3 Tips For Choosing The Best Project Management Software

How can a project management software help your business?

First, there's no one-size-fits-all solution, and choosing the right software for your company will take a little research. Second, no one wants to waste time and money. The software you choose for your business has to simplify the key functions vital to your work. Project management software is for businesses that need to have control over:

• Project planning  

Who needs to be involved?

What resources do we need?

How long will it take to complete the project?

• Project organization

Who is responsible for a particular task?

Who works on each step of the project?

Who deals with project requirements?

• Project reporting

How many projects did we finished?

How many tasks are left to finish?

Project management software offers a wide range of features, and you need to understand which are compatible with your workflow, your employees and business. So where should you start?

What does your business need?

What kind of project management or collaboration solution do you need? Project management solutions come in different shapes and sizes, but the one that fits your requirements need to answer the question: Why do I need it for? Whether your projects are internal or external, or whether you need to assign tasks or only need to provide a platform for collaboration, you will narrow down your search. To help you go in the right direction, this is the list of the features to consider:

• Software security and data integrity
• Integration  and other third-party software
• Task management
• Document management and storage
• Project expense tracking
• Budgeting
• Time tracking
• Real-time reporting
• iOS and/or Android app
• Resource management
• Risk management
• Simple and easy-to-use UI
• Vendor support

Project management solutions are built having in mind different business needs, but this doesn’t mean that every business needs all of the above features. You need to know what your business needs to operate best and achieve results as expected, thus compare the project management solutions by creating a checklist based on your needs.

Who is going to use the software?

The best project management software is of no use for your business if your employees don't want to or can't use it.  Who is best suited to decide which software you need? Team members? Project manager? Partners?

If  you are not going to use it as much as your business partners, clients or team members, then you need an input from departments who will be directly impacted by the new organization of work.  Apart from the right features, community support and vendor capability are important to consider.

After you identify your needs and create a checklist to narrow down your options, ask the right people to check out the products and help identify their unique points. Have your team members test whether the project management software is intuitive, easy to use and in line with your work organization. You need a software that suits your needs, not the other way around.

Do you need a software that meets your long term goals?

The best software you can choose should keep up as your business grow, and business are meant to grow. Even the largest companies consider cost-effectiveness of a new software, but for smaller businesses and start-ups, it’s crucial to know what you get before paying for it. Free full-featured trials (some extended up to a month) are a good opportunity to understand and determine what the software can offer.

For geographically dispersed teams, a cloud-based project management software is a good solution because you would want your team to be able to access the data and information anywhere, anytime and on any device.

On-premise solution is a good alternative for companies that want to keep their data in-house. To maximize your profit, it is also good to know whether the software will be reducing costs elsewhere.

At TallyFox we made sure our solutions offer all key elements a small business and a large enterprise needs. We have free test options for you to test them as well. Let us know if you have any questions.