Are you in need of efficient agile project management software?
Do you struggle with choosing the right agile project management software for your project team?
In this article, we bring you a detailed analysis of 5 different agile project management solutions to help you make the right choice for your teams.
This article covers what agile project management software is, 5 best agile project management software, etc.
What is Agile Project Management Software?
Agile project management is a way by which a project can be managed by breaking it down into several stages or sprints.
Agile project management is a flexible approach to project management.
Agile methodology does not work on the principle of delivering the final product at the end of the project; rather it allows teams to release segments of the project that are completed.
Therefore, agile project management software is computer software that handles project management based on agile methodology.
What Features Should Agile Project Management Software Have?
Handling an agile team effectively is almost impossible without the proper software.
It will simplify everyone’s task making it more efficient, easier in terms of communication and help with meeting deadlines.
There are numerous agile project management software in the market with many different features.
However, talking about the best agile project management software, there are some essential features that an agile project management system must have to be able to deliver on its mandate as agile project management solution.
Below are some of such features:
Progress Visualization Feature
Overlaying with the needed methodology such as Kanban, giving a visually presented progress ensures it is easier to have a proper view of where each team member is with regards to tasks.
This feature helps to provide easier up to the minute access to all information at a glance and eliminates any form of time-wasting reports as well as any bottlenecks.
Collaboration
Despite the nature and size of your project team, you will need an effective collaborative tool to properly have access to collaborate and share documents, activities and relevant information.
This helps to make the work flow easily in a faster manner, saves time and improves on the delivery speed.
Issue Tracking
Working together with progress visualization, the issue tracking feature enables teams to easily say what part of the projects require speedy attention and which parts have been concluded.
Issue tracking is also useful especially when managing any type of revision-based work.
Estimation Feature
To be able to set accurate requirements and control scope slither, project managers are always required to make use of estimation tools to compute the duration that each iteration will take.
Also, estimation facility helps to update estimates after every release or sprint, as this assists the project handlers stay focused on other critical targets such as deadlines and adjustments.
Project Portfolio
Agile focusing on individual efforts and team collaboration mainly reduces the ease of project scaling. It sometimes can be cumbersome to swiftly respond to change as the size of interdependent skill sets and moving components grow.
Also, it can be difficult to prioritize individuals over tools because scaling naturally requires companies to adopt to replace individual interaction.
Therefore, having project portfolio to quickly access helps the project managers to swap between projects ensuring the estimates are still accurate.
Customer portal
Agile project management software without customer portal is an incomplete system because the development teams need to obtain feedbacks from customers.
Also, teams can’t conduct walkthroughs without an effective customer portal for the customers to interact with.
Feedbacks help the project teams where they convert them into actionable tasks and execute them accordingly.
Having a customer development portal allows project managers to conduct software walkthroughs, and helps customers provide more detailed feedback that can be translated directly into actionable tasks.
Ideally, teams can ask for feedbacks as soon as possible rather than waiting until the end of the project.
Hence, the customer portal is beneficial not only to the customer but also to all stakeholders of the agile project management software.
Time and Budget Tracking
With time and budget tracking feature, the project team can regularly track time and cost spent on the project. This can be broken down into task and sub-task time tracking.
The essence is to ensure that each person in the team is accountable for his/her individual allotted time and enables the project managers to run the project budget and expense effectively.
5 Best Agile Project Management Software
Getting the right agile project management software can make a huge difference when talking about project management.
In this review we are looking at both free agile project management software and the paid versions.
Below are top 5 agile project management solutions:
1. Jira – The Most Famous Agile Project Management Software
Jira is robust agile project management software built specifically for software development projects.
Owned by Atlassian, Jira is famous due to its well-managed workflow mapping and issue tracking capability. Jira has a free plan which is forever for up to 10 users.
Key features
- Multiple boards
Multiple boards feature can be helpful when we have a large cross functional team working together. It helps to reduce the number of columns that group of users may need to see making it less untidy.
- Plans/Advanced Roadmaps
This feature adds much functionality to your Jira experience to help projects run efficiently, assist your team work better together across your entire organization and align your work in helpful ways.
It let you displays your work items in a single project that lets you plan and track work in the project.
- Custom workflows
Jira’s workflow is a collection of processes that are to be followed in order to accomplish a task or address an issue. Helps teams to easily handle and manage tasks as well as issues.
- Detailed reports
With Jira, you can create detailed agile software development reports to assist you keep track of your work progress on the project.
Such reports may include user workload, average age, recently created, etc.
- Jira security feature
This feature helps teams in tracking bugs and restricting the access to certain bugs only to those people who work on a team member of a given security level.
- Workflow templates
It is a nice feature that lets you choose a pre-built workflow or create your own custom solutions.
Pros
- Agile Work Management
- Great Reports and Insights
- Integrations – can integrate with thousands of apps
- DevOps Visibility
- Regular Release of New Features
Cons
- Challenging setup
- No quick way to send messages directly from Jira except through emails.
- Too many Suite of Products which may become confusing at times.
Free Plan
Jira free version comes with 10 users, 2GB storage capacity and access to community support.
Paid Plans
Jira has different paid plans with slightly different features in each plan depending on the cost.
Standard Plan
$7.50 per user
Premium Plan
$14.50 per user (average)
Enterprise Plan
This plan is based on annual.
To get this plan, you need to contact Jira.
2. ClickUp – The Best Free Agile Project Management Software
ClickUp is agile project management software that helps teams to collaborate on product roadmaps, sprints, backlogs, and many more.
It comes loaded with great features and has the best free version so far.
While the likes of Jira software gives just 10 users free access with some basic features to enjoy, Clickup offers many unlimited features including unlimited free users, tasks, with collaborative whiteboards, real-time Chat, kanban boards etc.
Key Features
- Import Feature
Can import existing project data make the operation a lot easier and faster?
- Board view:
Users can drag and drop cards vertically and horizontally within and between the lanes respectively to show progress.
- Table view
Just like the usual classic spreadsheet with numbered rows making it easy for the users to manipulate data.
- Box view
This feature represents each tasks, assignee, and workload details to help users track details and keep the work within confined view.
- Mind Map
This graphic visual representation of task hierarchies helps users to create pectoral view of the tasks hierarchies.
- Workload view
This involves the table of assignees and tasks per day for workload operation. It is quite useful for users to manage their workloads appropriately.
- Activity view
This keeps track of all changes that take place concerning the project data for team visibility.
- Map view
Useful for adding and editing of Google Map for project use.
- Form view
Used to create a custom form to streamline inputs and collect data.
- Embed view
This function enables users to select and insert third-party application data into ClickUp.
Pros
- Effective Time tracking
- Provides opportunity for a detailed level tasks and estimates
- Has a single record system
- has Wiki
- Nice email widget integration
- Good client documentation
Cons
- No sufficient reporting
- No integration to relevant reporting tools.
- No calculation fields, not even possibility of handling basic sums
- No form creation function
Free Version
FREE FOREVER
The free version offers the most rich features and price. For instance, with free plan you enjoy some premium features such as 100MB Storage, Unlimited Tasks, Unlimited Free Plan Members, Two-Factor Authentication, Collaborative Docs, Whiteboards etc. No doubt, Clickup is the best free agile project management software.
Paid Plan
UNLIMITED
Best for small teams
$5
Everything In Free Forever Plus Some Other Premium Features.
BUSINESS
Best for mid-sized teams
$12
PER MEMBER PER MONTH
Everything In Unlimited Plus Other Features
BUSINESS PLUS
Best for multiple teams
$19
PER MEMBER PER MONTH
Everything In Business Plus other Features.,
ENTERPRISE
Best for many large teams
Price: Contact sales
Everything in Business plus Many other features.
3. Monday – The Easiest Agile Project Management Software
When it comes to looking for efficient agile project management software that is not mainly aimed at developers but for agility and ease of use by an organization, Monday stands out.
From the very pre-planning stage with the product owner and development team to obtaining user feedback via customer collaboration, everyone has the most of agile methodologies in one platform.
It’s quite easy for agile teams, Scrum masters, and beginners alike to see their work in views like Kanban board and more.
Features
- Dashboards
Helps team members to access data from a central location
- Visual Timeline
This feature allows you to toggle between different timeline views to track project statuses.
- Milestones
With milestones, you can set project checkpoints and asses task progress. Spot diamond icons on the dashboards to identify milestones.
- Gantt Charts
This chart helps you with tracking of schedules, milestones and deadlines from a single place. You can also convert Gantt charts for clearer visualization.
- Baseline
Assists you to compare planned and actual schedules to speed up project delivery time.
- Task Management
Task management features helps you to create custom workflows to fast-track your project operation etc.
Pros
Project Management
Its ability to handle project planning, task management, goal tracking and complete jobs on schedule is superb.
Ease of Use
Intuitive and friendly user interface.
Kanban Boards
Kanban boards simplifies and assist in streamlining work processes.
Sharing and Collaboration
The centralized database, comments and @mentions makes work easier for the team to communicate smoothly
Cons
Performance
In terms of performance, certain features can be clunky according to some users.
Limited Functionalities
There is no robust communication tool in the software and no unlimited customization.
Cost
The product seems expensive compared its competitors.
Pricing
Free version
Individual Plan
$0
Free forever
Up to 2 seats
For those looking to keep track of their project work
The free version has a couple of some basic features such as up to 2 seats, up to 3 boards, Unlimited docs, 200 + templates, over 20 column types etc.
Basic Plan
$8
seat /month
Total $24 / month
Billed annually
Everything in Free Plan + other features.
Standard Plan
Most Popular
$10
Seat /month
Total $30 / month
Billed annually
Everything in Basic plan + other features.
Pro plan
$16
seat /month
Total $48 / month
Everything in Standard plan + other features.
Enterprise Plan
Contact us – Enterprise
Everything in Pro Plan + many other features.
4. Proofhub – The Most Cost-Effective Agile Project Management Software For Large Company
ProofHub is a cloud-hosted solution for teams in many industries. The system provides applications for project management, resource management, task management, and so on.
It has the friendliest pricing model as it offers a flat rate fee no matter how many people use it.
Features
Proofhub has quite a handful of premium features.
Project management
helps to bring your project team together and manage the projectsin the proper way.
Collaboration
Simplifies the process of team members working and communicating together.
Reports
Have a clear status of the work andmeasure your entire team’s work progress.
Views
Make the process easy for your team to keep track of their personal as well as group activities using the ProofHub’s project
Accessibility
Accomplish more work and on time with accessibility feature.
Admin Control
Take absolute control by making decision on who gets what and make sure that every team member get access to the right information
Integrations
Integrate with your favorite tools and position all work in one place using the software.
Mobile Apps
Enjoy access on mobile phones
Mobile Apps and tablets.
Pros
- The system is quick and easy to setup
- Most friendly and competitively price
- Awesome balance of features and simplicity
- Great tools for discussing visual materials
Cons
- A couple of the times, it loads slowly
- No budgeting tools
Pricing
ULTIMATE CONTROL Plan
$89 /month
Billed annually
$99/m billed monthly
Unlimited projects
Unlimited users
100GB storage etc.
Core features
ESSENTIAL Plan
$45 /month
Billed annually
$50/m billed monthly
40 projects
Unlimited users
15GB storage
Core features
You May Als Like:
See Free Tech Support Software That Can Help Your Business Grow Fast
How to Install Drivers On Your Windows PC in Few Simple Steps
How to Backup Outlook Emails in simple steps with photos
5. OpenProject – The Best Open Source Agile Project Management Software.
OpenProject is web-based open source agile project management software with lots of useful features for project teams across diverse industries.
It is free and open source software which gives you, the user, the freedom to run, share, study and modify the solution without limitations. OpenProject runs on a license under GNU GPL v3.
This coupled with the features and efficiency makes OpenProject the best open source agile project management software.
Features
Project List
Project list helps you to have an overview of your projects at any given time which you can as well get via your custom project dashboard.
Project hierarchy
With the project hierarchy functionality, you can structure your projects using parent projects and subprojects giving you control over your project.
Project overview page
This involves the dashboard that you can use to customize your widgets and graphs for effective project management process.
Project templates
Save time by creating project templates of your choice for both immediate and future use with the project template feature.
Project portfolio
Include your own custom fields in the project list while creating a view of your project portfolio. It simplifies your project task.
Project reports
Select from a number of widgets that visualize project status and move faster on the project overview.
Project dashboard
At My Page module, you will find all project information regarding to your own project. It is your personal dashboard which you can customize to your own taste.
Others are:
Gantt charts
Work packages
Relations and hierarchies
Scheduling
Team planner
Calendar
Task lists
etc.
Pros
- Ease of use of OpenProject
- On premise option is awesome
- Creation of WBS offers great advantage.
Cons
- No mobile app version
- With OpenProject, resource management is a bit burdensome
- Scheduling and viewing task is quite sluggish and cumbersome.
Pricing
Free Version
Community
- Free No minimum users
- Community features
- Community support
- Community tickets
- Community forum
- User Guides
Basic
At least 5 users
$7.25 per user, per month 5 minimum users
Professional Plan
At least 25 users
$13.50 per user, per month
Premium Plan
Minimum of 100 users
$19.50 per user, per month
Corporate Plan
Unlimited number of 250 users
On request per user, per month
Conclusion
There are still some very crucial differences between the products when looking at the best agile project management software.
It therefore depends on what exactly you are looking for. Some very important factors like project type, team size, and other considerations must be reviewed for you to make an informed choice.