10 Best Software Development Project Management Tools for External Teams

12 min readSep 29, 2021

Originally published at https://inoxoft.com/blog/10-best-software-development-project-management-tools-for-external-teams/ on September 28, 2021.

Today, it is hard to imagine an organization that is not based on management principles and tools. Correct management makes corporate life a lot easier. And not only corporate. Our days base on making checklists, carrying out tasks, and finding balance.

In companies, management is also a pillar of coordination and work progress. Project management, in particular. It’s a process that needs certain software development planning tools.

So, this article will explore project management and IT project management software. Here, you will get to learn what are the tools that make your company processes more coordinated. Enhance company workflows and performance, and make your team collaboration efficient with Inoxoft.

The importance of software development management tools

Finances Online states that companies with PM practices waste a quarter less money. These practices include automation of business processes and agile development.

Software development management tools are the little helpers in automating and teamwork tracking. Productivity comes from flexible and convenient tracking tools.

How come only 23% of organizations tend to use project planning software? 67% of organizations that do not believe in project management fail. And, it is for a reason.

Technology aims at accelerating different processes. Why wouldn’t companies use it if:

It promotes a clear understanding of requirements and goals

External dev teams that work on the same projects, need to know project requirements. But, as we all understand, the scope of work can be extensive. And, requirements tend to change from time to time.

To ensure, every goal is clear, it is vital to use task management tools. This way PMs and team members will be always on the same page. In the management software, every task has a description, timeline, and guidelines. Sort of a to-do list that is informative, logical, and structured in one place.

It adds to teamwork transparency and accountability

To make the working environment transparent, use project management software for developers. This will make team members equal and their task lists visible to all.

Every developer on the external dev team will be able to report their task completion status. This points to a good process of accountability. And, focuses on making employees responsible for project progress and success. Among the pros, managers will get these task reports faster.

It keeps the team organized and on the same page

Manual management of the team, when the project changes requirements, makes no sense. It’s because it is tiresome and requires a lot of attention to detail. Project managers are humans after all. They may forget something or won’t be able to operate with a large scope of info on their own.

Software development project management tools show project changes to the external dev team. And, also, that the project manager can handle any issues occurring on the spot. Everyone will remain updated about the project flow and client feedback.

The project management software market experiences constant growth. It will grow at a CAGR of 10.67% from 2020–2025. Software development companies understand its importance more and more. Don’t underestimate the role of project management tools in software engineering!

IT project management software features

Project management tools for software development should include 5 basic features:

1. Project planning and scheduling

Planning and scheduling project flow has to be an essential feature. It is vital to fill out the calendar with important events, rank tasks, and share everything with the team. If your plan and schedule are correct, you’ll get to know:

the task hours booked by each team member and the free time slots
who on the team is open to new tasks or will be open soon
how to set realistic deadlines and divide tasks equally
when to foreground high-priority tasks and background the others
what impacts productivity and how to avoid overloads

2. Team collaboration

Channels that support team communication are necessary to promote collaboration. These channels have to be safe and fast in file sharing, including sharing customer data. And, also, they should have accessible team dashboards with, for example, KPIs.

3. Documentation management

By all means, your project has a lot of documentation. It would be convenient to access this data all in one place. And, access it quickly.

Let’s take spreadsheets. Lots of companies that use spreadsheets believe this tool is the best software. But to have better data access, information has to have separate pages. And, to find the right document, you have to make a lot of clicks and go through many pages. Is this convenient? Would it be fast if you need it urgently? Of course, no.

Both a PM and the team have to access docs in a few clicks. It might be a customer relationship management system (CRM) that will give you this option. Or invoice automation.

4. Reporting

PM has to know about every task completion or issue occurring. To understand where you are at with the project, you need either a good reporting system or a KPI dashboard.

To report and have previous reports at hand, you need to have an option of customizable reports. Customization allows extracting data on the team’s performance. Also, it processes tasks, project budgets, and expenses.

KPI boards are rather metrics about planned and actual project value. The dashboards keep track of the actual project performance and update in real-time.

5. Resource management

Resource management includes maintenance of the other resources used in project development. For example, meeting rooms, and project materials. Also, it includes project budget management.

Resources you can use should be available to you, as a PM, and your project team. You should make sure these resources are within the budget. To add, you need to track resource usage to understand their value on the project.

Time tracking is one of those resources that bring value. With the help of input time spent on a project, it is possible to assign billing. And, forwarding bills, you will need to have an option of automated invoicing. Invoices are the pdf templates that a management tool can send to the needed person. This can free up workloads and shift PM’s focus on something more important.

The larger the project, the bigger budget it has. And, thus, every penny has to be documented to avoid overspending and miscommunication. Professional programming project management tools can help you with that just fine.

Best project management tools for software development

Software development teams tend to use management tools they like and have a set budget for. But, the most popular in-use are the following:

1. Jira

Atlassian, Jira is a good and convenient cross-platform means of agile management. It becomes a useful tool in tracking task completion as well as tracking bugs.

Among the benefits of Jira, you can:

Create user stories
Manage issues
Distribute assignments across teams and rank them
Plan iterations
Use customized Scrum or Kanban boards
Track project performance

To add, Jira has advanced features to use, and API integration. It’s always free for ten users on a monthly basis. But, the Standard, Premium, and Enterprise subscriptions require bigger fees. For example, the Standard package per 10 users will cost you $70 per month. And, the Premium package per 10 users will be as much as $140 per month. Enterprise package requires more than 800 users and is paid on an annual basis.

2. Zoho Projects

Zoho becomes one of the greatest tools for project management as it keeps teams work like a clock. Among the benefits it provides are to:

Create task lists for teams
Set subtasks and milestones
Track and manage tasks via Gantt Charts
Track bugs
Fill out timesheets
Manage documents and files
Integrate with the G-Suite apps
Communicate via social media
Coordinate better with project feeds

The tool integrates with Zoho CRM and other software. Among the cons is that it is free only for one project with 10 MB of storage. Extra features need more payments. Extra storage you and your team might need may cost you a lot more than €5–10 per month.

3. Trello

Trello is rather a task completion tracker with visualizations. It allows tracking ideas from day one until you complete them. With Trello, it is possible to:

Trello can become a good helper in managing the team’s to-do list and its UI is super user-friendly to work with. Yet, among the cons, it has no Gantt charts and calendar integration is rather limited.

You can use Trello for free unless you want to have a premium subscription of $5 or $17.50 per гser in one month.

Create an unlimited number of tasks
Focus on specific tasks (date, a-z list, importance)
Personalize Kanban boards
Manage each task on a cardboard
Share ideas, files, and images with fellow employees

You can use Trello for free unless you want to have a premium subscription of $5 or $17.50 per гser in one month.

4. Wrike

Wrike is among the best and secure management tools there are these days. Its benefit lies in a rich variety of features and simplicity of use.

Wrike can help you to:

Manage projects in spreadsheets
Design valuable project information in spreadsheet columns
Plan projects and dashboards
Track and report team performance
Receive reminders about tasks
Track task status changes
Work with Gant charts
Have unlimited working projects
API integrations

Extensive teams can be on the same page as long as Wrike is excellent for enterprise projects. But, it might seem a bit expensive and the UI is a bit clumsy.

Wrike has four subscription plans. The first one is free and it’s for teams getting started. Professional one costs $9.80 per month and it is designed for fast-growing teams. A Business plan is for all the teams across the organization and will take $24.80 per month. The Enterprise-level plan is for large teams only. The price here is negotiable with the Wrike consultants.

5. Asana

Asana is a management tool for small teams. It tracks tasks assigning to team members and the PM can be sure to know who does what. It’s easy for Asana to:

Create tasks, subtasks, projects, sections
Fill in task descriptions and deadlines before assigning them
Comment task and share details
Exploit reminders to finish tasks on time
Communicate with voting and likes
Design workflow templates

Asana can integrate with Google Drive, Chrome, Dropbox, GitHub, and other third-party services. But, Asana has some flaws. You cannot assign dependency to the tasks and will not track the task duration.

Asana also has pricing plans to consider. For example, the Basic one is free of charge. The Premium will cost around $10.99 per one user per month. And, the Business plan will cost you $24.99 monthly. To receive the Asana Enterprise package, you should contact the sales team.

6. Basecamp

It is the most popular project management application. Its UI makes cooperation between teammates and customers quite an exciting experience. Basecamp allows you to:

Create and accumulate to-do lists
Keep performance records
Manage and share different files
Plan and schedule dates and discussions
Make project progress reports

This application has great responsiveness, is user-friendly, and has lots of plug-in services. Yet, you cannot integrate it with Google Drive, Dropbox, and other apps. To do so, you will need to search for certain services.

Basecamp can be free to use only with a limited set of features. And, it’s free only for personal projects, students, freelancers, families. To get more out of the app you will need to pay around $99 per month. But it is worth it as all the features will be open to you.

7. Redmine

Redmine is a free project management app. It was developed by an engineering community and it’s open-source. Here, you can find plugins and themes to customize projects. Redmine can help you to:

Make time tracking easier
Collaborate in forums
Use Gantt charts
Create Kanban boards
Integrate with a CRM
Plan roadmaps
Send email

Redmine is flexible and supports plenty of languages. Yet, it fails in reporting and searching features. And, despite the fact that the app is free, you might find plugins that have a fee.

8. Celoxis

Development teams like Celoxis for its great customization possibilities. It is the software that does not need third-party integrations. Mainly, because it has all the necessary features within it. Celoxis helps teams to:

Plan projects
Schedule project events
Track profit and margins
Manage resources
Use custom charts
Collaborate using specific features

Also, Celoxis is has nice UI and intuitive UX. What concerns pricing, Cloud package per one user will cost $25 per month. on-premises package has one billing per year and it’s $450 per unlimited usage, of course.

9. Scoro

Scoro helps in projects, tasks, and management of contacts. It has all the features a development team would like to have gathered in one place. So, Scoro makes it possible to:

Set up timelines and schedule tasks
Automate tasks with task matrix
Track time spent on tasks
Forecast and track project budgets
Plan resources

Scoro is unique and the best business management tool of today. It costs $28 per month for at least five users. Its price varies according to work departments, i.e. development teams and sales teams. As each of the teams has its own workflows, Scoro helps out in the concrete niche for $42 per month per five users. The Ultimate plan encompasses all the departments within the company. As it is defined per each company separately, the pricing is negotiable.

10. TeamGantt

TeamGantt is all about project planning. making predictions and project plans with TeamGantt is super easy and extremely useful.

The features this app gives development teams are to:

Manage, collaborate and organize projects easily
Report any features
Design portfolios
Schedule and set up events using calendars
Set concrete project timelines
Track project timeline from start to finish

Amazon’s, Netflix’s, and Nike’s success revolve around using TeamGantt in project management. And the price for its beneficial features is comprehensive. For example, it can be used for Free by 3 people. The team of 10 people, who want to have access to certain features will need to pay $114.50 per month. Unlimited usage and business projects will cost around $164.50 per ten people per month. But the price is worth paying.

Consider Inoxoft your trusted partner

Inoxoft is an international software development company building top apps on the market. Our dedicated software development team provides expert mobile application development services. And that’s not our limit, we also provide custom web development services, and more.

If you have an idea but hesitate to implement it, we can help you out here as well. Try Inoxoft’s discovery phase services to get to know what your idea is worthy of. Waste less cost and effort to achieve the greatest advantage.

What’s more, Inoxofts revolves around project management practices daily. Thus, we know what it takes to maintain cooperation between the team members. So, to ensure progress and success, we also adhere to programming management tools. And, having the knowledge of a kind, we can deploy these tools for you.

If you’d like to cooperate with our team to scale up development team of your own, contact us. Inoxoft will consult you and answer all your basic questions. Also, we can share thought on how to hire a software developer that will bring you success.

Create a custom solution or scale up your team with Inoxoft. Receive the best product and services for the most reasonable price!

Final thoughts

Great success is hidden in the talent to manage your daily activities the right way. Teams, who want to be efficient, tend to use project management tools to meet this need. And, they add to their productivity and cooperation at 100%. If you want to be successful as well, use any of the helpful tools available on the market. or, maybe, you need custom solutions. Then, contact us and get a free consultation now!