Project management tools are time management tools - but on steroids. Tools such as these are ideal for small businesses or consultants/freelancers who juggle multiple projects, complex projects and/or work with multiple teams or clients. Project management systems eliminate redundancy and promote communication, accountability and increased efficiency.
There are literally dozens of project management tools available online. Listed below is a collection of those tools well suited for the small business or busy freelancer/consultant.
1. Central Desktop
"Empower your business to work smarter. Central Desktop's cloud-based social collaboration platform revolutionizes how people connect and share information to drive profitable business results."
BusinessWeek voted this tool “Best of the Web” for collaboration. This is a robust and intuitive tool. It generates a community feel. A nice feature is the ability to stay connected with team members using Twitter-like status updates, discussion forums, blogs and comments. They offer a FREE version as well as premium versions.
2. Thymer
"Thymer is an absurdly simple web based project management tool. Thymer has a novel one-page-design, uses Natural Language Processing to figure out what you want, and has a lightweight, intuitive and powerful interface that makes common tasks as simple as humanly possible."
This is a simple project management tool. What makes this tool different is its use of the "natural language process" in its design. For example, you can write "due Tomorrow" and the system recognizes when that is and creates a calendar item on the appropriate date. There is a FREE version, but it is space and feature limited. The cheapest package starts around $10/mo.
3. DeskAway
“DeskAway is a web-based project collaboration software that provides teams a central location to easily organize, manage and track their projects & work. For people who want to move away from email/ spreadsheet-based collaboration.”
DeskAway’s online collaboration tool is comprehensive in scope and offers an intuitive way to track tasks, milestones, issues etc. with every project. It has a social media type feel to it. This tool is packed and offers FREE and premium versions.
4. 5pm
"5pm is an online project management software that makes team collaboration easy. Keep and share your projects, tasks, notes and files, track progress and time, send alerts, generate reports - all in one place."
5pm is another great all-in-one time management/project management system. It offers all the features of other systems and is easy to learn with a simple interface. I especially like that you can export data in RSS and iCalendar feeds or connect to Google Docs. The lowest price subscription is around $20/month, but this offers considerable data storage and five projects.
5. ClientSpot
“ClientSpot is a Web-based service designed specifically for freelancers, virtual professionals, and small businesses with remote teams to collaborate on projects. ClientSpot brings together all the pieces of your client and team interactions, from project and task management to file sharing, time tracking, and calendaring.”
This tool was designed specifically for the small business. With that in mind, its features are well suited for those professionals who need to collaborate online. I especially like how intuitive everything feels and the mini charts available to identify how many budgeted hours are left per task. No free version. The lowest paid option is around $15 per month.
