5 Must-Have Features of Project Management Tools

Regarding project there are various objects that require planning and management, so a project manager can be drawn in all these processes. Project management helps us to plan numerous things and to have overall control of the project progression.  Fortunately, plenty of tools are available but it is really essential that a manager should have extensive knowledge about all features that every tool should acquire for efficient software development!

Why is it important to choose the right software? 

This is one of the key points for a manager to practice a sound project plan that should be well-organized and adhere to the most modern methodology. Apart from this, there are many other points that are involved. It is the core duty of a manager to identify project scope, purpose, goals, team roles &responsibilities, hence including everything that is efficient for project management tool. Along with these compulsory functions, we need to consider following features without which your project management fails. Let’s discuss these features that are needed:-

1. Risk Management

It is rare that in a project there can be no risk. Unfortunately, such situations happen throughout all stages of project development and obviously will have an unusual impact on plans. As mostly they have a negative influence but luckily sometimes they can also redirect in a positive way. But anyhow one need to tackle with these circumstances as it has an influence on numerous factors i.e. task’s duration, project progress, deadlines and budget etc. This feature is a must if it is a long-term and complicated project, then it would be helpful to plan and calculate all these risks in advance. However, if a tool can do that it is awesome!

2. Resource Management

This is one of the integral parts of software development projects. Here the main part is the calculation of expenditures along with tasks assignment. It includes all stuff regarding equipment, team and all resources cost. As a result, we can say that it will be much appropriate and valuable to have resource management function in project management tool. When a project manager sets resource cost, so will lead all processes and tasks more efficiently as he/she will be aware of the overall project cost.

3. Task Dependencies & Milestones

We should be aware of this fact that in a project development tasks are associated with other tasks respectively. Thus we can say that tasks are dependent on each other. That’s why a good project management tool should include task dependency functionality. Milestones will help you to mark specific points in a project along with timeline as it helps you break down the complex project into easily manageable units. It is practically part of project management tool as it allows you to get better understanding of tasks progress and also you may rectify strategies for project completion. 

4. Team Collaboration and Social Collaboration

Timely manage and smooth communication during project development is necessary so constantly latest and refreshing ideas are floating out and it is important to use collaborative work management techniques within your team. As a much significant part of software development is to collaborate and correspond with your team inside one tool without switching in-between screens, as a result, it saves a lot of time by eliminating meetings and spreadsheet management. 

Social collaboration is core functionality in project management tools because it allows employees, clients, and consultants to work together along with a set of collaboration tools. They can collaborate spontaneously and make efficient decisions. Therefore having a tool that allows keeping latest files, requirements, comments, and deadlines all in a single place will let the team focus on precedence tasks.

5. Baseline and Estimates

Baseline facilitates to show a comparison of manager planning and the concurrent situation along with analysis and estimation. To supervise project performance and to get the better accuracy of future estimates it is compulsory to have a baseline for each respective project. Despite the fact that baseline is the output of planning stage, but they are referred and updated during execution and controlling processes.

Summarizing the above content it is a good practice to choose appropriate project management software that should be beneficial in project process and completion! But still there are many other features and tools that can also be added, however the listed above features, if you have these then you can easily manage resources.