The Five Brand New PM Systems Worth Investigating

All good Project Managers rely on systems and tools to help the workflow of briefs. Literally hundreds of new tools are brought to market each year. Despite this, PMs tend to stick to what they know. And this means that popular tools like Base Camp and Trello dominate the landscape.

Last year it was reported that 1.1 million daily users are now switching onto Trello, but could it be time to try something new? We’re not saying that you should risk a new system and ditch your tried and tested tools, but it is best practice to put some resource aside each year for experimentation. Whether you’re a Developer, eCommerce Manager or UX Designer, here are five emerging tools worth investigating.

Wrike

Wrike is an online project management tool that allows you to track and push through your tasks. Wrike allows Project Managers to select different features to the software giving a fully tailored offering that’s as unique as the tasks they oversee.

The paid-for enterprise versions allow for complete customisation with lots of free and paid-for add-ons. This comes in combination with the ability to involve up to five users access and privacy settings for different projects.

Some of the best features of Wrike include the real time status updates, visual dashboards and reporting, giving Project Managers a clear and current oversight of tasks whenever and wherever they need them. A private messaging service allows you to get in touch with key team members on the task, from beginning through to completion.

Wrike is ideal for Project Managers who like to keep a current overview of their tasks every step of the way.

Current users include:

Hootsuite
Fitbit
L’Oréal Canada

Taiga

For the software developers amongst us, Taiga is the opensource, free (for the basic edition) tool that allows start-ups, developers and designers to make their Agile workflow beautiful.

Named as one of the Top 11 PM Tools according to OpenSource.com, Taiga allows its users to customise anything and everything, easily giving users total control over how projects are conveyed to other users in your team.

Due to its opensource cloud-based nature, Taiga is currently being used for a large number of ambitious global projects as diverse as:

Dapulse

Dapulse is a team collaboration tool that makes it both fun and easy for you and your team members to work together on Dapulse’s boards (columns and rows like Trello).

One of the key features of Dapulse is the way it relies on visuals and shows users exactly what a project’s current state of play is, saving you and your team members sending emails chasing for updates on tasks, with a full overview of projects.

The way Dapulse presents data in a visually stimulating way makes it a great choice for Creative and Design teams as it speaks their language.

Aside from being clear and visually appealing, Dapulse enables teams to work together effectively with one place for all communication, making sure everyone is engaged through all stages of projects.

Edward Hurley, eCommerce and Product Manager at Elecwish says he found Dapulse to be, “Very helpful and fast to use and incredibly intuitive. It’s got some great features and helpful task management tools.”

Current users include:

Wix
Adidas
Uber

Podio

Podio is another tool that focuses on providing users with complete comprehension and clarity. Its key selling point is its user-friendliness. It doesn’t reinvent the wheel in terms of functionality but instead focuses on good, solid project management. Create tasks, manage teams, run your Scrum.

Export information to Excel if spreadsheets are your thing, while of you need to access work on the go, Podio is mobile-optimised.

Podio is perfect for those working in Data and Analytics and Technology as it allows an up-close and personal look at information.

Current users include:

Volvo
Sony
NFL

Jira

Created specifically for Agile software development teams, Jira allows users to raise any issues and fix bugs accordingly through Agile, Scrum and Kanban board methodologies. Jira really excels at giving you tools to implement, manage and set software projects, whilst the collaboration tools give users access to strong reporting.

UX Managers/Directors to Developers and Producers can all utilise Jira to track developments of projects and bugs, whilst an intelligent colour coding system allows you to keep the tool tidy and your tasks well-organised.

Jira is highly adaptable, giving users the ability to add plugins as well as being able to easily integrate it with other software such as Slack.