28 Best Team Management Software in 2024

Successful projects are delivered by successful teams.

It’s no secret to any manager how paramount the role of the team in every step along the way to the company’s goals is. The right team is capable of delivering what’s expected of them on time and within budget, while also exceeding expectations of all stakeholders.

The big factor in the team’s success is how its workflow is arranged. Big or small, every team requires strong team management software to create a structure, spread the workload evenly, ensure important things get done on time, and keep everyone in the loop on what’s going on.

If you’re currently looking for a team management solution, you’re in luck! Here, we are sharing a curated list of the best team management tools that are actually supportive of your team’s goals and provide all the instruments necessary to achieve the most audacious plans.

What is team management software?

First, let’s define what a team management software is.

Team management tools are software products that are used by teams and their managers to navigate the work process and reach targets. They are shared workspaces where all tasks, goals, plans, milestones, and helpful materials are consolidated.

The team management software serves multiple purposes, here are some of them:

• Healthy and productive communication among team members
• Simpler and more efficient collaboration
• Visibility of everyone’s workload and progress
• Streamlined workflow of individual employees and the team as a whole
• A single spot for all tasks and to-dos
• Manager’s helper in leading and guiding the team
• Ensuring the team completes the work on time
• Optimizer of the team’s time and resources
• Risk management through timely monitoring
• Documentation of tasks, goals, best practices, etc.

The top team management software you’ll find on the market features a comprehensive list of instruments to support the team’s goals and boost transparency and collaboration. Things like shared team calendars where everyone can see everyone’ current workload; time blocks that support employees’ productivity and help managers see what they’re working on each day; time tracking to reduce time waste and help plan future projects and tasks, a real-time chat that simplifies communication; detailed tasks that help team members execute the work to the highest standard; and notes that outline project details, workplace FAQs, helpful guides, etc.

Featured team management software

Below are the top four team management tools that showed the best results in our tests. We’ve carefully evaluated and played with each solution to make sure they meet the modern requirements of team leaders and team members, helping both excel at their jobs.

Bordio is team management software that prioritizes healthy productivity. It reduces busywork, empowers the team to focus on key priorities, and allows team managers to monitor and track their team’s performance without micromanagement or manual follow-ups. The solution supports team projects and offers a wide range of tools for employees to execute their work well and on time.

The shared team calendar includes both tasks and events, so the team can plan better without double-booking themselves, ensuring that important tasks are being completed, so there are no bottlenecks along the way. Everyone on the team can see each others’ calendars which helps understand what each individual employee is working on, and how well they’re doing. So, next time you need to chase a task someone’s working on for you, simply open their calendar and see what’s going on. Tasks are equipped with a long list of supportive features to encourage everyone’s success.

Team workload management

Both managers and subordinates can use and benefit from the team workload management in Bordio. Complete transparency of tasks and calendars allows leaders to be less invasive while keeping track of everything that’s going on in the team, including how many tasks are completed daily and the total number of hours everyone worked. Team members can create time blocks to plan their workload and ensure they meet deadlines. They can also manually type in their final work hours for each day. This allows managers to compensate contractors fairly and avoid burnout by tracking how much everyone works daily.

Task distribution

Task creation and allocation is an art form with Bordio. First of all, you can create a task by either clicking the “Add New” button or any space on the calendar. It’s very easy to create tasks and fill in all the necessary details, such as the name and the description, and how much time it’s anticipated to take. You can also schedule the task, set the deadline and repeats, add subtasks, time blocks, and tags, attach files, and change the owner – all in the intuitive new task interface. If the task needs to be rescheduled, you can press and move it on the calendar. The owner is also reassigned with one click.

Real-time messaging

Regular and open communication is the pillar of successful teams. Bordio’s team management tool features real-time chats that are linked to tasks and events. This means that if you’re delegating the task to someone else or want to add helpful insights or chase for an update, you can text in the chat and have the entire conversation linked to it. No more back-and-forth with external messengers and manual copy-pasting from the chat to the team management software. With a built-in real-time messenger, employees save time, are less overwhelmed, and are more accountable.

Progress tracking

As a manager, you don’t want to make the impression of being overly controlling, micromanaging, and distrustful. Yet, it’s your direct responsibility to track, monitor, and control. So what do you do? Bordio’s team manager helps you out with this dilemma by introducing transparency and useful instruments that employees are motivated to use, and managers can utilize for supervision. The estimated task duration, time blocks, and task statuses can all be added and altered to reflect the amount of work that’s being done. Additionally, all completed tasks do not disappear from the to-do list, but rather are colored gray and stay visible, so that everyone on the team can see how much someone’s accomplished on any given day. Employees use all these tools for personal productivity, and managers can view them discreetly, without actually asking everyone on the team for updates.

Bottom line

Team management software will not perform a miracle, but it will support and guide the team, allowing them to be more productive and motivated. If you’re looking for a solution that will bring your team management to the next level, look no further. Bordio is simple to use and intuitive, but don’t let its simplicity throw you off. It offers a great number of tools that make team management less about control, and more about leadership and mentoring. Plus, you get many helpful features, such as the waiting list for all your unscheduled tasks and plans, that managers can use to stay on top of their daily tasks and global company goals.

Nifty positions itself as a collaboration hub for project management. It’s focused on creating an omnichannel platform where employees and managers can view and work on tasks, projects, goals, and documents. They can also chat in the same interface.

Managers who work with a lot of contractors or freelancers will definitely make use of the time-tracking feature that users log their hours with. It’s good if you want to ensure an employee works as much as agreed, and it simplifies billing.

Key features:

1. Relatively simple report generation that allows managers to review the progress of their team and share the results with senior leadership.
2. A single tab for All Tasks shows everything that every team member is working on within the company.
3. The discussion board is designed to promote employee collaboration and work on tasks jointly to execute them faster.
4. Centralized storage can be used for projects, big campaigns, and any sort of corporate files and documentation that needs to be tracked and stored safely.
5. A selection of templates can be used to reduce the time it takes to launch a new project.

Bottom line:

Nifty has an interesting selection of functionality that can be used for team management. The entire solution, however, is built around milestones, including tasks. This is a flagship feature that Nifty uses to stand out from the competition, so if that’s not something you agree with, then it’s probably not right for you. You can, however, use Goals – a tool that gamifies the work process and is supposed to prevent the team’s procrastination.

Teamwork positions itself as the go-to product for team management. On the website, the company features 11 different teams and claims to have a custom approach to all of them. There are also three separate products called Teamwork Desk, Teamwork Chat, and Teamwork Spaces.

Key features:

1. Intake forms allow managers and team members to request feedback, ideas, and task details from clients and employees. This helps collect all information required for work without having to chase someone in messengers or via emails.
2. Client users can be added to the project to engage them in decision-making or the actual workflow.
3. Multiple view options allow team members to work with familiar interfaces and stay productive.
4. Time tracking is available and users can mark time blocks as billable.
5. The Workload Planner helps managers view the team’s workload in real time, reassign tasks, and track capacity.

Bottom line:

Teamwork primarily caters to project managers with client-facing projects. It offers a single space for team, project, and client management, and is focused on keeping users within timelines and budgets. While it is useful for customer-facing industries and teams, internal departments that work on corporate tasks and projects will probably find a chunk of the functionality redundant, and utilize only the core functionality.

Monday is a work management platform that includes team management functionality. The solution is advertised to project teams and developers, and it features a CRM system. It aims to reduce the work that doesn’t generate value, ensure the deadlines are met, and the team is on the same page.

It offers all the basic functionality required to complete daily tasks, including creating the task itself with options to edit and reassign them to other team members. The dashboards help get a high-level overview of everything that the team is working on. Resource allocation allows managers to plan and distribute resources adequately without overspending. Teams can choose from several views to customize their interface to match their needs.

Key features:

1. Users can collaborate in real time with co-editing and comment features.
2. Timers allow managers and team members to track how long tasks take and plan better for the future.
3. You can automate status changes and email notifications to reduce time wasted.
4. Task dependencies allow everyone to see how their work affects others and promote accountability.
5. Dashboards show how well the team is doing with campaigns, projects, and any other types of work.

Bottom line:

Monday has a solid list of features that team leaders can use to keep on top of what their teams are doing. Team members also get handy instruments, such as Gantt charts, task codependencies, and timers to manage their work and achieve targets.

The Workload tab serves as a one-stop shop for tracking what everyone is assigned and how well they’re managing their tasks and projects. Additionally, you can access lots of functionalities that you’d technically not need for team management, but that can be potentially useful in the future.

Other team management tools worth considering

5. Wrike is a one-size-fits-all solution for managing teams across all company’s departments. It offers a mix of automation and visualization tools that help team managers stay up to date with what their teams are working on.
6. Slack is a corporate messenger with a funky design and the ability to create #channels along with one-on-one chats. It is only available for employees, so you won’t be able to add friends or clients. Messenger allows you to schedule messages and edit them. You can start threads to individual messages and keep the main conversation view nice and tight.
7. Workast caters to efficient team management through basics, such as task creation and editing, notes, templates, and the Space tab where users can structure their work. File storage is available through integration with Google Drive.
8. MeisterTask is a task management tool that helps its users get things done. The functionality is centered around task completion and timely monitoring. Teams can view all tasks on Kanban-inspired boards and avoid missed deadlines and other project chaos.
9. Airtable is primarily a platform for app development by non-tech employees. It uses AI to help users progress with apps, and one of its key benefits is definitely user-friendliness. It aims to streamline task creation and execution, allowing clients to release apps to market ASAP.
10. Asana is a project and team management tool that’s become popular thanks to its simplistic design and approach to the workflow. It supports collaboration and allows you to work on projects with your team, but it might not be ideal unless your project is very straightforward and on a smaller scale.
11. ProofHub is a team collaboration tool that offers task management, time tracking, and project management functionality. You can set milestones and track changes, and it also allows users to upload documents and collaborate on them straight from its interface.
12. Jira is a universal solution, although it’s mainly used by software development teams that follow Agile principles. It helps break down big goals into smaller, more manageable tasks which reduces procrastination and helps prioritize key work.
13. ClickUp is a project and team management platform that allows you to create goals and targets, and work through shared docs and chat. The real-time reporting linked to dashboards means that team members can always see each others’ processes without delays.
14. Hubspot is mostly a customer management solution that helps teams grow and retain their client base with email marketing and lead magnets. There’s also a CRM system that sales teams can utilize to work on and close deals.
15. Hive is a project management tool that is designed for B2C and B2B users who want to work on public or private projects. There are different layouts available for users, as well as goal monitoring and resource optimization.
16. Microsoft Teams is a corporate messenger that supports chats, video calls, and conferences, as well as channels for group discussions. As a Microsoft product, Microsoft Teams integrates with the rest of the solutions, such as SharePoint and OneNote. The messenger is available as a mobile, web, or desktop application.
17. Basecamp is another project management tool that targets specifically small teams. It claims to help them make more progress faster and overachieve. Its single-page per-project approach is great for someone who wants to have a high-level overview or is not ready to use complex solutions.
18. Smartsheet is a process, program, and project management system that’s heavy on automation. It helps track changes and who is making them, boosting employee accountability. It allows external stakeholders to access the individual tasks, so great for client-facing teams
19. Miro positions itself as a visual workspace and would probably work best for teams that require diagrams, visualizations of the process they’re working on, and the tools to showcase the design. Miro is all about security too, and it advocates for the zero-trust security policy.
20. Adobe Workfront is a work management solution for enterprises that covers functionality that the big players require, such as compliance tools, approvals, workflow automation, and scalability. You also get seamless integration with other Adobe products.
21. Trello is a work management tool that lives and breathes Kanban. It is essentially a Kanban board that you can use for projects and individual work. It’s a great solution for board- and card-lovers. Each task is an individual card, and it can be as detailed as you need.
22. Notion – platform has become popular as a personal work and productivity tool, but it’s actually also applicable for teams. It offers a centralized space where teams can come together and collaborate. There are a calendar and product maps available for project management activities.
23. Zoho Projects is a team management solution that is all about productivity and dynamic workflows. It offers user tracking features, supports collaboration, and enables teams to separate hours by billable and non-billable, simplifying the invoicing process.
24. Flock is a cross-team management solution that enables company-wide collaboration. Users can create channels to chat about tasks, projects, and initiatives. It also includes video conferences and screen recording to make sure team members build rapport and understand each other.
25. Toggl Plan is a time tracker for teams that are paid by the hour. It can also be used by managers who want to ensure their employees are not working less than agreed to or need to track that people don’t overwork and burn out.
26. Range is a team management software that promotes asynchronous check-ins instead of traditional real-time catch-ups, arguing that you don’t have to bring the entire team together on a call to keep everyone up to date. Something to look into if your team is spread across the globe.
27. SmartTask positions itself as a one-stop shop for tasks, teams, and project management, plus a CRM system. It can be a bit of an overkill if you simply need a team management solution, but worth exploring if you’re interested in other functionalities too.
28. Doodle is a scheduling software that helps you set up calls with your team, contractors, clients, candidates, and anyone else. If you work with a large team, coordinating everyone’s availability can be tedious and time-consuming. Doodle automates and streamlines this, removing the headache altogether.

The big wins of using team management software

If you’ve never used team management software – you are missing out! Teams play a huge role in the company’s success, that’s not a secret to anyone. Yet, very often we don’t invest enough time or provide enough instruments and resources for the team to excel.

A powerful team management solution can do wonders for the team’s work process, productivity, and overall results. Here are the key benefits that you can expect from a tool for your team.

#1 Improved communication

One of the biggest problems in the team is when its members don’t communicate regularly. Very often it’s caused by the lack of proper tools to chat that make communication easy. Bulky third-party messengers are not always the answer, especially if you need to check something quickly regarding one of the tasks. What the team management solution does here is provide a platform.

The real-time chat, comments, and editing options all help employees and their management exchange ideas, chase someone, share feedback, and catch up without leaving the familiar interface. When talking to each other is actually easy and causes no major disruption, that’s when inter-team communication flourishes.

#2 Better collaboration

Collaboration is the cornerstone of teamwork. You can hardly reach great results if your team doesn’t seem to be on the same page. Everybody’s workflow is different. Some prefer to write notes on their phone, others leave detailed tasks in their calendar. And then there’s a third category of people trying to understand what’s going on. Doesn’t sound like a productive way of doing things, right?

In turn, with a team management tool, everyone is working in the same system and following the same rules. There is still room for flexibility and finding your own working framework and style, but there’s a shared base that makes it easy for everyone to find important information, see what other employees are working on, and check the progress of the tasks and the project. The transparency and the structure make the entire workflow so much better.

#3 Advanced work with tasks

Assigning and executing tasks seems like a very simple idea. Your manager shares a task with you, you work on it, and then it’s done. Without the team management software though, your team will be struggling to see the entire workload and go through it efficiently. For management, not having access to the full team’s task list is frustrating as well.

A single team software for work will unite every single task that’s ever been created. You can backtrack to the previous work, monitor and stay up to date with current jobs, and review future plans efficiently. Tasks can be created, edited, reassigned, or linked to other tasks or milestones. This means they stop being individual work bits and turn into a part of the bigger project.

#4 Smart workload management

As a manager, you don’t always understand how much work your team is actually doing. In many cases, it’s not your fault either. Team management solutions help avoid this issue by giving you a platform where the entire workload is visible and available for review and analysis.

Shared calendars and to-do lists demonstrate how busy someone is, the status change and description updates on tasks allow you to estimate how much progress is being made. Time-tracking visualizes how much each task actually takes. All this is data that can be used to optimize the workload and spread it evenly among everyone, preventing burnout and promoting healthy productivity.

#5 Increased accountability

The beauty of shared work solutions, such as team management tools, is that they add an immense amount of transparency to the process. Whether you are naturally an accountable employee or not, you need external instruments to keep you efficient. Not having someone monitoring your work and being able to claim any workload is tempting to slow down and relax a little.

Everything that you are doing or not doing, you’ll be motivated to do your best. You get a sense of ownership when there’s a clear expectation. You know that your team and shareholders can see exactly what you’re doing and that naturally pushes you to perform better. On a more practical level, team management software tracks all changes to the system, making troubleshooting straightforward and allowing you to see where things spiral out of control, so you can avoid it in the future.

#6 Easier scalability

Growth is a highly desired phenomenon for a company, a startup, and an enterprise alike. Yet, when fast growth starts to happen, the teams are often not ready to scale to match the changing environment. Team management solutions remove this bottleneck to a degree. They can’t do all the work for you, but they’re definitely helping make the transition smoother. The team management tool is a central point of knowledge that can be shared with all newcomers to onboard them efficiently. Most of them support integrations that allow you to build a single ecosystem for your company. Integrating new users is extremely easy, which means that you waste no time and keep the momentum going.

Tips for selecting great team management software

Choosing the right team management tool can be tricky because there are so many options, and it’s not always clear which one of them is the best one from the start. But worry not, we’ve prepared a list of recommendations that will allow you to make a smart choice that will elevate your team’s work experience.

Analyze your team’s current work process and take notes

The best team management tool is the one that can be seamlessly integrated into your existing workflow while simultaneously providing you with ways of improving what you’re already doing.

Unless your team is brand new and there is no workflow yet, it’s best not to be too disruptive with how they’re doing things. If you do that, you’ll probably face a lot of resistance and find the team neglecting the software and resorting to their old ways. That’s why before you proceed with testing and evaluations, make the time to look back at how the processes are arranged and draft up a list of requirements that include both must-haves and good-to-haves.

Make your team part of the process

As a manager, you obviously have a good understanding of how things work in your team. However, you probably have no idea about the little details and nuances that go into their daily tasks. And that’s a good thing, you don’t want to be micromanaging after all.

With the team management solution selection process, your team will be of immense help. After all, they’ll be the ones using it the most, so their input should be heard and included. Plus, by engaging the team in the decision-making, you’ll reduce the stress they’ll have when the new software is installed. No matter how easy and intuitive it’s going to be, a change is always followed by an adaptation period. So better make it smooth.

Ask the team to share:

• The critical processes and tasks that must be migrated to the new system.
• What instruments/processes/tools they have now but don’t use and why.
• What they really miss in the current system or workflow.
• Any ideas and thoughts they have on the future team management solution.

Due diligence and research

One of the mistakes some leaders make is going for the first solution they find on the market. Yes, sometimes they really know what they need and this tactic pays off. However, more often than not they end up with a less-than-ideal option, so all the time savings they make by skipping proper research is compensated by the mediocre choice they’re stuck with.

There is a fine balance though between not researching at all and wasting time on too many options. With the requirement lists and insights from the team, you should be able to narrow down a few options rather painlessly. As you look through the available options, make sure you consider pricing for now and for when your team grows. At the same time, don’t make it the key criteria because the price you pay upfront may be low, but you can find yourself with inconveniences and issues down the line that strangle your growth, instead of facilitating it.

Arrange free trials and test the solutions

The testing phase is an absolute must. Request trial licenses from your final contestants and make sure to play with the software before making the final decisions. And if one of your selected options doesn’t offer free demo licenses – skip them altogether because there’s probably something fishy going on if they don’t want their clients to see the software before wiring the payment.

You don’t have to spend weeks on each solution, sometimes a day or two, or even a few hours, is enough. Engaging your team in testing would be a good idea as well. Create a team and a project for them, and ask them to play around with tasks, scheduling, and other functionality, as if they were assigning and working on real things.

Testing is vital because you can’t guarantee the performance of the solution will match what is written in the marketing materials.

Talk to salespeople

Sales representatives get a bad rep for being pushy and selling you things you don’t need. Sometimes, it’s really like that. However, for the most part, they’re one of the best resources for you during software evaluation. They’re the ones dealing with hundreds of clients all the time, and they know the product better than anyone. If you want to make the right choice fast, talking to salespeople is your shortcut. Share your thoughts, requirements, and concerns with them, and get the best feedback and insight about the solution and how you can maximize your benefits with it.

What to consider when selecting a team management software

Making the right choice is often about finding the balance between the things you want and the things you can get. With a team management solution though, some criteria should be non-negotiable.

1. Product simplicity. Simple doesn’t mean lacking something, but an intuitive and easy-to-use product that won’t make you sit in weeks of training trying to figure out how everything works. Look for solutions where you can tell the user experience is a priority.
2. Growth potential. Deciding on software solutions is a long-term decision. Surely you can swap the platform after six months or one year, but the migration alone will be a headache you’ll probably want to avoid. That’s why it’s important to consider only the solutions that are scalable. Your team might not grow ten times in the next year, but it might in two or three. When that happens, you’ll want to have a solution that won’t crash and freeze from the immense workload, or cost a fortune to expand on the new team members.
3. Functionality. Look at the feature stack of competing solutions and go for the one that has most of the must-haves and good-to-haves. During the evaluation, if you don’t see something at first, ask questions. Perhaps it’s called differently, is placed in a less obvious part of the UI, or the vendor is dealing with the issue completely differently by utilizing a feature that you wouldn’t even think of.
4. Technical support. Goes without saying – proper support is a must for any B2B solution, especially the one that the entire team is working with. Technical support can deal with issues and bugs in their solution, but also point out compatibility issues with the rest of your environment, and answer configuration and how-to questions. Even the best products on the market fail sometimes, that’s the reality of the technical world. So don’t ignore that aspect of the solutions you’re looking at.
5. Total cost of ownership (TCO). Pricing itself is an important criteria, but should never be number one. Also, the cost of the subscription itself is not the final price you’ll be paying. There are also expenses associated with training the staff to use the solution, migrating from your current product to the new one, and the cost of compensating for what’s not available as a part of the product, such as inventing workarounds if the tool doesn’t do what you need it to do.

Top 5 features every team management software needs to have

There are no two equal teams out there, and everyone’s needs are different too. However, some functionality is universally required for any team, no matter where they’re based or what they’re working on.

#1 Collaboration functionality

The success of the team depends on how well everyone works together. A huge role that a team management tool plays here is providing the platform and the instruments for the teams to collaborate, come up with ideas, help each other out, and achieve great results faster and easier. Think real-time chats, comments, shared notes, and documents.

#2 Team calendar

Not every team calendar is equally helpful. A proper team calendar needs to be transparent and visible to all team members and their managers. It should also cover both events and tasks, so employees can plan better and avoid double-booking each other. Team calendars add transparency to the workflow and reduce unnecessary distractions, associated with double-checking the progress and chasing someone for an update. Instead, you can open your colleagues’ calendars and see what’s going on yourself. As a bonus, team members knowing that their to-dos and calendars can be viewed anytime by anyone, will work and keep up with deadlines better.

#3 Time tracker

Time tracking is a feature that both team members and leadership should strive to have in their team management solutions. Time tracking is not always about control, although it’s obviously helpful in this department. It is also very powerful in terms of organizing the workflow and planning the timeline. Individuals can track how much they’re working and prevent burnout and exhaustion. Team leaders can see how long each job takes and manage stakeholders’ expectations better.

#4 Task manager

It might be number four on our list, but task managers should definitely be up high on every manager’s priority list. Task manager sounds like a super basic thing but they’re the basis for everything else that’s being done at work. A proper task manager includes the option to create and edit tasks, but also share, reassign, track, create co-dependencies, fill in descriptions, add files, and track the time they take to complete.

#5 Monitoring

Monitoring is another paramount functionality that every team leader needs to have. The last thing you want is to have to ask for updates constantly, looking like a micromanager. With built-in monitoring, you can watch what the team is doing inconspicuously and avoid unnecessary chasing or meetings.

Is team management software a must-have for my team?

Some companies and managers, especially the ones that are just starting out, ask us whether they really need team management software.

It’s a fair question because, after all, you can manage with messengers, public email domains, shared online docs, and sheets. But what kind of result are you expecting from such a workflow? Surely, it can work for a few months when the team is still small and you’re figuring things out. However, as time goes on, and the number of tasks, projects, and employees starts to rise, you are bound to hit a wall. Coordinating the team is already hard with all the resources in the world. Take them away, and you’re making your life so much harder for no good reason.

Team management solutions require an upfront investment when you’re looking at options and paying for the subscription. After that though, you will mostly be reaping the benefits of your decision. Automation, transparency, structure, and unification of the team management tool will always outweigh the time and resources you’ve spent on acquiring it. It is much more than a storage for tasks and data. With team management solutions, you get a collaboration tool, an instrument for monitoring the progress, and an efficiency booster.

So yes, technically you can skip the team management solution and work without it, but why would you want to do that to yourself and your team?

Can team management software really drive your business forward?

We’re glad you asked! Team management solutions are incredible when it comes to getting you closer to your business goals. Here’s what they do:

• Add transparency to the workflow.
• Foster accountability among the team.
• Create a workflow structure.
• Boost efficiency through clear processes.
• Reduce the cost of running the team.
• Increase the productivity of your workforce .
• Help fight procrastination.
• Allow to break down big projects into manageable tasks.
• Provide the time freedom to work on Tier 1 tasks and goals.
• Give management a clear overview of the team’s work 24/7.
• Optimize resource planning and allocation.
• Remove processual roadblocks and bottlenecks.
• Store and organize all work-related data.

Team management tools are really a win-win thing.

Employees have a clear work structure and understand what’s required of them better, so there is less frustration and burnout. Managers get non-intrusive monitoring and tracking instruments that help them be efficient leaders without adding more to their plate. Clients get better products and services, because the company works well together and has enough bandwidth to produce high-quality results, and also do it faster and more often.

Without the confusing work processes and cross-team misunderstandings, you have more time for actual product development and improvements. There’s time to craft it, there’s time to ask clients for feedback and actually listen to what they say and implement it in the next editions. Companies that do that tend to win the market.

What’s the first step with my new team management software?

Now that you’ve chosen, purchased, and installed your new team management solution, what’s next? How do you get started?

1. Go through all onboarding content that’s available to you by the vendor, and make sure your team does the same. If you have an option to jump on a demo call with the vendor to go through the main points – do that too. This will make your team more comfortable with the idea of using the new tool, and you’ll see the improvements in the work sooner.
2. Have an internal check-in meeting with the team to see if everyone’s happy with the new tool, has any questions, or any other feedback. Yes, this is extra time out of everyone’s calendar but these first few weeks will determine how much the software will be used. And what’s the point of investing in quality solutions if they’re not utilized to the max?
3. Set up the basics: create the team and projects, add recurring meetings and key tasks to the calendar.
4. If it’s possible to automate data transfer from your previous tools, organize it. If not, schedule the timeline for the manual migration of key information. This is also a good time to re-evaluate how you log and store data so that you can start fresh with better procedures.
5. Write and share a list of basic rules for the software. Make sure it includes standards for logging tasks, events, and everything else. Continuously encourage the team to write down everything in the system. It’s key for productive work, but also paramount for the company’s long-term success. Many underestimate how dangerous it is to have information in an employee’s head or personal notes. Once they leave the company, the knowledge leaves with them. Don’t let that happen.

3 must-have tools for awesome team management

Leaders always look for ways to implement new tools that will make their team’s lives easier. With so many options out there, picking the best instruments can feel like a Mission Impossible movie. If you’re feeling lost, start with the three tools below that we believe are immensely important for teams of all sizes.

#1 Task manager

Tasks are the most basic but vital tools for team management. They’re not cool like AI-based instruments, or other fancy elements of the system, yet without them – your teamwork will fall apart.

A proper task manager is flexible and all-encompassing. It should include all the basics (task status, changing the owner, description field, seeing who assigned the task to you) but also the advanced settings, such as time estimation, co-dependency with other tasks, notifications when someone else interacts with the task, real-time chat linked to the task, and tags.

#2 Time tracking

Time tracking is often criticized as a means of control and micromanagement. It can be misused, don’t get us wrong. However, primarily it is a wonderful instrument that everyone ought to use in their team manager software. Time tracking helps individual employees plan their workload better and meet deadlines stress-free. Management can use the data to analyze how busy their teams are to restructure projects, plan enough time for the work to be done, so employees are not overwhelmed, and forecast to the senior leadership with more accuracy.

#3 Team calendar with tasks

All of us use calendars at work. Undoubtedly, each of us creates and works with tasks too. Both are basic tools that enable us to do our job. The common issue though is that these two exist in parallel universes. Your to-do list is often completely separate from the calendar, and it’s bad.

Why? Well, simply put you can’t plan very well and execute everything you intend to do unless your to-dos and calendar meetings are in sync. Let’s say you plan to complete six tasks on Monday, totaling five hours of focused work. Sounds completely adequate, but only until you look at the calendar and see that you have three hours’ worth of meetings on that day. There’s no way you can fit that into the standard working day, even if you skip lunch.

That’s why you need a calendar that accommodates both tasks and events and allows your team to see each other’s workload. With this kind of transparency and optimized day planning, your team will be more productive and collaborative, while reducing the levels of anxiety.

The 5 mistakes team leaders make when choosing and implementing team management software

Choosing the best team management solution is only half of the success. The other half is implementing it in your workflow. Here are some of the mistakes that we helped our clients avoid to maximize the benefit of our team management tool from day one.

Rushing and skipping essential steps of the selection process.

We get it, time is money, and there’s never enough of both. So you’d naturally want to get this whole evaluation over with as soon as possible and move on to the actual work. The problem here, unfortunately, is that if you rush through the selection of vendors or skip testing, your likelihood of ending up with a poor-quality product skyrockets. So take your time, recruit help from the team, and take it one step at a time.

Underestimating the testing phase

With the abundance of online materials (videos, articles, guides), some might think that testing is not really required. You can see the pre-recorded demos to ensure the needed functionality is there and read about everything else on the website, right? Wrong. There’s always a risk that the software you purchase will perform differently than how it’s positioned online. It’s not necessarily malicious actions on the vendor side, but a difference in perception or outdated content that showcases earlier editions that aren’t relevant anymore.

Starting the testing unprepared

Even the simplest team management tools have lots of functionality to play with. If you’re jumping into testing without reading about the products first, you’ll probably catch most of the important things, but you are also likely to miss little details and the less obvious functionality that can make your work life more efficient. So, before you launch the test, go through the website, watch a clip or two, and speak with the sales rep.

Skipping team-wide training

Going for straightforward and intuitive team management software doesn’t mean you won’t need training. In fact, even the simplest solutions can be misunderstood because all of us have different experiences and ways of doing things. That’s why if you want to guarantee that your new solution will provide the most ROI possible, take the time to go through vendor’s onboarding, schedule follow-up meetings for questions to ensure every single team member is on the same page, and ask for FAQs and other materials they can use later.