Project Management Tools To Stay Organized While Managing Long-Term Projects!

Image source: Pexels Feeling stressed about a project? Finding it hard to stay on top of things?  The great thing about working in the 21st century is there’s an online tool for everything. Managing a project requires you to wear so many different hats, it’s really important that you find tools that a) help you complete each task efficiently and b) are absolutely the right ones for you. They must also be easy to use, and easy for your whole team to get to grips with.  We’ve gathered together a list of the top 8 project management tools available today that will help you stay organized while managing your long-term projects. Additionally, If you're seeking the best Productivity tools, StackGrab is the place to hunt for the best  SaaS lifetime deals.

Communication Tools For Your Team 

Communication is the bedrock of success for any long-term project. Finding the right ways to communicate with your team means finding the right tools, platforms, and channels that assure easy, open, and transparent communication. After all, each stage in a project requires planning, sharing ideas, as well as notifications that let everyone on the team know what’s been done, what’s currently being done - and what needs to be done next. When choosing a communication tool, it’s important to find ones that allow you to communicate in a variety of ways such as video calls, phone calls, and discussion boards.  Here are some of the top-rated communication tools to check out:

• Slack - You can use Slack to create workspaces and gather your team in one place where you can launch private and public channels, host video calls, share files, and send instant messages. 
• Zoom - It’s often beneficial for your team to schedule a video meeting. This is where video conferencing apps like Zoom (which is free to use) come in handy. You can use Zoom to hold group video calls where your team can get together to share feedback and stay in the loop. 

Slack

File Backup Tools 

The thing with projects is that a huge number of important files will be created and shared. But what happens if files are damaged? It could represent a huge disaster that sets your project back a few months. Essentially, a file backup tool is your best friend. It makes separate copies of your files and stores them in a safe and secure place, such as the cloud. In other words, they’re a safer storage space where you can store all your files for easy access, knowing full well a) where everything is and b) that nothing important will go missing.  Here are some of the top-rated file backup tools to check out: 

• Dropbox - Possibly the most famous file backup tool around, Dropbox is ideal for storing your files in a single place on the cloud. You can save and sync them, which makes it so much easier for your team to stay up-to-date with the latest changes to your files.
• Google Drive - An alternative to DropBox, Google Drive is another cloud storage tool that integrates with the entire G-Suite, which means your team can save files in - for example - Google Docs and Sheets - and easily share and access them in the Drive. 

Dropbox

Best Workflow Tools

Workflow tools are designed to help streamline your processes so that you’re able to manage your projects more efficiently. Workflows can be maintained manually, but doing so can create time delays, and they can cause mountains of work to build-up. As such, projects fall behind.  A good workflow management tool should be one that allows you to run your projects more smoothly in a series of steps so that you and your team can go from A to B in a linear fashion without missing anything out. In other words, your projects and your work flow better.

Here are some key workflow management tools to check out: 

• Kanban Tools: One of the biggest benefits of Kanban Tools is that it makes workflow management more visual. This allows you to see at a glance where everyone working on a project is up to, which makes it easier to assess how on-track the project is. You can also use it to analyze your processes and decide what needs changing. 
• Trello: Trello is a super popular workflow management tool inspired by Kanban. It’s visual, it comes with a unique Trello boards concept, and it helps your team plan, schedule, manage and automate their tasks together. 
• ProofHub: ProofHub is an easy-to-use and intuitive workflow management and team collaboration tool that offers a suite of features under one virtual roof. The tool offers users multiple views - Board, Gantt, and Table view, to prioritize their tasks, check their progress, and identify bottlenecks to prevent project delays. Flat-rate pricing with no per-user fee makes ProofHub an ideal solution for teams of all sizes.
• Nifty is the award-winning simple-yet-powerful project management solution that is complete with automated reporting through Project Milestones, Task boards of all types, and resource management. Nifty is also a powerful collaboration tool with built-in Direct Messages, project Discussions (which can serve as a client portal), and two-way Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides.

Trello

Workforce Management Tools 

Workforce management tools differ from workflow management tools in that, while workflow management tools are designed to improve the flow of your processes, workforce management tools are there to help you assign the right team members to the right tasks, create employee schedules, better manage time sheets, clock hours worked - and more.  The overall aim of a workforce management tool is to boost the productivity of a project in such a way that everyone knows exactly what tasks they need to do, and you know where everyone’s strengths lie. Here are some top-rated best workforce management tools available:

• Deputy: Deputy helps form a perfect schedule for your team so that you (and they) know precisely what everyone is doing and when. This improves processes and ensures deadlines are met. 
• QuickBooks Workforce: QuickBooks Workforce is ideal for when you need to stay on top of your teams’ work - how many hours they’ve put in, the projects they’ve worked on, and how much they’re owed. 

Deputy

Final Thoughts 

When choosing your project management tools, it’s a good idea to check their features thoroughly to see if they’ve got what you need. You can also ask your team for feedback to see whether or not this is a tool they’d like, as well as dissect the onboarding process so that you know how easy or difficult it will be for everyone to adapt.  Price should be an important consideration, too, but whichever tools you choose, make sure to keep checking in on your team to see how things are going, what needs to be tweaked, and whether this really is a tool that’s benefiting your projects.