What are the current up to date project management tools to use? I have been using dotProject which I know is outdated, what ones are out there and the best for small to medium projects?
To be more specific: A tool for tracking things like time, costs, progress and gantt charts etc.
Here are a few that I've recently reviewed:
Manymoon - Manymoon has a free plan, boasts Google Apps integration, including email and Docs and Spreadsheets, and has a social networking feel to it. The docs integration was awesome, but it didn't have a way to make notes in the task itself without creating a Google Doc.
Zoho Projects - Zoho Projects has a free plan, has tasks, milestones, reports, calendar, time tracking, a wiki, forums, and many features. The showstopper for me was the lack of Google Docs and Spreadsheets integration, but it seems like a pretty powerful solution.
Insightly - Insightly is Project Management and a CRM. It integrates with Google Apps and with email and has a simple interface. Reporting features seem to be lacking, however.
OpenProj looks to me like the closest open source equivalent of MS Project. Don't expect much, but compared to many other free tools, this one is really good.
MS Project 2010 has improved tremendously over previous versions. Hook it up to Sharepoint 2010, and you've really got something good going. If you don't have the time or resources to implement and maintain an MS solution, you MUST look at Basecamp for simple project task tracking and team collaboration. I manage a team of 12, and all my team members, PMs, and stakeholders love Basecamp.
Take a look to www.wrike.com. It has powerfull integration with e-mail and lots of features. However, it's not free.
Nobody has mentioned Microsoft Project yet. Yes, it's a huge, complex piece of software that is perhaps best suited for traditional/waterfall projects than things like iterative software methodologies, but, for the projects that it supports, it has a massive number of features.
Theres' an art to using it - see the number of books written for it - so it's not for everyone.
MS Project is an institution at many companies, so taking the time to learn it to some depth is definitely worth while. You can find some good free tutorials on YouTube.
In the webspace, Gantto makes GANTT charts easier and does have a nifty MS Project feature.
In terms of new products, one that looks really promising is asana. It's more task and collaboration focused than GANTT chart but i'm especially impressed with how visible it makes project tasks and the ease with which it manages them.
I work here, but LiquidPlanner is really a great tool for project management, and we've got a lot of new ideas and features coming up for 2011. Give it a try and let me know what you think.
I've used Liquid Planner, http://liquidplanner.com, for several years. It's not free, in fact, it's expensive for a SaaS application ($35 per user per month), but it manages project scheduling in an utterly realistic way. As tasks are scheduled, you enter a ranged estimate that takes into account the best and worst case scenarios. The scheduling engine behind the scenes calculates the probabilities associated with a set of possible end dates for the task, eventually rolled up to the project level. It's dynamic and flexible, providing you with the range of likely end dates given each day's current reality.
I am CTO at Rally - but don't miss AgileZen for small to medium sized projects of any style. Agile Zen is based on lean kanban concepts to help you move work by limiting your work in process. Check out their twitter stream of supper happy users at @agilezen. Tag line:
Project management gets lean
If you are considering doing agile/scrum/xp/kanban in large scale software or systems environment, you can start with a Community edition of Rally's Enterprise product with up to 10 users free. Check out Rally's twitter stream at @RallySoftware.
I founded the company Earliz which provide a collaborative project management platform: http://www.earliz.com. Our services are based on Agile project management methods like Scrum and Kanban. The interface is optimized to offer a fast and inutitive use.
If you use Scrum for PM, here are a few tools you might consider:
We've used Trac, as we already had it for tickets and as a general overview point. Writing tickets for tasks and assigning estimated work loads to them worked fine as a basic tool for a small Scrum team.
I second, wait THIRD the recommendation for LiquidPlanner. I was first attracted to LiquidPlanner because I love how they allow for ranged estimates. This allows you to create a schedule that you can really depend on and not have to go back and update all of the time. There's also great reports, a whole suite of collaboration tools, time-tracking, mobile app and more. Definitely check it out!
Amazing that no one has included Fogbugz yet! If you're brave enough to surrender your PM-powers to its formidable EBS (Evidence-Based Scheduling - http://www.fogcreek.com/blog/post/EBS-20.aspx) you'll find it can take away a lot of the pain in planning / estimation.
If you have used Dotproject, you might want to check out Web2project (http://web2project.net/). It's a fork of Dotproject by some of the original developers. It looks promising (but that's all I can say about it)
My company is launching a new product that goes against the grain of everybody else. http://achievmo.com In alpha right now, use sign up code pm32X (limit 10, otherwise tweet @achievmo for another). Would love to hear some feedback if you have the time.
Check out HiTask http://hitask.com it's a Free online task management tool.
It's easy to use, probably friendliest and easiest on the market. It's very unique. It also has Business version that allows to share tasks and projects.