VFS_Agile_PM_527_407Knowing about your objectives, your resources and your risks is part of good project management – unlike crossing your fingers and just hoping you won’t get any surprises. It’s much better to map out possible scenarios and impacts, and go in with your eyes open. Otherwise you may embark on your project, happily oblivious of holes in your plan until you and your deadline disappear into one of them.

Grab Your PMBOK Checklist Here

Sounds like time for a good checklist. The Project Management Institute offers one in the form of its PMBOK – “Project Management Body of Knowledge.” In its simplest form, this lays out 5 different phases or processes, and 10 different areas of knowledge. The 5 phases are:

  • Project initiation – define a new project and authorize its start
  • Planning – detail the objectives, the scope and the action plan
  • Execution – do it! (according to the plan and specifications)
  • Monitoring – track, review, regulate and possibly modify if required
  • Closing – make final delivery of the project, finish the activities above, debrief.

An output from one phase (like a design or a plan) is often the input for the next phase. The 10 knowledge areas are more detailed. They deal with the project management of each of the following:

  1. Integration – unify all the activities for a meaningful, consistent whole
  2. Scope – ensure everything necessary is done, without getting sidetracked
  3. Time – deliver within the timeframe specified
  4. Cost – deliver with the budget specified
  5. Quality – ultimately customer satisfaction and objectives met
  6. Human Resources – organizing and managing the project team
  7. Communications – getting the right info to the right people at the right time
  8. Risk – identifying project risks, their potential impact and how to eliminate or mitigate them
  9. Procurement – bringing in/buying resources from the outside as needed for the project
  10. Stakeholders – meet and manage expectations, and keep stakeholders engaged

And just to add some extra spice, each knowledge area overlaps with some or all of the five processes in its own individual way. Given that human beings typically at best remember 5 to 7 things at any one time, it’s a fair bet that project managers could use some extra help when the possible pairs of items rise to somewhere between 10 and 50.

Advantages of the Project Management App

Project management software can help in a number of ways. Besides addressing the different phases and knowledge areas above and depending on the app in question, it can:

  • Display project management information and alerts in intuitive, graphical form
  • Allow multiple users to monitor or manage specific projects or parts of projects
  • Suggest solutions for managing project priorities or resource conflicts
  • Integrate with other software you use, including word-processing and spreadsheet apps
  • Offer standard project management tools like Gantt charts with easy or automatic updating
  • Enable mobile access for project management within your enterprise or on the go outside.

Top Project Management Apps

Mavenlink’s aim for project management is to help you make it growth management as well. Destined for small to medium sized businesses with plans to expand, Mavenlink puts the emphasis on easy project scheduling and sound financial management of projects. It has facilities for managing projects in different languages and currencies and adjustment of user permissions for each user to see only the project information that concerns him or her. Mavenlink offers Gantt chart timelines to track projects and dependencies, as well as a Chrome browser plug-in for turning emails into specific project tasks.

9b77c18daaec9320d0ab88d13cef6f9f_400x400Wrike

Collaborate, communicate and come out on top, thanks to task-oriented project management. That’s one way to describe Wrike, the project management app that brings project management to the people, rather than the traditional approach of loading it all onto one person or project manager. Project management by email is a central feature of Wrike. Tasks can be assigned via email to build accurate project schedules with an integrated, interactive Gantt chart. The associated ‘work graph’ approach lets people easily collaborate and update project data, with related tasks, schedules, ideas, files and discussion always at user’s fingertips.

e4a1bf8b7e3c65d63190203fa80f97e7_400x400Clarizen

Social collaboration, 3-D project conversations and project portfolio management are just three of the defining features for Clarizen’s project management. News feeds show users the discussion posts concerning their projects, with visibility into connected issues or opportunities. Project team members can also post documents, messages, expense sheets or any other object for a ‘3-D’ view of what’s going on. Risk management and enterprise portfolio visibility lets you manage your projects as a whole to optimize overall strategic advantage and profitability to your company.

icon_400x400JIRA

Coming from a software project management background, Atlassian’s JIRA leverages that experience and knowledge for the benefit of projects in general. JIRA brings an agile approach to let project teams easily manage, update and keep pace with user and market requirements. Detailed backlog information about tasks to be done, intuitive dashboards and custom workflows make JIRA a flexible, powerful way to manage tasks, projects and processes. Visibility is possible for the whole team, with project updates available via email, chat or RSS feeds. Tasks and actions can be captured for project scheduling, and ideas and requirements can also be recorded and integrated into the overall project management.

b91f00c5a10cc4d8368983f4f18f4015_400x400Comindware Project

Comindware facilitates cross-company collaboration within and without the traditional project boundaries. Project planning is simplified and accelerated thanks to Comindware’s innovative project management tools like automated priority-based planning and predictive Gantt charts. These two features allow efficient scheduling and easy planning, so that you can see immediately the impact of changes and reassign tasks to prevent overload. Workflow automation allows you to streamline your processes as well as your projects. Integration with Microsoft Outlook lets users do their project management from an environment they already know and use on a daily basis.

ubgMgz4l_400x400AtTask

The designers and developers behind AtTask know the importance of being able to handle both main project activities and also all the parallel tasks that could otherwise derail project schedules. Tasks can be posted to team members to opt to accept them, rather than trying to simply impose tasks top-down. AtTask also lets teams handle project management to suit a variety of project styles, including Waterfall, Agile and hybrid or proprietary methodologies. The software is aimed at IT teams and marketing teams in particular. However, the facility with which AtTask lets users handle group dynamics and team member empowerment also make it suitable for a wide range of project sectors.

Which project management app is best suited to helping you manage your projects? Click on the links above to get more detail on the application that catches your eye. Alternatively, take a look at the GetApp list of project management software to see these apps and more, and use the handy Compare feature that’s always available…