Project management software helps your team improve their effectiveness. This software is used to track the implementation, progress, and completion of a project or series of projects, and it becomes a great medium to share knowledge by encouraging and facilitating proper documentation throughout the organization.

As the adage says, different folks, different strokes. Different Project Management Software, different features. However, we stick to the notion that all project management software should offer some “must-have” features.

In this blog post we’ll take a look at 5 of the main features any project management should have:

Check our new and Complete guide to Project Management!

Main features of a Project Management Software:

1. Project tracking
2. Documentation
3. Dashboard
4. Communication
5. Collaboration and updates

1. PROJECT TRACKING

We believe project tracking should take the lead in the most important features. Tracking includes identifying who worked on what project or task, the overview of the entire project, the progress, and even identifying bottlenecks and constraining factors.

2. DOCUMENTATION

Coming second, we’d give it to documentation. Since managing a project involves lots of documentation, it’s only standard for project management software to have a seamless documentation setting. Project management software should be capable of assisting your team in simplifying the processes of documenting progress, from phase to phase of the projects. Also, it should allow team members to easily create shared documents and have access to them when needed.

3. DASHBOARD

We can’t help but emphasize on an accurate and self-explanatory dashboard. Project management software is not complete without a self-explanatory panel, which comes in handy for accurate reporting. With a good dashboard, your KPIs will be accurately reported. The dashboard should let the team members know what they have to do during the day, their expired tasks, the teams and projects they belong to, among others.

4. COMMUNICATION

Then we have seamless and hassle-free communication systems. Teamwork can’t be complete without proper communication. Any decent project management software ensures that department-to-department and person-to-person communication is easily initiated, followed-up, and executed. Allowing comments and interactions within the project will facilitate the progress of the tasks and the a rapid answer to bottlenecks and problems.

5. COLLABORATION

Finally, we have collaboration and updates. Project management software should be able to alert or notify the team members of any recent updates concerning an on-going project.

Remember, if you’re a project manager with one or more projects in your hands, you will most likely need a PM software that facilitates your job and allows you to control your tasks and the tasks of your team members.

When choosing a PM software make sure it offers all the features that you need to do a better job. We just enlisted 5 features that we consider a must, but according to your projects, you may need more sophisticated features like time-tracking or a Gantt chart. Choose wisely and don’t give up on the search, there’s a tool out there for you.