It continues to surprise me just how many companies – especially smaller agencies – function without any kind of project management software in place. Often, Excel spreadsheets, Word documents, and email messages provide the standard means to “manage” tasks and ongoing issues despite how many inexpensive and intuitive alternatives are on the market.

I’m going to try to make the case here that every company – even one with as few as 2 people – should be using project management software. Below are the three major reasons people usually give as to why they don’t have any such system in place:

1. “Our current way of doing things is just fine”
   I would invite anyone who’s thinking this way to simply try a project management or issue tracking system for one week. There will almost certainly be a marked improvement in productivity and a reduction in stress for everyone involved in the project.
2. “It’s too expensive”
   While it’s true that some platforms have hefty licensing fees, there are plenty of cost-effective and even free alternatives to the more expensive products. BaseCamp, one of the products I discuss below, has pricing as low as $24 per month. We use a free product called Redmine (also discussed below), but it does take some tech know-how to get it set up.
3. “It’s too hard to learn”
   While it’s true that there is a learning curve for any new process or software, some of these products  are surprisingly intuitive right out of the box. The gains in productivity will vastly outweigh time lost in the learning process, not to mention that fear of new things is never a good reason to stick with the status quo.

Here’s a quick look at three products I’ve personally worked with. You can find a comprehensive comparison of project management software on Wikipedia.

Redmine

http://www.redmine.org

Redmine Issues list

Cost: Free (Open Source)

Pros: Price, Usability

Cons: Requires some technical knowledge to install (though any web developer will be able to tackle it), no commercial support.

Notes: We use Redmine here at Context, and I’m always impressed and how intuitive but powerful the system is.

Basecamp

http://www.basecamphq.com

Basecamp Screenshot

Cost: $24/mo to $149/mo depending on number of projects

Pros: Hosted solution, so setup is completely turnkey. Usability is great, and it has a vast feature set.

Cons: No native support for version control systems like SVN or GIT, which is only an issue for software developers.

Notes: Basecamp is what I recommend for businesses looking to get started with a project management solution. The usability is great, the pricing is reasonable, and it’s ready to go right out of the box.

Jira

http://www.atlassian.com/software/jira/

Jira Navigator

Cost: $150-$2,000/month depending on number of users

Pros: Enterprise class, packed full of features

Cons: May be too expensive for small agencies, higher learning curve than less sophisticated products

Notes: I used Jira on a large scale web development project a few years ago. There’s a learning curve, but I was impressed with the comprehensive feature set. I would recommend Jira to companies who are willing to invest in their project management software.