Are you new to project management and need an easy platform to manage your projects? Try Monday.com

Project Management platforms have been around for over 10 years in various forms. They are an integral mechanism for many businesses to keep track of key activities and progress relating to major projects such as a product/service launch, a software implementation, or a business acquisition. Many startups and new businesses leverage PM platforms to track all activities leading up to a successful business launch. This flexibility, success, and ability for PM platforms to be used for a plethora of reasons has led to an increase in its use over the past 2 years.

While many businesses and startups know the value it brings, many find it difficult to identify a suitable platform that is relatively easy to start with. There are many similarities and differences between the platforms that make it time-consuming to understand each and determine which is the best fit. We compared the most used platforms based on user experience, setup, ease of task assignments, notification system, value proposition, security, scalability, integration, and costs.

Upon testing and comparing platforms such as ClickUp, Asana, Teamwork.com, Monday.com, and Zoho Projects, we concluded that Monday.com is the most suitable choice if you are new to project management.

Monday.com

Monday.com tops the list as the most robust and easy to implement platform ot of the 5 listed. It is a full scale project management platform that offers solutions for project management, CRM, task management, client communication, and resource management. It is one of the go-to tools for any business and professional looking to start immediately with little to no knowledge of PM software. Monday.com offers new users a 14-day free trial to get a full initial scope of the platform ,after which users can opt for a free plan (with limitations) or choose from the various paid versions.

SetUp

Setting up Monday.com is just as easy as creating a social media account. Monday.com tend to offer new users to free trial version to get good sense of the user experience before choosing the free or a one of paid version. Creating an account is just as easy as creating a social media account; you need an email to be associated with your account (preferable a business email), and a password. Once confirmed, you can go ahead and finish set up their account via the Administration Tab. This is one of the many ways new users are invited to collaborate on the platform for all or specific projects, as seen below.

Workspaces & Boards

Monday.com leverage a concept known as Workspace where all projects relating to a specific topic or e.g. department are located. Within each workspace, there exist Boards which represent different projects being undertaken within that workspace. Boards are where all task, milestones, dates, status, people and progress are seen. Monday.com also offers many templates that can be used as guide to create your own boards. External users such as guests or clients can be invited by you/your team to create an account and engage with applicable boards.

Boards & Task Assignments

Board are structured as a full view of all the projects tasks, milestones progress and people involved. From this view, tasked can be easily added and assigned. Simply select an empty row to add a new task, and select the row under the "Person" column to assign a Member or Guest to that tasks. Permitted users can add or remove columns within a board, invite guests. Without permission varies, other users can also make updates to task status and add notes where needed.

Notification System

There is flexibly in notification styles on the platform, with users having at least 5 different ways to receive updates. Notifications can be received via email, platform bell icon, inbox, Slack messaging, and desktop app if installed.

Integration & Automation

One of the major advantages of Monday.com is that the platform facilitates pristine interaction with the most used external applications in the form of automated workflows. Automations are rules made that triggers an automatic action that eliminates the need for manual input by the user. An example of this is could be that you would like to receive an email via gmail whenever a client makes an update to a task or a team member completes a task.

Some of the most used apps are Gmail, Outlook, Teams, slack, Jira, Google Drive etc.

Version & Pricing

All versions of the platform offer no limit to the # of projects that can be established per account. After a 14-day free trial, a free version is offered that has essentials features needed for a single user or up to 2 users with some limitations:

• a maximum of 2 users per account. eg. a CEO and his manager

• maximum of 200 line items across all boards (users can get 100 more if they invite friends to use the platform)

• no viewers or guests invitations

• no automations

• most apps are not available for integrations

The other paid versions include a Basic versions for $8/month, a Standard version for $10 per month/user, and a Pro version for $16 per month/per user. These versions gives full access to the scope of Monday. There are many other PM tools that you can choose from down the line as you get familiar with PM softwares, but Monday provides the best platform to easily start for anyone new to project management platform.