Top 20 Best Project Management Software – By 360Quadrants

Project management software assists project managers and teams fulfill customer requirements and manage time, budget and limits on applicability. However, with several choices available, it can be challenging to choose the right tool and customers may not know where to start. Online project management software is now utilized by many small to medium-sized companies throughout various sectors. This kind of program utilizes cloud-based technologies which are provided as Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) through application service providers.

360Quadrants, the most granular comparison platform, has released a quadrant on Best Project Management Software to help businesses make quicker and more informed decisions. 360Quadrants are generated post analysis of companies (product portfolios and business strategy). Quadrants will be updated every three months based on market and regional analyses and developments in Project Management Software market. 360Quadrants also list the top 10 best Project Management Software.

360Quadrants combines inputs from various industry experts, buyers, and vendors, and conducts extensive secondary research inclusive of annual reports, company press releases, investor presentations, white paper, and various directories and databases in order to rate the companies in every quadrant. 360Quadrants conducts an in-depth SWOT analysis and accurately analyses the companies considered for evaluation. This helps service providers in learning about new opportunities and areas where they lag behind their peers. It also helps clients in choosing the most appropriate vendor for their requirements.

Augmented Reality Solutions Quadrant Highlights

360Quadrants covers 45 companies evaluated in the Project Management Software space which can be categorized as Visionary Leaders, Innovators, Dynamic Differentiators, and Emerging Companies.

Asana, Smartsheet, Wrike, Airtable, Zoho Projects, Trello and Monday.com have been identified as visionary leaders as they have established product portfolios and a robust market presence and business strategy.

Oracle, SAP, Apptivo and Workbook have been identified as innovators as they have focused product portfolios, but a mediocre business strategy.

Linkd, Teamwork, OpenProject, Redmine, Nifty, Squish and Breeze have been identified as emerging companies as they have a niche product offering but poor business strategy.

Flow, Orangescrum, Float, MeisterTask and Swit have been recognized as dynamic differentiators as they are largely dependent on their competitive R&D activities

360 Scoring Methodology

Top Companies in Project Management Software will be rated using the following methodology -

1.       A highly experienced team of researchers and senior analysts conduct extensive research to generate a list of vendors (competitors).

2.       A patent-pending algorithm is used to collect inputs from key stakeholders—industry experts, buyers, vendors, and 360Quadrants analysts—based on criteria for Product Maturity and Company Maturity.

a.      Criteria under Product Maturity include breadth and depth of product/service offering, product features and functionalities, product differentiation, and their impact on customer value.

b.      Criteria under Company Maturity include geographical footprint, partner ecosystem, financial stability, and client coverage or sector footprint.

3.       Approximately 20+ in-depth parameters will be considered for research for the Project Management Software market. These parameters will be updated every 6 months to ensure latest developments are taken into consideration.

4.       A weight is assigned to each stakeholder based on information gathered pertaining to the above criteria as well as inputs from stakeholders. These inputs follow the order of priority given below:

a.      Buyers

b.      Industry Experts

c.       360Quadrants Analysts

d.      Vendors (Competitors)

5.       The inputs are analyzed, and a final rating is assigned to each vendor (competitor).

6.       After the finalization of ratings, each vendor is placed in the most relevant quadrant based on their score.

Challenges of Project Management

Challenge #1: Keeping Teams on the Same Page

Managing a broadly distributed workforce poses a big obstacle for project managers. Holding the teams on the same level will interactively get items to pass. Every part of the team should realize precisely what’s going on, what they need to do and what they are working for.

Solution: Each project has a timeline and a team that works for that task. Stay on top of the timeline and understand what deadlines are coming up to. Understand who is working on what portion and receive notification of activities moving from one point to the next, keeping things in balance.

Challenge #2: Inadequate/poor communication

There is always an issue when there is a lack of awareness, however there is a problem when there’s too much information getting around and things can’t be evaluated. It leaves the team unsure how to put their efforts into it.

Solution: Use project management software (PM) to consolidate paperwork, and gather all interaction mostly with project. This provides a transition audit trail and improves accountability through the prioritization of activities.

Challenge #3: Inaccurate task time estimates

People appear to overlook the expense, time, and danger while overestimating benefits even if they have the opposite experience. When teams and leaders fail to account accurately for the time needed to perform different tasks, it leads to time overrun of the project. Estimates of incorrect work time are also a result of a much bigger problem of leaders struggling to grasp the best usage of capital or the level of efficiency.

Solution: Project Management software can help in tracking of time and it also helps in eliminating the guesswork of the time estimates for a project to be completed. Due to this, task time estimates will be accurate and the companies will be able to identify the bottlenecks. Thresholds can be implemented for the team to get task completed on time.

Challenge #4: Poor workflow management

Workflow planning is a vital planning component which facilitates the management of change when projects differ from proposed ideas. Workflows help to create clarity and enhance transparency, as teams know what they are accountable for, who signed on to it, and where it goes next. Failure to create workflows contributes to implementation inconsistency, as well as inadequate coordination.

Solution: There are different tools that can be used to map business processes and the project schedule of a project, as well as solutions that help automate the workflow stages. The software for project management would include functions for workflow configuration, process approval control, and task management.

Top Free Project Management Software

All solutions for project management are not similar. For creative professionals certain agile project management methods are fine. Others are project management tools explicitly for advertisers. While some, including building project management tools, are oriented towards the complexities of vertical industries.

The best method for any user is largely based upon the workflow and preparation paradigm of the team or organization. The summary that is outlined here contains any project management software with some free offer. They will only support one individual or one initiative but they are services that are completely safe. However, scaling also requires maximum expenditure. Some of them are:

1. Trello
2. Asana
3. Smartsheet
4. Wrike
5. ClickUp
6. monday.com
7. Airtable
8. Teamwork
9. Zoho Projects
10. Aha!

Upcoming Trends

It is reasonable to look back at the major trends that have influenced the project management industry over the past five decades, such as the globalization of discipline and the eruption of methods, techniques and practices used in projects. Thinking forwards, new developments begin to evolve, but many of them already have a major effect on how project managers are doing their job. Some of the trends are as follows:

1. Constantly Changing Digital Technologies
2. Importance of Change Management
3. Risk Management have higher importance
4. Increased Organizational Collaboration
5. Shifting, Globalized Gig Economy
6. Greater Focus On Data
7. Growing Importance Of customer centric Design
8. Increasingly Competitive Landscape
9. Increasing Business Value Of Soft Skills
10. Expanding Automation and Artificial Intelligence

Special use case: IT project management

IT projects frequently require a special guiding principles and techniques to move between completion stages and to give those associated the right amount of accessibility. To that end, several production, support desk, and QA teams are using dedicated tools for IT project management. IT project management software typically provides a heavy emphasis on agile methodologies relative to conventional PM methods, and a collection of apps that directly target developers and product managers:

1. Bug tracking: Capture, record, and track the status of defects in a software development process, whether it be a bit of software for organizational use, a customer-facing program, or software marketed as a commodity.
2. Product roadmaps: Agile project managers should build roadmaps that can help their team see the larger picture and move towards a specific set of priorities.
3. Backlogs/stories: Build assignments as user stories relevant to a specific function or issue; team leaders take stories one at a time from the backlog to automate work-in-progress and increase efficiency.
4. Subversion/Git hosting: Handle code within the project management system, rather than using an outer database.

About 360Quadrants

360Quadrants is the largest marketplace looking to disrupt US $6.3 trillion of technology spends and is the only rating platform for vendors in the technology space. The platform provides users access to unbiased information that helps them make qualified business decisions. The platform facilitates deeper insight using direct engagement with 650+ industry experts and analysts and allows buyers to discuss their requirements with 7500 vendors. Companies get to win ideal new customers, customize their quadrants, decide key parameters, and position themselves strategically in a niche space, to be consumed by giants and start-ups alike. Experts get to grow their brand and increase their thought leadership. The platform targets the building of a social network that links industry experts with companies worldwide. The platform has around 400 total buyers across various markets.

360Quadrants will also be launching quadrants in fields like e-Commerce Platforms, ERP Systems and Marketing Automation Software.