(And a Brief but Interesting History of Project Management)

Since the beginning of time, people have been trying to work together to get a job done. In fact, most mythology and folklore is based on solving a problem in spite of dealing with a unique mixture of the following:

• a seemingly unattainable objective
• resource scarcity
• someone or something set on thwarting your success
• emotions, good and bad
• The Human Ego
• a time crunch
• dealing with slackers
• snakes

Okay, so snakes probably won’t be as much as an issue for your start-up as they were for St. Patrick, but you might run into some sort of figurative or literal incessant pestilence that needs taken care of. Having the correct project tracking software for your business will help your team manage obstacles, work together, and achieve the goals you’ve set forth.

Let’s take a look at how project management has come about and how to choose the best one for your team.

The Early Ages

If aliens and other conspiracies are ruled out, the fact stands that it must have been mankind that built the Egyptian Pyramids, the Great Wall of China, and Stonehenge. If that’s truly the case, then we can assume the task was completed by a group of people working together to achieve a congruent and agreed upon goal, while managing productivity, human error, and outlying conditions. That sounds a lot like project management.

Maybe we can mark extraterrestrial forces off the list, but deducing the exact methodology the leaders of ancient millennia employed to get the job done is a whole other issue. (I’m betting it involved a lot more death and destruction and a lot less paperwork and HR.) What is certain, however, is that coming up with a way to work together is arguably the most important step in achieving greatness and has been since forever ago.

Law of Harmony in Management

Seeing as it’s obvious that people have been dolling out responsibilities and sharing their skills in various ways for awhile, when did the actual project management process really get nailed down? Some would say that it was the invention of the Harmonogram and the development of the Law of Harmony in Management by Karol Adameicki, a Polish engineer, in 1896 that really kicked it off.

The Harmonogram was, at the time, the most innovative means of displaying a production schedule. It’s creation coincided with the development of the Gantt Chart, by Henry Ganatt in the US. Both of these display techniques had never been utilized before and changed management as a science forever.

Adameicki’s other contribution, the Law of Harmony in Management, highlights the necessity of a harmony trifecta:

• Harmony of Choice – The tools selected for production should be mutually compatible.
• Harmony of Doing – The sequencing and scheduling of activities needs to be fully coordinated to optimize productivity.
• Harmony of Spirit – The importance of creating a team that works well together.

From these developments forward, the art of management became a big deal. As companies, innovation, and the scope of projects expanded, so did the need for efficiency and protocol. In 1962, the United States Department of Defense started utilizing the Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) Approach and much of the private sector followed suit shortly thereafter.

When the digital age dawned, with it came companies like Oracle, Artemis, and Scitor Corporation. Now, there are literally dozens of project management programs and methods tailored to your specific department and industry; all with foundations built with fulfilling the Law of Harmony in Management in mind.

How to Choose

With so many project management tools vying for your business, how do you make a choice? The first step in choosing what project management methodology works best for you is to map out your needs. Here’s a list of things to consider:

Growth

One of the most important things to think about when choosing project management tools isn’t where your company is right now, but instead, consider where you want it to be in the future. Growth should always be at the forefront of your decision making process and selecting the right tools to get you there is paramount to your success.

Best Option: monday.com

Why: monday.com offers a variety of tools that are applicable to small, medium, and large companies. It is easy to use and inexpensive.

Communication Needs

Before selecting your project management software, evaluate the communication needs of your team. Do you want your project management tool to provide easy-to-use collaboration functions or ways for team members to communicate intuitively about progress and bugs? If that’s important, make sure to choose software that makes communication second nature.

Best Option: Basecamp

Why: The interface operates similar to social media, making communicating easy and streamlined.

Company Culture

This is arguably the most important factor to consider when choosing a project management software. In the wake of “google culture,” many tech companies attempted to adopt a more lenient approach to work. Some found this to be successful in attracting (and keeping) the talent required to power the company. Others, however, found that this methodology wasn’t conducive to productivity.

Before integrating any project management tool into your company, consult your team and delve into what kind of organization they feel they need to be successful and what they believe the company will need for its future growth and prosperity. What you find may surprise you.

Best option: Varies greatly

Budget

Project management software can be very expensive. You may find that you are paying for things you don’t need or not getting the functions you wanted out of it. A good place to start for the budget-minded company is with a project management software that offers a wide range of general tools, but doesn’t break the bank.

Best option: Trello

Why: Trello offers a free trial, a free basic account, and only costs $9 per user, per month.

Billing

If your industry is one that requires time-tracking for billing purposes, you may want to invest in project management software that can help with that. A software that integrates company contacts, tasks, and billing into one platform can help alleviate some of the headache that accompanies billing in general.

Best Option: Scoro

Why: Integration. Scoro puts it all in one place. Projects, billings, contacts—it’s all right there.

By no means is this a comprehensive list of things to consider or project management software available. It’s an important decision that should not be taken lightly. The completion of “work” has and always will be about people. With more and more global business interaction and remote opportunities changing the way humans work with each other to accomplish tasks, companies must adapt to new management strategies. That is, in essence, the very point of project management—the ability to pivot and adjust to changing circumstances, while remain diligent and devoted to the achievement of the goals. Whether it’s building the Taj Mahal or a launching a new product, the answer to the overcoming the inevitable obstacles is always teamwork.