Startup Project Management Tools- Everything You Need to Know

Starting or venturing into a new business is a big deal as you must think about many aspects from different dimensions simultaneously. Imagine a scenario where you have already managed to get the investment, and it's all good to go. Sounds good, right?

But wait, there are other challenges that you need to consider to set up your business for success. These challenges include different management tasks. For example, finance management, technology management, team management, work setup enhancements, manage tasks and client discussions, among others.

Doing all these in sync and handling each of the above-mentioned tasks in the dedicated timeline can be a difficult task for project managers.

This is where project management comes into play. It can help project managers to manage projects and sort out various business tasks on the go without much hassle. In this article, we will discuss everything you as a project manager or starter need to know about startup project management, including its benefits, characteristics, and tools.

Let’s get started!

Startup project management is a set of processes that include planning, executing, and monitoring projects via several tools or software. It helps startups of any age in managing different tasks in parallel. These tasks include financial management, team management, client conversation, team communication, tech management, etc.

That is the reason why, project management and understanding the project management methodologies are considered as one of the crucial skills for a project manager.

Mismanagement in project management at the early stage of the business/startup can be very painful for the startup's growth, productivity, and efficiency. Thus, it is advisable by the experts that a startup must look into the project management tool and scenarios, among others, while working on the other important aspects.

In addition to this, software project management tools help startups in -

Startups usually suffer from resource crunch in the initial phase of their growth. They need to manage their resources very well to keep the budget in control. So, project management methodology can be very useful in the long run.

Achieving year-on-year progress is crucial for any startup's long-term survival. Therefore, to keep the progress going, they need to maintain a high level of productivity.

Streamlining different tasks from the different teams to generate efficiency. It also increases the ability to identify risks and help troubleshoot them before they develop.

Several project management tools help in brainstorming and discussing new product ideas. Therefore, it has become crucial for the growth of a startup. In addition, project management software also helps in planning the tasks based on priority and achieving the outcome in the most efficient way possible.

Let’s quickly go through some of the major project management tools that can be a game changer for startups -

It is a complete solution that handles project management, two-way communication, and different operations. Some of the major features it offers include -

• Easy task management - which helps in handling all the tasks at one place without investing much efforts.
• Project's timeline management - it helps in keeping trail of advancements and all the newer updates in the project.
• Cross-platform compatibility - it can be easily used in Mac, Windows, etc.
• Kanban boards - it provides well crafted kanban boards that can be customized as per the usage.
• File storage - Gobrief also provides the space for storing the crucial files and project related documents.

Slack is a must-have startup project management tool. It helps keep track of the team's progress and offers easy communication. Some of the prominent features of Slack are as follows -

• Cross-platform support - it supports most of the platform like - Windows, Mac, Linux, among others.
• Dashboard for easy communication and discussions - is already embedded in the software. This helps in effective communication between different teams.
• Support integration of over 100 different utility applications like - Zoom, Microsoft teams, Google Drive, Google Calender, etc.
• Provides Huddle for easy voice or video call - which helps in establishing a clear communication without the need of any additional software.
• Creation of different groups as per the requirements - user can create different discussion groups for discussions, fun activities, among others.

It is a software management tool that focuses mainly on report generation and processing, work optimization, etc. Some of the important tasks are -

• Reporting process - helps in generating, analyzing, and monitoring the different reports at a singel place.
• Improving transparency at various levels - Podio helps in keeping the path of progress of different teams, tasks, etc. This helps in improving the transparency of work at different levels.
• Day-to-day work optimization - Keeping track of different tasks, and its progress helps in work optimization in the day to day work life.
• Effective communication across teams - every team needs a channel to create a effective communication pipeline across the project team. So Podio is one such tool for the startups.
• Flexibility and customization options - you can create, cutomize most of the features available in the Podio. For example - reporting.

It’s one of the most popular and easy-to-use startup task management tool. Some of the eye-catching features of Asana are -

• Free for up to 15 collaborators - so if you are a very small startup or incubation then Asana can be a go to place for your ideas.
• Customization of different tasks and sub-tasks - Asana allows you to create different sub tasks under the primary tasks. It helps in keeping the track of every single task in one dashboard.
• Creating dependencies for different teams and groups - based on the priority of the tasks the dependencies can be created to keep the project updates and progress aligned.
• Cross-platform support - Asana also supports all the major platforms like - Linux, Mac, Windows.
• Supports integration of over 100 useful tools like - Slack, Microsoft teams, etc.

Click Up project management tool is for all those startups that need all-in-one software for their project management without spending much. Some of the major features poised by Click Up are -

• The collaborative docs feature helps you in creating documents for different stakeholders.
• Built-in chat app support without any extra cost which is a win-win situation for a startup.
• Open for cost negotiation for per-user usage - this feature can help budding startups in cost optimization and budget management.
• Supports integration of various useful tools like - Slack, Dropbox, etc.

The top three and most important features that a startup needs to focus on are as follows -

There needs to be some software to keep track of achieving the best level of synchronization among different teams. This in turn helps in keeping the track of not only the progress of the team but also helps in analyzing the metrics and goal set for the project.

Scheduling helps in dividing larger modules into smaller ones, which helps keep track of all the important tasks at once. While planning helps in making some short or long term goals about - progress of the project, resource assignment, among other things.

Help keep track of all the major updates and critical evaluations related to various sub-tasks. As a result we can look into the crucial aspects of project like -

• Are we working in the same direction as planned?
• Is the project working as expected?
• Do we need any other resources?

So, analytics and upgradation is always helpful in keeping all these things aligned.

Resources are crucial when it comes to a startup. For instance - sorting different resources for different teams, assigning tasks as per the requirements, etc.
Therefore, it is important that all the available resources should get managed properly. This helps the the startups in the big way.

In the initial phase of the startup there would be so many documents that need to get taken care of, separately. The aim should be to manage the documents in a most coherent way. Thus, having a project management software is a big advantage towards managing projects and related documents with ease.

There can be several issues while starting a startup. One of these issues are aligned with the project we are working on. There can be several technical or non-technical issues in the project that need to get resolved at the right time. A delay in handling or resolving those issues can be hazardous for the startup.
Hence having a efficient issue tracking and management software is definitely a big plus in project planning and implementation.

Clear know-how of the best project management software and the right project management methodology is necessary for an organization at the early stages of its workflow. But its utility becomes huge for a startup that is supposed to work on many things together from the beginning to achieve the best outcomes.
Thus, the utility of the best project management software is huge, and every startup is advised to be aligned with it. Apart from these tools, companies like Turing can also help increase your efficiency by taking away the burden of hiring and project planning by providing you with the best talent.

Turing can help your startup hire a Silicon Valley-caliber engineering team quickly without thinking much about hiring constraints or going through a long hiring process. Turing’s Intelligent Talent Cloud uses AI to source, vet, match, and manage 3 million+ developers worldwide. Hire today and build your dream engineering team in just 4 days with the push of a button.