Five Of The Best Project Management Tools For Project Managers In 2021

“Being a Project Manager is like being an artist, you have the different colored process streams combining into a work of art.” – Greg Cimmarrusti

Being a project manager is a kind of thankless job, I must say. No, I am not whining about this specialized job that requires great skill, expertise, and ability to adapt to ever-changing project requirements. 

From overseeing a project from start to finish to creating a schedule and timeline, executing every phase, managing the budget, monitoring the team members, and much more, project managers have too much stuff served on their plates these days. 

Managing multiple things at the same time often stresses them out. You deliver the project successfully, on time, and you share the credit with your team, but one unsuccessful project, and you are solely held responsible for failure. 

That’s the part of the job, so no fretting about it. 

This post is composed with the intention to provide readers with useful information about five of the best project management and team collaboration tools. These are some of the best tools project managers can use today to alleviate their workload by automating a significant part of their tasks and streamlining workflow. 

Using one or more of these marketing software tools, project managers stand to benefit greatly in terms of saving precious time, money, and resources of organizations they work for besides achieving improved efficiency in terms of workers’ productivity and performance. 

Let’s get straight to the point. 

1. Nifty PM 

Nifty PM is a project management and workflow collaboration tool that significantly brings down project development cycles and improves team productivity. NIfty PM combines three powerful components of project management- collaboration, communication, and automation, to deliver milestone-driven progress. Nifty PM offers core features, like project tracking, support for collaboration, and a centralized, shared workspace for all team members. The app improves decision-making, simplifies task management, and turns discussions into actions by making a task out of a message. 

2. ProofHub 

ProofHub is rated as one of the most feature-rich, user-friendly, and affordable team collaboration and project management tools available today. ProofHub offers powerful features in one centralized location so that project managers can have the ultimate control over teams and projects. Whether it’s task management, visualizing workflow, scheduling, online proofing, reporting, or time-tracking, ProofHub gives project managers and their teams all they need at a reasonable price. ProofHub helps improve coordination, project execution, and communication. Simple, flat-rate pricing plans make it pocket-friendly for growing teams that do not have to worry about escalating costs resulting from subscribing to the per-user fee charged by some other software options. 

3. Jira 

Jira is another top-ranked agile project management software used by development teams to plan, track, and release software. The system streamlines the app development process, from initial stages of planning and execution of a project to final stages of completion and delivery. Project managers can create stories, plan sprints, track issues, and generate reports that help improve team performance and create their own workflows. Jira Software allows project managers to create flexible plans, thanks to its support for Scrum, Kanban, and Scrumban methodologies. Additionally, your teams have easy access to critical and actionable insight regarding their agile process through the system’s data-driven reporting. The intuitive interface allows users to easily collaborate and optimize all work processes. 

4. Trello

Trello is a reliable project management system that utilizes boards (representing projects), lists (to track the statuses of different projects), cards (representing tasks), and enables teams to organize and prioritize projects in a fun, flexible, and rewarding way. Cards can be moved around in any order to adjust priorities. When you open a card, you can create lists within it, upload files, or a variety of other tasks. Trello is a highly visual and intuitive tool and feels instantly similar mainly because of its card-based design. The app allows you to manage multiple projects simultaneously with the help of visual ticklers. Using Trello, project managers can keep everyone in the loop, get the most out of each meeting, and increase your productivity with intelligent features that make work rewarding and fun. Teams of every size and type can easily use Trello to organize, track, and coordinate workflows. 

5. Pivotal Tracker 

Pivotal Tracker is a story-based project management system with an easy to use drag and drop interface. Pivotal Tracker is built on proven agile methods. Every team member has easy access to real-time updates of their project and can easily determine how to proceed. Project managers and their teams have a set of dynamic tools to analyze progress, which enables your teams to deliver more frequently and consistently. Tracker's guided iteration planning helps you break down and prioritize projects into manageable chunks so the team can keep the momentum toward delivering. Team transparency takes the center stage with Pivotal Tracker. With a shared, clear view of your team's work, everyone has a real-time, single source of truth. A quick scan explains your team's status, who's responsible for what, and what's coming next. 

Conclusion 

Project management software systems have proved to be of immense benefit for project managers handling teams of any size and projects ranging from simple to complex. However, it’s not that every PM tool would fit your purpose because every team’s requirements are different. 

Analyze your project, understand your team requirements, and then choose an application that offers you more bang for the buck. These five tools are some of the best you can find today and many project managers are already using these to yield great results. 

Why should you be left behind? Go ahead and pick the tool that offers you powerful features, has no learning curve, and pocket-friendly. Get your projects delivered successfully and get the best out of your team without compromising on the quality. Best of luck!