Rich and effective project management tools are one of the many secrets to any project’s success. True, almost all project managers, and also individuals who work from home, make use of some or the other of these tools. However, using the right tools for managing your personal or business projects is as essential as choosing a person with the right skills required for a job. Nevertheless, these tools are not meant to replace the professional managing skills of a person, they only offer an enhanced platform for you to manage your projects effectively.

Effective Project Management

Have you ever wondered why some projects succeed, and some do not? Obviously, destiny is not always to blame, but budget and dedication can be considered to some extent. Of all the important aspects that help a project succeed, the role of the project manager can be considered to be the most important one. Past experiences, training as well as the skills of the project manager, everything has some part to play. Moreover, research in this area also proves that projects that are carefully planned, designed and organized have a comparatively higher success rate than the others. The right organizing software can be really helpful in these cases!

In contrast to the most conventional organizing tools (such as pen and paper), management tools now feature online spreadsheets, and even offer dedicated solutions for project management. Search online for tools to manage your projects, and one look at the search result will give you the idea of the numerous tools present in this category. These may be available in the form of software that may be installed locally on your machine, online software or dedicated hosted software that empowers users to connect from remote locations.

Project Management Tools

When searching for software for your project management needs, there are some features you should essentially look for. The most important ones are:

• Evaluation of tasks
• Gantt charts (these are used universally and are very simple to understand)
• Path methodology
• Response analysis

Though this is not the complete list, these features form a kind of base platform for management tools. Take for example, task evaluation. This feature is also commonly called Work Breakdown Structure, and its objective is to break down the original task (which may be huge) into smaller pieces, down to the smallest piece. Although this is a very important and useful feature, not only project management tools offer it in the package. This is further backed by response analysis, which identifies the actions of an individual in response to the deadline of the project, and overall task completion.

Gantt charts form another essential feature of any such tool, since they easily let you organize and monitor the completion of your project. The charts have an overall “flow” feature that is very similar to logical network diagrams, the only difference being that Gantt charts offer a more detailed view. Also, these charts can automatically plot graphs of tasks with respect to the identified timelines.