7 Best Project Management Tools For Remote Team‍

It's difficult to remain on top of tasks and due dates when you're managing projects and teams across multiple countries and timezones without a system in place.

It's critical to have a remote project management solution in place so that you can complete work as quickly as possible while keeping track of progress and costs. The importance of timely communication throughout the project's duration cannot be overstated.

Moreover, virtual project management collaboration solutions aid in the standardisation of processes among team members from various locations, as well as the coordination and tracking of work.

If you've come across this blog, it's more than likely that you're planning to start a remote project team or are already part of one and need a project management solution.

We've compiled a list of 7 of the best project management solutions that could be a good fit for your virtual, remote teams in this blog post. You can also make use of a service ranking site to find top online services and tools.

Key Features Of A Project Management Tool

Comparison Criteria For Project Management Tools

• Remote teams require a user interface (UI) that is appealing and simple to use for everyone, from the most technically advanced to the least. Is the user interface simple to use, suitable for screen sharing, and appealing to stare at for eight hours a day? Is the user interface designed for mobile apps, which are frequently used for remote work?
• Usability: Because remote teams don't always have access to an IT professional or project manager, any software they use should include plenty of customer support tools, such as video lessons, webinars, live chat, Q&A forums, whitepapers, and other easily available documentation. In addition, it’s a good idea to set employees up for comfort by providing them with the right hardware tools and furniture like a good laptop, office chair, ergonomic mouse pad and table. For example, the best ergonomic mouse pads are designed to position the hand in a way that doesn’t cause any undue stress to the muscles and bones of the hand. Of course, laptops come with built-in touch pads, but generally, a separate mouse and mouse pad is ideal for ease of use.
• Integrations: Working remotely necessitates that all of your technologies, from collaboration tools to time tracking to task management, communicate as much as possible. Whether the remote project management software is compatible with other popular apps in these categories and others, such as Slack, Jira, Zoom, Skype, DropBox, Google Drive, Microsoft programmes, Proofhub, and other popular remote work tools? Is it compatible with your CRM software?
• Price: Check whether the fee is enough in relation to the features, capabilities, and use case?

Features To Look Out For In A Project Management Tool

With so many project management tools on the market, finding an all-in-one PM tool might be difficult. You'll need to think about features that will help you manage your projects efficiently and successfully while looking for the best project management software for your remote crew. Features of good remote project management software include:

Planning and Scheduling:

Most project management software allows you to create different projects, assign individual/shared tasks to team members, and set priorities and statuses. Adding deadlines to tasks allows your team to organise work more efficiently. Meeting scheduling and organisation features such as shared team calendars are also essential.

Team collaboration and communication:

When looking for the finest PM solution, features like team dashboards, file sharing, and team communication should all be taken into account. For file sharing and collaboration, most systems may link with third-party services such as Slack or Google Drive. For cross-team cooperation, integrations with popular support desks or CRM software are also necessary. Team dashboards will aid in the creation of a big picture of the project's overall progress across several working teams.

Time logging and tracking:

Depending on your company's procedures, you may also need to keep track of the time spent on activities, assign hourly rates to users, and generate invoices based on the job completed. If that's the case, you'll need a good time tracking option in your PM software. To compensate, most PM programmes integrate with a third-party time tracking application but make sure important functionality like time billing, automated invoicing, and time spent reports are available.

Reporting and analytics:

Project management software should have reporting and analytic features that turn project data into data-rich visualisations. In your project teams, creating precise reports with the activities completed, the amount of hours spent on each, and the total expenses are critical indicators to track. Reports give you a rapid snapshot of how the project is progressing, as well as the top and worst-performing project teams. If your graphs show a negative trend, you can instantly spot it and make data-driven actions.

Top 7 Project Management Tools

1. ProofHub

ProofHub is a SaaS-based project management and team collaboration software that is designed to help teams easily plan, organize, collaborate, and execute their projects through a suite of powerful tools in one centralized location. ProofHub can help businesses across various industries improve efficiency, productivity, and employees’ accountability as the tool offers detailed visibility to managers who can track projects and team members through a Bird’s-eye view. Users can have multiple views (Gantt, Table, Board) to have more clarity on work.

Unique Characteristics

• All features in a centralized location
• Any work requests directly added to ProofHub through Forms
• Online proofing allows for quick feedback among remote collaborators
• Agile digital file management
• Custom fields help you store relevant project information & modify details

Pricing:

ProofHub offers you two fixed pricing plans. The Essential plan contains all CORE features and is priced at $45 per month when billed annually, allowing an unlimited number of users. The Ultimate Control plan contains all CORE+PREMIUM features and is priced at $89 per month when billed annually, allowing an unlimited number of users.

2. Asana

Asana provides task management that is influenced by to-do lists, as well as project management basics. Asana is organised in rows rather than the column format used by other project management systems.

Unique Characteristics:

• Tasks that Recur
• Management of the workload
• With archival features and an intuitive task presentation structure.
• Flexible Gantt charts with a timeline perspective

Pricing:

With modest restrictions, Asana is free for teams of up to 15 individuals. Paid plans begin at $10.99 per month per user. On its commercial services, Asana offers free trials.

3. Basecamp:

One of the most well-known project management platforms in the world is Basecamp. Its purpose is to help the businesses and teams that rely on it increase productivity by improving communication and organising. It's a fantastic PM tool for newbies. Basecamp serves as a central hub for company-wide and team communication as well as project management.

Unique Characteristics:

• The most comprehensive free version of all PM tools
• Group conversations in real time
• Access to customers and clients
• Its a full-featured mobile app

Pricing:

Basecamp provides two options for you to choose from. The first is the free Basecamp Personal edition. The premium offering, Basecamp Business, costs $82.50 per month with an annual membership. It's also worth noting that there are no limitations to the amount of uses you can add to Basecamp.

4. Monday.com

Monday.com is simple to use and has a straightforward layout, making it a viable option for service or IT teams looking for a flexible task management solution. Monday.com (formerly Dapulse) provides themes and a variety of column kinds to help you keep all of your information in one place, as well as several display boards to manage and project data.

Unique Characteristics:

• Templates that can be customised.
• Timeline views, Kanban
• Forms for tasks, comments on tasks, and email notifications are all available.
• Apps for mobile devices.
• File management is simple.

Pricing:

Monday.com subscription starts at $39.00 a month for up to 5 users. All of Wrike's paid plans come with a free trial.

5. Microsoft Projects

One of the more advanced project management solutions on the market is Microsoft Project. It has industry-leading capabilities that help you figure out the best approach to schedule projects and determine the best ways to distribute tasks among your team.

MS Project isn't the most user-friendly project management tool on the market, and it has a steep learning curve. Other tools described in this blog may be of interest if ease of use is essential to you.

Unique Characteristics:

• Budget forecasting for projects
• There are cloud and on-premise versions.
• Gantt charts that are more advanced
• Supports task descriptions in detail.

Pricing :

The cloud-based version of MS Project is the most popular. The lowest tier of pricing is $10 per user per month, while the highest price is $55 per user per month.

6. Trello

Trello includes all of the capabilities you'll need to manage remote projects efficiently across time and geography. Trello's goal is to make a team's work easier, therefore it makes use of boards, lists, and cards that may be used to organise projects in a variety of ways. Each of these elements serves a specific purpose, with the boards displaying the projects and their information, the lists containing the titles, and the cards acting as the basic unit.

Unique Characteristics

• To keep track of progress, keep tasks categorised by statuses.
• Organize resources with the use of strong reporting tools.
• To track the work of the contributor, assign cards to project team members, add due dates, labels, and Custom Fields.
• To add expanded capabilities or third-party connectors to Trello, use power-ups.

Pricing :

Trello's monthly pricing starts at $9.90 per user seat. For small teams, Trello offers a free version. For Trello's paid plans, there are free trials available.

7. nTask

nTask is an incredible project management and task management tool that allows you to make sure that all of your tasks and processes related to your project development process are tracked and managed accordingly.

The application is also an excellent team management tool that allows you to manage all of your team members remotely without any issues or obstructions.

The application also serves as a communication agent between all of your stakeholders and team members with its amazing meeting management features.

Unique Characteristics

• Task management and Project management.
• Risk management.
• Time tracking and Time management.
• Meeting management and Collaboration tools.
• Gantt charts and Kanban boarding.

Pricing :

nTask has a lot of different options regarding pricing for all of its users across the world. The company offers a free trial that lets you have a taste of its premium features and how they can benefit you, your team and your company. The paid pricing plan starts from $3/month/user.

Conclusion

It's not easy to find the best project management software for virtual teams. With all of the aforementioned tools providing task management, collaboration features, and affordable pricing, it's crucial to think about things like the size of your organisation and team, what features you want, and which ones you value the most. And then choose the one that works best for you and your remote team!

Author's Bio

Sakshi Baid works as a Product Associate at Refrens.com - Online Invoice Generator & India's most powerful platform for freelancer growth. She has worked for some renowned companies as a Brand and Digital marketing associate. You can follow Refrens.com on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram.