10 tools that not only Project Managers will love

In this article I will try to show you a set of tools that helps in professional project management. I divided it according to the key areas of work: planning, task management and communication.

Usage of appropriate tools in each of these three areas will have a positive impact on the organization of work, help in avoiding common problems and increase the chance of success of the project. It will also make you work much easier and more comfortable.

Planning

Good planning of every projects is vital - check out tools that will make your work much easier to plan.

Productivity software

In many projects PM is responsible for the preparation of such thing as specification, analysis or schedule. In order to productively create such materials they have to choose a proven suite. Basic components of popular packages (text editor, spreadsheet, presentation program) will work perfectly on a day-to-day basis. When it comes to my personal choice productivity software, I recently started working with software from Google. Google Docs not only has all necessary functions, but also allows to share files in a really easy way and store them in the cloud. This gives the opportunity to collaborate on the same document with a lot of people and protects against loss of data on your computer.

Calendar (book)

To plan my own task I use common calendar. To be fair, I only started using it when I came to Merixstudio, but within few weeks I felt weird when I didn’t have it somewhere near me. Right now calendar must always be within my reach and is invaluable during any meeting. I wrote down dates of my meetings and tasks for next few days. During the meetings I also use it to note all key issues.

Calendar (online)

It would be difficult to plan anything in advance without the use of a online calendar. And when you have to book office premises, then it is necessary to get familiar with online calendar. Thanks to it many people can schedule appointments and avoid such mishaps as planning two different meetings at the same time and in the same room. My team uses a Zimbra calendar, which is connected to our mailbox. It allows us to create multiple calendars and share them with all interested parties. Each new term added to a shared calendar is visible to all users, thanks to what we are able to avoid overlapping our bookings.

Notepad

Frequent note-making is one of the useful habits of Project Manager. During conversations with customers and developers or while making analysis and sketches we write down a lot of things. To do it I chose free Evernote. The key advantages of this program are its availability on a variety of platforms and devices (desktop, smartphone, browser) and storing notes in the cloud. The notes are automatically synchronized, so you don’t have to worry about losing them. I can make notes on my computer, edit them on my smartphone and then use in a browser on another computer. With the convenient search engine you can easily find old notes, assigned them to different categories and tag them.

Task management

Working with a lot of people and on a large number of projects can result with chaos - thankfully there are task management systems that keep everything in order.

Project Management System

On the market you can find a lot of very good programs for project management. We successfully use Redmine - this popular open-source solution perfectly suits our needs. Here are the aspects of our work, that are improved by Redmine:

• assigning task to team members,
• control over time spend in projects,
• easy generation of reports,
• convenient creation of project’s 'wiki',
• task categorization.

At the beginning of work with new Client we immediately create new project in Redmine. We assign access to all team members and in the case of Time & Material agreement we also give it to our customer. Then we complement wiki of the project, which should contain all the information concerning design, technological requirements, links and source files. Thanks to that all interested parties have easy access to key data. Then Project Manager creates Tasks and assigns them to the people. Team members mark finished tasks and report time they spend on them.

Redmine is one of the most used application in Merixstudio and allows us to keep everything in order.

Design Management System

An important step in many of our projects is preparation of templates. A typical project includes a dozen or even several dozen designs. Assuming that customers usually want to introduce some amendments, without appropriate software it would be hard to manage all of them. Thankfully with help comes InVision, a system for storing all designs (divided into projects) in one place. Invision allows following actions:

• adding comments to design,
• Managing a status of design (Kanban board),
• marking a status of finished task,
• presenting templates to customers in a easy way,
• easy access to designs for developers.

Communication

Every experienced Project Manager knows the value of efficient and good communication. These tools simplify maintaining proper communication in every project.

E-mail

This is the most important tool of communication between Project Manager and his customer. The uncompromising advantage over other forms of communication is its generality, because everyone has its own email address. In Merixstudio we chose Zimbra as our e-mail software. This application has many useful features such as programmable filters, shared briefcase with files, the possibility of sending follow-ups and very comfortable advanced search engine.

Use the following solutions to maintain order in the mailbox and improve your work:

• create separate folders for each project and program filters to automatically move messages,
• use follow-ups when you want to remember about sending an e-mail in the future,
• use tags (eg. useful, tasks, urgent) to categorize messages in the best way possible.

PS. Checking inbox is one of the first things I do when I come to work.

Phone

An indispensable tool for any Project Manager is also a phone. We use it mostly for conversations with customers from our country and for quick internal consultations. It’s a good practice to talk with the Client at least once a week. During this conversation I always try to summarize the progress and get a feedback. Moreover, the phone comes in handy when I have to take care of urgent matters. You should, however, be careful when you discuss key decisions via phone. After each phone call it’s necessary to send a summary via e-mail. Such a move would protect the project in critical situations.

Audio/video chat

To talk with customers from different countries we use Skype, one of the most popular instant audio/video messenger. Its biggest advantage is that it’s popular - most of our customers regularly use this application. Skype has several features especially useful at Project Managers work. The first is the option of connecting with several people at once, which is extremely useful when we have discuss something with many stakeholders. The second option is sharing the screen, which works really well when we want to show how to use a particular system. I can’t forget about the reliable Skype’s text chat , which is useful for quick communication with customers.

Text messenger

We realize that the most effective form of internal communication is a conversation face to face. However, contacting 50 employees that work on 3 floors could be disruptive without internal messenger. During several years our company has already tried many different communicators. In recent months we started using Slack and we have to admit that was a really good idea. Slack facilitates communication with individuals, group communication and file transfer. We use separate channels for different projects and invite our customers to join them. Additionally, thanks to the search engine we can easily find a specific piece of conversation.

Which tools should you choose?

With the right tools work of Project Manager can be much easier. Of course the choice of specific devices or applications is an individual matter. This article was intended rather to show the areas in which it is worth to use them. Don’t be afraid to test different options - when you find the one that allows you to work as efficient as possible, then you will be able to create phenomenal projects without any difficulties!