4 great collaboration tools for project management

Collaboration and project management play a key role in the success of a business, irrespective of its domain, shape and size. It is essential for all business owners to understand that initial planning as well as monitoring progress at various stages, predetermined or otherwise, will have a huge impact on the outcome of a project. And this is applicable for every business, especially for small, flexible businesses that depend on fewer resources to accomplish various tasks. For them, these resources could not be in their control and are personnel could be working from remote locations, making collaboration even more important.

With the help of these collaborative project management tools you can assign tasks, manage resources, track the status of your projects, set milestones and deadlines, upload your files, track time spend on each task, send invoices, and more. Better yet, most of these tools allow you to sync with your mobile so that you can manage and control the work from anywhere, anytime.

Here are five of the best collaborative tools for successful project management.

1. Basecamp

A prime choice for businesses of every size and shape, Basecamp facilitates collaboration to make your project management easy. It allows people to communicate with each other smoothly so that you can discuss ideas and issues clearly and openly to deliver projects successfully, every time without fail.

It is designed to keep all your project communication in one single place, meaning you no longer have to depend on emails or dig through messy threads. The features offered by Basecamp include:

• Assign tasks to team members with due dates. You can create to-do lists within seconds.
• Collaborate and communicate with team members and clients alike. Basecamp allows you to share documents and files right from the dashboard.
• There are pre-designed templates available. You can simply select one from Basecamp project templates rather than creating new projects every time, resulting in standardized methods of communication for each project.
• Post messages directly to Basecamp, eliminating cluttered emails

This cloud-based solution runs on secure servers, meaning you don’t have to invest a single dime on IT infrastructure for deploying Basecamp. All you need is a desktop/laptop computer or a smartphone with Internet connection to start using this collaborative tool.

2. Nutcache

Nutcache, an optimum collaborative tool, makes project management as easy and seamless as humanly possible. Designed to meet all kind of business requirements with improving ROI as a priority, this project management tool helps you work smarter.

Using Nutcache’s cloud-based solution, you can better manage, organize, and track your work. Its boards allows you to invite your team members and other collaborators to work together on a task/project, communicate and share ideas and files, create lists and cards, track time spent on an assigned task, create invoices, and more. Additional features are as follows:

• Create projects to assign tasks with due dates.
• Attach files to each project.
• Get insights on projects using 9 graphic indicators designed for analyzing project advancement and ROI.
• Create reports on individual projects.
• Generate invoices and tax summaries.
• Track time by employee/project.
• Get a real-time overview of important data and stats.

Nutcache is also integrated with several payment gateways such as Authorize.net, 2Checkout, Paypal, and Stripe.

3. OrangeScrum

OrangeScrum is a good option for both small and mid-sized businesses, as well as for freelancers. Businesses that are still struggling with project management and are compelled to use emails due to budget constraints will find this tool a great solution to manage their workflow.

Its scrum boards let your plan your resource management and track project progress in a unified and user-friendly way. It also allows you to remind your teams to send daily updates via automatic emails so that you are aware of who's doing what, what's been accomplished so far, and what your need to do next. Additionally, OrangeScrum allows you to:

• Collaborate and work with remote teams.
• Respond to your client/teams’ requirements or queries on the go.
• Use a friendly interface to assign and manage tasks.
• Seamlessly share ideas, questions, feedback and attachments.

OrangeScrum is an apt solution for IT companies, education institutes, health service providers, construction companies and manufacturing units.

4. Zoho Projects

A cloud-based collaboration and project management software, Zoho Projects helps teams get work done faster. Zoho Projects’ planning and tracking features allow businesses to keep their projects on schedule. There are excellent collaboration features to help improve internal and external communication, and keep everyone associated with a specific project on the same page.

Using Zoho Projects you can:

• Plan projects in a snap and organize them using milestones.
• Assign priorities and ownership with deadlines.
• Identify and painlessly fix bugs in software development projects.
• Record and track working hours of your team members, export data and generate time-sheets and reports.
• Create file directly from browsers and tag them with labels to track version history and changes.

Entrepreneurs and managers on the move can leverage Zoho’s iOS and Android apps to track the status and progress of their projects anytime, anywhere.

In Conclusion

When it comes to collaboration and project management tools, web-based solutions are now preferred over those requiring onsite deployments. These tools are help you organize and communicate better, maximizing your productivity and keeping you on top of your projects at all times.

Please let me know what collaboration and task management tools you know and your experiences with them in the comments!