with a wide variety of applications.

Pricing: Starter $19/ 3 users/ month, Studio $59/ 10 users/ month, Team $129/ 20 users/ month, Business $229/ 30 users/month, Corporate $399/ 50 users/ month.

Microsoft Office 365

Microsoft Office 365 provides a huge array of project management tools to keep your teams better connected and centralize their project information and communications. Somehow Microsoft has managed to cram everything in there, Sharepoint Online, Skype for Business, Exchange Online, Social Networking, OneDrive File Storage and Sharing, Word, Excell, Powerpoint, OneNote, Sway online, full featured search engine, all for $5/user/month.

There is even a new addition under the name of Planner. Planner offers people a simple and highly visual way to organize teamwork. It makes it easy for your team to create new plans, organize and assign tasks, share files, chat about what you’re working on, and get updates on progress. Planner can be used to manage a marketing event, brainstorm new product ideas, track a school project, prepare for a customer visit, or just organize your team more effectively.

Cross platform, available on most devices and a huge list of addons available, place Office 365 in a great position to challenge other, maybe more established or specialized, project management tools out there.

Podio

Podio is an online tool for workplace collaboration and project management. It is something like a social network for businesses, and a little like a project management platform, such as Basecamp or even Asana, while somehow managing to be more.

Key features: flexibility, easily customizable with the ability to build custom apps without having to know code. Some little oversights: no archiving ability for completed projects, lack in time-tracking features and a limited free account.

Podio straddles two lines, online project management and business social network. It’s one of the most comprehensive tools for small business communication and work management out there.

Projecturf

Projecturf is an application aimed at helping professionals manage projects and collaborate with team members and employees effectively. With a lot of simple, functional, and convenient features, it allows users to do productive project management, share files, and assign tasks and complete their workload efficiently.

This app keeps projects, tasks, and files neatly organized and accessible at all times within multiple work-spaces. With Projecturf, tracking and monitoring project development from inception to completion becomes simple.

Communicating is made easy compared to other project management tools, but if you spend much time out of the office, the absence of a mobile app could be frustrating.

Pricing: Basic $20/ 3 projects/ month, Team $50/ 30 projects/ month, Business $100/ 80 projects/ month, Enterprise $200/ 100+ projects/month

Wiggio

Wiggio is a free, online toolkit that makes it easy to work in groups. Developed out of frustration with working in groups by its developers, Wiggio focuses on simplicity within group communication. You will have 6 tools at your disposal: calendar, folder, meeting, poll, messages, links. And that is all you need to be honest.
Wiggio is free to use.

Finally the end. It took a while to create this project management tools list. Please leave your comments below.

Image courtesy of Freepik.