It can be tricky to work efficiently in the project management industry. There’s a lot of moving parts, information to keep track of, conflicting personalities, objectives to meet, and expectations to be mindful of. It’s enough to give any project manager a headache.
It’s no wonder that 77% of high-performing projects use project management software. They need a tool to help them stay on top of everything!
If you’re looking for the right project management tool for your team, you’ve come to the right place. We’ve curated a list of the top five project management tools that will help you work more efficiently. These solutions truly are the best of the best, so give our selection a read and discover what they can do for your business.
1. Maze: Rapid, remote testing
If your business needs to carry out any form of remote testing, Maze is the solution you need in your life. Already used by over 40 000 different brands like Uber, IBM, and Greenpeace, Maze helps companies with their testing needs anytime and anywhere. Even better, they can generate insightful, visual reports in minutes.
With Maze, you can develop several kinds of tests. Naturally, they’re all unique and useful in their own way. Some of them include:
- Concept testing: Test out different concepts and ideas so you can collect feedback from real users before the work begins.
- Prototype testing: If you’re ready to launch, take your prototype for a test drive by trying it out with real users. You’ll be able to fine tune your user interface and ux design and feel confident that your finished product will be a big hit.
- Content testing: Make sure your wording, messaging, and general content is flawless by testing it out with your target audience.
- User surveys: It’s always a good idea to carry out user research and deepen your understanding of your target audience. It’s easy to do so while gathering their insights and feedback with Maze.
Best of all, Maze is intuitively designed and easy to use. You certainly don’t need a background in testing or research to wrap your head around their platform. All you have to do is:
- Build your custom test with Maze’s unique, versatile features
- Share your tests with any browser or device by using a simple link in mere seconds
- Analyze your results with meaningful reports and metrics
If you don’t already have a group of testing participants, you can also use Maze’s Tester Panel that’s made up of over 70 000 testers. That’ll take some work off your plate and expedite the whole process so you’ll get results in a matter of hours.
Maze has a free plan that you can use while you’re getting started and familiarizing yourself with their platform. In order to take advantage of their full range of features, you’ll need to upgrade to a paid plan, which starts at $49 USD per month. They also have custom Enterprise plans available for larger teams.
2. Slite: The perfect tool for remote teams
One of the largest problems project management teams face is information overload. Indeed, it can be extremely difficult to keep your essential information organized, disseminated, up-to-date, and easily accessible. It’s also a huge time waster. Tellingly, a 2020 report showed that 80% of project management employees spent half of their workweeks on “rework” caused by poor communication.
Fortunately, there’s project management software like Slite out there to help you with your project management documentation needs. It’s especially handy for remote or semi-remote teams as it helps team members share ideas, save knowledge, and collaborate in a central place that can be accessed anytime and anywhere.
Slite goes further than providing a software that helps with all your documentation needs (which is a great offering in itself). It also helps you learn to write excellent documentation. Whether you access Slite’s technical documentation guide, their knowledge base resources or their release notes tips, you can be sure that their helpful information and experience will take your content to the next level.
Slite also has a fantastic array of documentation templates that you can use to get started. They’re continually adding to their template roster, but here’s a selection of the areas they currently cover:
- Project management
- Customer support
- Marketing
- Sales
- Product
- Design
- Human resources
- Project reporting
It gets better. Slite has a free plan that you can use forever without any strings attached. When you want to use a wider range of their features or create a larger amount of documents, their paid plans start at $8 USD per member per month.
3. Asana: Organize all your workflows
When it comes to project management tools, Asana is one of the most well-known names out there. Nevertheless, we just had to mention it because of the serious efficiency boost it can give your project management team.
Asana has features for just about everything. Most importantly, however, it helps project management teams streamline their workflows so project managers can focus on the big stuff and stop worrying about day-to-day details, logistics, and administrative tasks. It also cuts down on time-consuming, unnecessary communications because all the most important messages and updates are kept in one central workspace.
Here’s a selection of some of Asana’s top features that deserve a special shout out:
- Timelines: Map out your project plan with a visually appealing Gantt chart so you can determine how all your tasks, milestones, and deadlines connect.
- Boards: Plan out workflows, visualize progress, monitor efficiency, and quickly spot problems with a Kanban board.
- Calendar: Create a dynamic, shared team calendar where you can plan, visualize, and structure your work with ease. You can even integrate it with other calendar apps like Google Calendars, iCal, and Outlook.
- Workload: Ensure that employees are neither overwhelmed nor underwhelmed with their workloads while verifying that all projects have the resources they need to get done.
- Forms: Collect feedback and work requests from employees by creating custom forms. They can even be automated to be sent out at specific times.
If you’d like to give Asana a try and see what it can do for your team’s efficiency, click here for information about their plans. They have a free plan that’s perfect for individuals or even small teams. After that, their paid plans start from 13,49 EUR per user per month.
4. Slack: Streamline team communication
Tired of long-winded Zoom meetings, overwhelming team group chats, and messy inboxes flooded with emails? If that sounds familiar, then Slack could be a great communication solution for you and your project team.
Slack aims to bring your whole team together by streamlining communication and removing the need for other kinds of chats, forums, email chains, and voice notes. All your professional messages can be kept in one easily accessible place. It’s an ideal tool for remote teams that rarely meet face-to-face, but is useful for companies who operate in a physical office space as well.
Impressively, a whopping 84% of Slack users reported feeling more connected to their teams.
Basically, Slack works as a chat platform. Its interface is divided into channels based on everything from topics to projects to teams to departments. Within channels, it’s easy to send messages, attach files and documents, and even make audio and video calls. You can also invite people from other companies into channels if you need to.
The easiest way to try out Slack is with their free plan. If you want to use a wider range of their features, their paid plans range between $6.25 and $11.75 USD per month.
5. Airtable: The familiarity of a spreadsheet and the power of a database
Airtable is a truly unique project management solution. It isn’t quite like anything else on the market. Dubbed as a marriage between a spreadsheet and a database, Airtable helps teams create a single source of truth for their businesses and keep track of all their most important data. The result is optimized workflows and a whole lot of efficiency.
Many people are intimidated by the word spreadsheet, but Airtable helps break down that fear. Their platform is approachable, easy to get started with, and truly grows with your business. Databases are customizable and you can choose what you want to include in yours out of a wide range of options. You can also view your database in a variety of formats:
- Grid view
- Calendar view
- Gallery view
- Kanban view
We also love that Airtable has tons of ready-to-connect integrations, so if you’re already using a tool you love, you can keep it in your workflow without a problem. Some of the most popular options include:
- Basecamp
- Dropbox
- Typeform
- Mailchimp
- Google Drive
- Gmail
- Evernote
You can try Airtable out for free, and after that their paid plans range between $12 and $24 USD. They’re already being used by over 200 000 companies worldwide, why not be next?
You’re ready to increase your team’s efficiency
It’s not always easy to work efficiently in the project management world. However, you’ve seen how many innovative tools exist out there that can help save you time, take your workflows up a notch, and maximize your potential.
Whether you want to carry out remote testing, manage project management documentation, streamline workflows, improve team communication or keep track of all your most important data, there’s something for you on this list.
All these tools are tried, tested, and loved, so don’t be afraid to choose one, give it a go, and discover what it can do for your team’s efficiency.