Top selection of project management tools for startups

It is known that some startups thrive and bring profit while other become non-functional. Have you thought why? Great teams achieve success through effective communication, which is at the heart of team co-operation.

Project management can be defined as putting all the pieces of product requirements together into a strict plan. This is the essence of every side of a successful business. Speaking in particular, communication is associated with the culture of the organization. Thus, startups use project management tools to build relationships, interact, and keep the work on track. Besides, this software helps to maintain team focused and engaged, this way retaining best talents in the team.

Top selection of project management tools for startups

Right now the market offers hundreds of options for project management tools. They differ in features, pricing models, and integrations. In this article, we will look at the most popular and productive ones. We will give a brief overview of each tool so you can have a better understanding which software can be more suitable for your startup needs.

Asana

Asana was developed by an engineer and Facebook's co-founder, who were eager to improve the productivity of the employees. Four years later the tool became commercial. Today this SaaS tool is well-known all over the world. There are web, iOS, and Android apps for the product. It is suitable both for small and big teams. Among its features, we can find tasks and sub-tasks, calendar, file attachments, setting deadlines, posting comments and mentions as well as reporting, and much more. Asana has integrations with other software like Google Drive, Slack, ZenDesk, Dropbox, etc.

Speaking about pricing there are four options: free, premium, business, and enterprise. If your team is not more than 15 people and you are just starting, then you can use Asana for free. The premium option gives extra features like dashboards, rules, milestones, custom fields, and more. The business plan includes all features of Premium subscription and adds goals, custom rules, workload, and more. For huge organizations, even more features are available. Some of them are data export and delete, premium support, custom branding, and so on.

Trello

Trello appeared on the market in 2011 and still remains popular. It is a simple, yet effective kanban board-like solution. Trello helps to organize a team's work and track the progress of the project. The tool has all the necessary features like file attaching, to-do lists, mentions, due-dates, etc.

There are three types of subscriptions in Trello - Free, Business, and Enterprise. The free plan has limits of boards (up to 10) and a limit for the size of files attached (10MB). Business and Enterprise do not have limitations for boards and the attached file can be up to 250 MB. Additionally, they have extra features like advanced check-lists, board templates, and more. Some extra features for the Enterprise plan include SAML SSO, public board management, etc.

Jira

Jira is a giant in the project management and issue tracking tool market. It is known all over the world and used in about 190 countries. This software has lots of features and integrations.  Jira  can be very helpful if you need to manage several projects and teams. There are three types of boards - Agile, Scrum, and Kanban. Good reporting features will assist the manager to make comprehensive reports for the stakeholders or the board of directors.

Like all the other tools Jira has several subscription options. The free version will suit small teams with up to 10 members. Paid options include automation tools, insights, more or unlimited storage, and additional support.

G-Suite

Like Slack, Google Workspace is not a task management tool. However, it is an essential part of the project organization. Formerly G-Suite, and now Google Workspace is a package of tools for productivity, data storage, and collaboration. The most famous products are Gmail, Google Drive (with Docs and Sheets), Google Meet, and Google Calendar. Corporate usage allows changing domain name with the name of your organization. With the help of Google Workspace, your team will be engaged in effective collaboration.

There are no free plans for organizations. The cheapest option starts from $6 per user per month. More expensive options provide more space for each user on Google drive, recording options for calls, and enhanced security.

Slack

If we speak about task management tools, communication is usually carried out inside a particular ticket. But what if the team needs to discuss something outside a task? Here comes Slack - an additional software for team communication. It provides real-time chats and calls. A useful feature to be highlighted is the channels. Various channels can be created to divide discussions by topic, like #design channel, #new-feature-discussion, or #quality-assurance. Channels help to avoid information noise for other team members. For example, a team of designers doesn't need to get distracted by every tech discussion of back-end developers. This way a #backend channel can be created and only API developers will participate in this conversation.

Integrations are very handy because your team gets instant notifications if they are mentioned in a ticket or if there is a new issue introduced, etc. Another useful thing is the search, which will quickly help to find a specific message or conversation.

The basic plan has limitations for a number of messages, integrations, and file storage. Paid options introduce customizations, wider calls options, compliances, and varied administration.

Conclusion

To be a successful start-up it is worth using a project management tool from the very beginning. It doesn't matter whether you start with a team of 1 or 5 people. Making a habit of good planning will pay you off in the future. However, keep in mind that having a task management tool doesn't guarantee you 100% success. It is necessary to remember that well-described tasks with clear acceptance criteria are essential for productive work.

Before choosing a tool we recommend you to get acquainted with the abilities of each, and think about what features you need now and which you may need in the future. Also, ask yourself a question, how easy and affordable it will be if you need to scale.