Project Management Software Selection Criteria

Introduction

The market for project management software is confusing, and finding a suitable product is difficult. The most prominent and heavily marketed solutions often offer fewer features than you’ll need in the medium term, and replacing a tool once it’s been adopted can be costly.

The search is further complicated by the fact that even simple task management software is marketed as project management software or project management tools, despite lacking essential capabilities. This article on the difference between project management and task management software explores this in more detail.

General Selection Criteria

Hosting

For many users, it’s important to know where their data is stored and whether a product can be self-hosted (on-premise). We’ve evaluated this under this criterion.

Project Templates and Project Types

In larger organizations, there are often groups of similar projects that differ significantly from projects in other groups — for example, development projects and marketing projects. It’s a great help to be able to configure and manage such groups (“project types”) as a whole. It’s also helpful to be able to create a new project from a project template. The main difference between a project template and a project type is that a template can already contain tasks. On the other hand, a project type allows you to centrally modify all projects of that type after the fact — for example, adding new workflows.

Tasks and Task Types

Tasks (“issues,” “tickets,” etc.) should be assignable to a task type, which in turn can have properties and behavior assigned to it. For example, the states a customer complaint passes through need to differ from those for a planned project task. It’s important that custom task types can be defined.

Task Structuring with Hierarchies

For proper project management, it must be possible to nest tasks to any depth. For simple task management, a single sub-level is sufficient, or you can even do without sub-tasks entirely. A Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) requires full hierarchical structuring capabilities.

Notifications

The standard today is notification via email and push notifications within the application itself. A “mention” function via @name is also common in almost every project management software. More powerful systems offer precise control mechanisms for who gets notified when and how.

Access Permissions

From predefined user levels to fixed roles with fixed permissions to configurable roles with freely assignable permissions — there’s a wide range of implementations. The best systems allow role-based access control down to individual attributes.

Attributes

As soon as you want to do more than personal project management or simple task management, it must be possible to assign custom attributes to tasks based on task type — such as dropdown fields or custom date fields. The range of attribute types and configuration options varies considerably.

Input Forms

Input forms for task data are fixed in simpler products. If you add custom attributes, they’re appended somewhere at the bottom of the form. More powerful systems allow flexible design of input forms.

Dependencies

In project management and task management, tasks are often related to each other. For example, a task cannot be started before another one is completed. Or a task cannot be closed until a dependent task has been resolved. More powerful systems allow the definition of custom link types.

Dashboards

An overview page is standard today in almost every project management software. Systems differ primarily in the number of views and their configurability.

Reporting

Reports should be based on templates that can be customized even by non-technical users. Reports should be exportable in standard formats: PDF, Excel, Word, and HTML.

User Management

User management should be able to work with existing directory servers (LDAP, AD). The application should be able to act as a service provider for single sign-on systems.

APIs and Extensibility

Today, you can expect a task management system or project management software to have a well-equipped REST API. Through it, you should be able to manage users and projects and run queries.

Task Management Criteria

Delegation

Task management software should support the delegation of tasks including follow-up reminders. The person delegating should maintain a relationship to the task and be able to set a personal follow-up date. The delegating person should be able to view an overview of all tasks they’ve delegated.

Deputy Function

It should be possible to assign a deputy to every user. The deputy can then step into the original user’s rights during vacation or illness and act on their behalf. It remains visible who actually triggered an action.

Recurring Tasks

Some tasks and appointments repeat cyclically — for example, every first Monday of the month. Handling such task series can be helpful and time-saving in task management.

Time Tracking

Project management software should allow tracking effort (time and cost) for each task and assigning them to accounts. Accounts can be grouped into cost centers and made available to projects.

There should be the option to use timers within the application to automatically log time spent. Reports provide an overview of what everyone has been working on during any past time period.

Getting Things Done Support

The Getting Things Done method is a proven approach to personal work organization and a must for any serious task management software. It allows personal categorization of tasks, such as personal follow-up dates or marking tasks as favorites.

RACI Matrix Support

For task management and project management, the RACI method defines four task-specific roles through which project participants can be related to a task. Normally, roles are assigned for a project, not for individual tasks. For example, there is a project manager or a Scrum Master for the entire project. RACI, on the other hand, allows roles to be assigned at the task level.

Workflows

Workflows are typically represented in task management systems in two forms. The first method always refers to the workflow of a task that passes through various stages. The second method involves defining task sets and then working through them.

Project Management Criteria

Programs and Portfolios

In many organizations, projects run within programs, portfolios, or product areas. Here, groups of projects must be able to be consolidated to maintain an overview.

A basic prerequisite for program or portfolio management is the ability to group and hierarchically arrange projects.

Sub-Projects

Larger project initiatives with many tasks cannot be sufficiently structured through task hierarchies alone and must be split into sub-projects. Sub-projects may require different processes — for example, for hardware and software development.

Multi-Project Reports

In multi-project-capable project management software, all queries and reports should be able to span multiple projects and sub-projects, defined through freely configurable filters.

Work Breakdown Structure

Before a project plan can be created, the activities to be performed or deliverables to be produced must be structured. To represent such a product structure or Work Breakdown Structure (WBS), tasks must be arrangeable hierarchically to any depth.

Interactive Gantt Chart

Gantt charts allow you to define and visualize the timeline of project activities as well as predecessor-successor relationships. From a simple timeline without dependency definitions to a comprehensive Gantt chart with a baseline plan and critical path display, project management software offers a wide range of implementations.

Resource Planning

Resources of different types can be managed and assigned to tasks. There is a view that displays resource utilization over time, making over- or under-allocation immediately visible. Resources can be organized by project or department.

Employee Availability

It should be possible to map employee availability in the system and take it into account during resource planning.

Project Progress

Project progress should be visualized and presented in an overview format — for example, with progress bars in the Gantt chart or in a traffic light diagram.

Agile Project Management

For software developers, integrations with source code management systems like Git and Subversion, as well as with CI/CD servers like GitLab and Jenkins, are essential.

On this blog you can also find an example comparison of two products (Jira vs Allegra).

Get your own impression of the comprehensive project management software Allegra and book a free live demo.