What features a perfect project management tool needs to have?

The increased complexity, pressing demands of projects have forced more and more businesses to look for such solutions that would allow them to manage their projects in a smoother and faster way. The traditional methods of managing projects like conducting meetings, using pen and paper, etc. are not that much efficient for managing modern day projects. These consume a lot of time besides jacking up the costs. So businesses need better and easy solutions for managing them.

Online project management software are technology based solutions which enable enhanced, streamlined project management. Being web based, these tools can be accessed from anywhere in the world. These enable rapid, convenient communication, improved task and project management.

But businesses deciding to go with a web based project management tool, have a difficult choice to make. With so many project management solutions available varying in terms of functionality and features, choosing the one that best suits a business’s needs requires serious thinking, critical analysis. As every business operates in its own way, caters to a specific industry and has got unique needs, it looks for a tool that is able to best fit into its workflow and scheme of doing things. A solution which serves a particular business well, may not be that much effective for some other business due to its different kind of needs. There is no such tool that would work well for all kinds of businesses.

But there are some truly useful general purpose project management solutions for businesses irrespective of their field of operation and their way of working. These have been devised considering some common benefits which different kinds of businesses seek for improving their workflow, productivity. These benefits consist of proper task, project and team management, improved collaboration, effortless file sharing, precise project progress tracking, convenient reporting abilities besides others.

We are providing here businesses a good idea about which specific features their perfect project management tool needs to have. This will act as a guide, making it easier for them to evaluate a given project management solution before adopting it for use. So they can decide whether it fulfils the criteria for their perfect tool or not. If satisfied, they can go ahead with it. If not, they need to look for an alternative.

1. Discussions
These enable convenient communication, sharing among team members, others involved in projects. Discussions are threaded conversations covering important topics at the same place for a better understanding. Members use them for putting forth their ideas, discussing over issues and giving feedback.

2. To-do lists and tasks
To-do lists and tasks enable proper description, listing, assignment, scheduling, management and execution of multiple tasks in a project.

3. Events and milestones
Events and milestones feature helps to describe various events, milestones and set key dates for them in the calendar. So these can be properly tracked. Events can be meetings, appointments, activities, etc. Thus a business is able to know about its timely achieved, upcoming and delayed milestones. Subscribers added to the events get informed about them in advance through reminders. This ensures their timely conduction without anyone missing them.

4. Gantt charts
Gantt charts provide a visual timeline for starting and finishing of tasks in a project. Through them, the exact level of progress achieved at tasks and a project’s overall progress can be accurately assessed. It is easy to recognize what is falling behind in a project, so necessary measures can be taken for putting a project back on the right track. These also enable establishing dependencies among interdependent tasks.

5. Reports
Reports provide a true picture of projects. So a business is able to know which of its projects are lagging, where they are falling behind and how much they are lagging. So corrective measures can be taken for their proper execution. Reports help to analyse projects by providing data in the form of text, tables and charts. These improve project planning.

6. Files
All project files can be stored in a single centralized location and readily shared among members. Files can be better organized into into separate folders and subfolders. A project management tool should support integration with popular online file storage services like Google Docs, Dropbox for smooth file management.

7. Proofing
Online proofing tool enables rapid, convenient feedback over designs. So designs can be easily reworked upon and approved fast. This leads to timely delivery of error free designs to clients, saving costs and boosting productivity of designers.

8. Time tracking
It enables proper tracking of time spent in performing various project tasks. So it can be known who spent how much time at a specific task. Thus a project’s time can be productively utilized. Also clients can be billed accurately as per the total number of hours spent in their orders, assignments.

9. Notes
Thoughts, ideas and writeups can be conveniently gathered through notes. Notes promote collaborative writing among members. These can be employed for creating plans, providing meeting details, developing ideas and in various other ways. Different kinds of notes can be put into separate notebooks for easy identification.

10. Chat
Chat enables distantly located team members to connect fast, discuss over things quickly, clearly and informally. They are able to communicate, collaborate in real time. Old chats get automatically saved in the chat history which can be referred later.

11. Casper mode
At times, businesses have to maintain confidentiality while collaborating with their clients. Casper mode helps to protect a team’s online identity by assigning members alias names

12. Email integration
Email integration enables sharing of every interaction. Whenever an update is made in a project, email notifications are sent directly to every involved member even if members use different email clients like Gmail, Outlook. etc.

13. Personalize
Personalization allows businesses to customize a project management tool as per their need. They can use a color, theme or logo of their own choice. Thus they are able to create right impact on their clients, others through effective branding.

These above stated features should be there in your perfect project management tool. The solution you are looking for, may not contain all of these features but still this can be a useful reference. If the tool being assessed by you has got most of these, then you can easily decide in its favor.

Basecamp, ProofHub, Asana, Trello are some of the truly efficient project management tools containing some of the notable features mentioned in the list. But you can always widen your search to other available tools as well. You can rate an application for its usefulness to your business by referring to this list. If you think, it fulfills the criteria for your perfect solution, then it is the time to end your tool search just then and there. Only you are the best judge for your business. Your decision will determine how smoothly your projects get managed with your chosen solution. This will have a great bearing on how your business progresses in the times to come.