Every phase in project management, from project planning and implementation to final delivery, requires effective techniques. At every stage of a project’s lifespan, project management software is essential for organizing and managing various components of a project.
The entire process takes efforts from every team member in order to function effectively and deliver a high-quality product on schedule. Project managers and leaders put a lot of work into organizing things for this.
The effects of quality and response times may affect the entire team, let alone the corporate image and company culture, with even the smallest informational error or mistake.
You may avoid these dangers and inefficiencies by using a project management tool, which will also guarantee that your project is finished on time and to the satisfaction of your clients.
Let’s talk about what these tools are and how they might be of service to you.
Project management software: What is it?
A tool for project planning, resource allocation, work scheduling, and improved team coordination is project management software. Additionally, it gives project managers, users, and stakeholders the ability to handle documentation, quality control, budgeting, and administration.
A project management tool is made specifically to increase team productivity and guarantee projects are delivered on time and to the highest standard. Project management software often has the following features:
- project management
- Task scheduling
- distributing resources
- Monitoring progress
- Making a road map
- Tracking bugs
- Budgeting
- Ensuring data privacy and security
- Release strategy
- Analytics and reporting
Why is project management software necessary?
Project completion can be difficult for organizations with several ongoing initiatives and large teams. Your attention is needed for a variety of responsibilities, including creation, planning, execution, and delivery. And each stage is essential to completing a job of the highest caliber and satisfying your clients, who are the lifeblood of your company.
It takes a lot of time, money, and work to do everything manually. Due to poor project management, there is also a chance that deadlines may be missed or quality will suffer.
The total process of finishing a project is streamlined with the aid of project management software. You may use it to streamline each stage and complete projects on schedule without sacrificing quality. It strengthens your relationship with them, fosters trust, and contributes to the upkeep of a strong brand reputation.
The following are a few advantages of utilizing a project management tool:
Simplifies the process
Throughout the whole project lifetime, you may optimize your process by using a project management application. It will spare you from having to perform tiresome and time-consuming manual, repeated chores. In its place, the tool may automate a number of procedures.
Focuses all data in the tool at one place
There is a chance of inaccurate information or poor project management when the real work on a project begins. Employees may thus feel overburdened by their task, the volume of their files, and the project’s completion goals, which may seem far away.
However, by exchanging information via a powerful project management solution with a centralized dashboard, every team member may be on the same page. In this manner, there are no distractions, misunderstandings, or burnout on your team.
To successfully finish your projects in less time with excellent quality, you may utilize additional capabilities, integrate other tools you already use, assign tasks with ease, plan assignments effectively, monitor implementation, track progress, and monitor other features.
Favors effective communication
Project efficiency issues might be caused by communication breakdowns. Nobody wants misunderstandings or arguments to arise in the middle of the workday (or at any time, for that matter). Email communication is delayed, and occasionally you won’t even receive a response when you urgently need one.
By enabling your team to comment on the project directly, hold constructive discussions, and offer feedback fast while maintaining data security, a project management platform helps to improve communication among your team.
Boosts team transparency
The key to effective team cooperation is maintaining openness inside your organization. If tasks, procedures, and progress are not made transparent to all parties, it creates uncertainty and adds work since processes must be tracked at every stage.
All project participants will be aware of the project’s state and procedures if you have a project management tool by your side. This will offer better transparency. They’ll be better able to plan their work and comprehend what to do next with its assistance.
Makes things more economical
Manual and repetitive tasks need a lot of time, effort, and money. You can plan and organize projects, work with others, and move forward with consolidated insights by using a single piece of software.
You have a wide range of alternatives when looking for the finest project management software. Shortlist software now depending on the size of your team, your spending limit, and your needs. You can choose project management software that is self-hosted or SaaS-based in this case.
The advantages of the former are that the source code is freely used by everyone and that you may alter and distribute it in accordance with your requirements. With the aid of open-source and cost-free project management tools, the product may be improved by adding new features, fixing bugs, etc.
So, here are a few project management tools that are open-source and free to use.
- OpenProject
Agile, effective, conventional, and hybrid project management tools are all available in OpenProject. With the highest standards for data security and privacy, you will be able to protect your private. You may have total control and ownership of the data by installing it in your infrastructure.
You may gain insight into all of your data and how it is stored by using the tool, which is free from outside interference. Your team will be able to operate in an easier, more enjoyable, and productive manner. Additionally, your team will be able to rapidly organize assignments and assign tasks to any team member, allowing them to track their progress and produce superior outcomes.
So that you may interact more effectively, OpenProject includes everything in one location. Shared timelines help partners to conceptualize and develop project plans while maximizing their creativity and experience.
Understanding the scope will help you analyze the specific actions to create a strategy and communicate with everyone about how to go forward and when to deliver the project. Agile teams will measure, learn from, and develop in order to produce work more quickly and effectively with each iteration.
Agile product development approaches like Kanban and Scrum are available through OpenProject. It is a sizable community where developers, open-source enthusiasts, companies, etc. may discover the ideal arrangement to select from a variety of locations and hosting possibilities.
The self-hosted OpenProject receives first-rate, qualified assistance as well as security features from the organization on-premises. Calculate your pricing based on the number of users. For $405 per year for five users, select your application’s support choices and subscription length.
Try the Kamatera platform if you require OpenProject hosting.
2. Focalboard
Are you looking for a Notion, Asana, or Trello substitute?
You might use the open-source, independently hosted project management tool Focalboard. Using the Kanban board view makes it easier to manage, define, track, and coordinate the work across your teams. It comes in two versions:
- Focalboard Personal Desktop: This desktop application is for personal and to-do tasks. To get the best performance and speed, it is a single-tenant that operates on a local server.
- Focalboard Personal Server: This self-hosted server promotes greater teamwork.
To choose project tasks from the various templates, click « add new boards. »
Your preferences may be accommodated by modifying the generated date, priority, sort, filter, and group by options. To modify the group property, you may also move cards between columns. Edit the cards whenever you want to see the list of comments, together with the set of attributes and content.
To open a card, hover your cursor over its title in table views to see all of its cards at once. Every board also features card templates and board templates so you may tailor each one to your squad. Purchase a Personal Server on Ubuntu or a Personal Desktop for Windows on your Mac.
3. Restya
To handle tasks, conversations, to-dos, and other things, use Restya’s open-source project management platform. Restya is a kanban board similar to Trello that provides sophisticated category Extend Restyaboard and a wide range of features like scripts, user styles, widgets, connectors, etc.
They offer an app called MyRestyaboards that works with both iOS and iPadOS. It keeps track of a variety of Restya Boards, and project and job management tool Asana makes it simple to import pre-existing boards.
It’s an online project management solution that lets you rapidly import your work from Kantree, a versatile management tool that facilitates project organization, collaboration, management, and planning. You may also quickly move boards from Pipefy, Taiga, Taskwarrior, Trello, and Wekan to Restya Board.
Every project is managed by its own board, which you may create and manage many boards for at once. Make several copies of a single board with different names and use current templates for immediate and quick launches. Additionally, you may carry out several tasks using the keyboard shortcuts, such voting, opening cards, deleting and adding members, etc.
Provide a single digital platform with projects and descriptions sorted. You can edit, add members, remove members, modify rights, sort, and delete on this digital platform. It also has a more visible structure and an interactive interface.
View basic boards or use filters to view a list of boards and change their visibility to public or private. The cards can also be seen in a list view or a grid style. Restya gives you a calendar view along with several color schemes to make it stand out and be emphasized.
Additional features include Gantt view, report view, member invitation, list view of members, editing visible mode, changing the backdrop, altering textures and patterns, custom background option, automatic subscription, productivity beats, and many more.
4. ERPNext
Through the use of the open-source project management tool ERPNext, improve your everyday working methods. By working together with your team to expedite the job, it enables you to organize your tasks, schedule, plan, and assess the projects.
With a comprehensive perspective of the plan, ERPNext can monitor the completion dates of your projects. By discovering a task-driven method, you may manage everything from a single workspace and streamline the projects.
ERPNext makes it simple to collaborate by letting you divide the project into manageable tasks and distribute them to your team members. Priorities, a defined scope, milestones, and projected dates will all provide you access to the progress of your project and its effectiveness.
Additionally, ERPNext enables you to publish and share multimedia assets including pictures, documents, and videos. Use auto-replies to incoming emails to maintain smooth contact with everyone.
Get up-to-date, accurate information whenever you need to monitor costs and budgets, make better project plans, or check on how the money has been allocated. You may create software for open-source initiatives as well.
5. Taskcafe
With the use of a Kanban board interface, Taskcafe is an open-source project management application that assists in managing various tasks by establishing due dates, adding checklists, and labeling them. You will be able to see each given assignment once you are in the « My Tasks » page.
Added choices include those for personal projects, task comments, task activities, etc. If you’re looking for an alternative to NextCloud, Trello, etc., Taskcafe will fit into your workflow and make managing each project simple. It is in the early stages of development and has a lot of practical and distinctive characteristics.
6. Orangescrum
For your teams to handle agile and straightforward projects, use Orangescrum, an open-source project management application that is both scalable and safe. It enables your team to effectively accomplish a project by assisting you in developing strategies, planning ahead, and putting your strategy into action.
To maximize productivity and the quality of your outcomes, Orangescrum assists you in carefully planning every step. You may effortlessly distribute them in addition to generating project plans and monitor them. When you give responsibilities to your coworkers, it also facilitates real-time cooperation and efficient resource usage. It also provides a variety of practical features that set it apart.
To improve success rates, Orangescrum combines visual project planning with your workflow. Utilize real-time data in your dashboards to gain insights on portfolio performance and activities. Additionally, you may manage financial operations and budgets by keeping an eye on resource costs and project costs to increase profit margins.
Utilize role-based access control (RBAC) and single sign-on to protect your data. For the same task management when outside, Orangescrum is also available for Android and iOS smartphones. Additionally, consolidate your project information for simple access anywhere.
Choose the startup plan for just $9/month for 10 people if you are a company and want to keep track of the work. You’ll get perks like unlimited tasks, projects, Gantt charts, status updates, task reminders, 5 GB storage, and 5 guest users.
7. Taiga
With Taiga, a project management tool with a simple interface and a wealth of functionality for multi-functional agile teams, you can complete your project on time and within your allocated budget. You may use their expertise and work together to set deliverables with your team.
To enable timely completion by each team member, start organizing the tasks and prioritizing the deliverables. Taiga enables you to connect with your team members rapidly to communicate job progress because communication is an important aspect of any management. Allow your team members to see the tasks that have been performed as well as the continuing operations.
You may improve communication among your team members on the project’s current state, resource use, and effort requirements. Its user-friendly UI makes it easier to work and complete tasks with Taiga.
Without requiring a complicated setup before the project, you may modify the workflows and add new features. Taiga additionally provides security, performance, stability, independence, adaptability, and dependability to support you in completing exceptional projects.
Register for free to receive up to 5 private projects, countless public projects, and 300MB of storage. The $5/user/month package is the best choice if you want more advantages.
8. Twake
Twake is an accessible online workspace that enables you to increase organizational efficiency. You may use it to easily interact with your team, invite other users, exchange data, work together on projects, and begin a video meeting.
With Twake, you have the ability to oversee the entire project, add new tasks, move existing ones based on their progress, and delegate work with deadlines to your team members. Your saved and shared documents are readily accessible thanks to its drag and drop file management.
Additionally to easily managing labels and versions, you may modify your files. Set deadlines, connect pertinent tasks and files, preset notifications for the participants, add new team events as needed, and attach video links for conference meetings.
In addition, Twake makes it simple to install any applications you need for your workflow. Files, calendars, and discussions are all completely independent of one another. Any format, including Google Doc, Libre Office, Microsoft Office, etc., may be used to edit the same document.
Because Twake’s database is encrypted, your files are safe. You also have control over who has access to the files. Your whole data set is safely kept in France. It conforms with GDPR and supports HTTPS/SSL encryption for safe transactions.
Use the basic capabilities of this project management tool for free, or make early preparations to receive more.
9. Wekan
Wekan, a project management tool featuring a kanban board, is another free and open-source option on this list. A Kanban board is an unmatched tool for keeping your work organized and can be used for tasks like keeping a to-do list, working in a team, organizing vacations, and evaluating the progress of a project.
By giving you more time to focus on the things that matter most, Wekan helps you increase productivity. On your PC or server, you may install it with only one click. Wekan may be found in 63 different languages and is utilized in many different nations.
With the help of this tool’s real-time user interface, you can control anything. It also supports a number of platforms. You require the bare minimum in order to install Wekan on your computer.
Having 64-bit Linux Snap or Sandstorm, Windows or Mac, CPUs with MongoDB and Node.js, 1GB of free RAM at the very least for Wekan, a system server with 4GB of RAM, and adequate disk space would be helpful.
10. ProjectLibre
ProjectLibre is a fantastic choice if you’re looking for a program to help you with your management tasks.
With support for Mac, Windows, and Linux and the ability to read MS Project files, it is an open-source alternative to Microsoft Project. Additionally, it gives teams the option of multi-project management.
There are 29 languages that ProjectLibre can be translated into, and you may change the language using the drop-down menu. It includes features and advantages including earned value costing, resource histograms, network diagrams, RBS/WBS charts, Gantt charts, PERT charts, and more.
11. Leantime
Leantime provides « lean » project management, as the name implies, which entrepreneurs and startups would adore. From the beginning of the project through its completion, it is intended to function perfectly. The MySQL database is used by this open-source program, which is developed in PHP and JavaScript.
Its features include calendar and table views, Gantt charts for managing milestones, Kanban boards for work management, and Lean Canvas for research boards. It also provides two-factor authentication, different user roles, project dashboards, retrospectives, and reports.
Leantime has Slack, Zulip, and Mattermost integration options. You may also export tasks, milestones, and timesheets to CSV. This utility is offered in English, Russian, Spanish, and Dutch, and it uses a local file system or AWS S3 for file storage.
Conclusion
Software for project management may speed up your work process, encourage better collaboration, and help you save time and money. The above-discussed open-source and free project management solutions should assist you in achieving these advantages so that you may effectively complete each project.
Or, if you’re not quite ready for self-hosted deployment, you may consider managed project management services like monday.com.
