Milestone List Template: Fill & Download for Free

It’s really hard to say what the best project management tool is, as each have their own pros and cons. What’s actually most important is finding one that fits your workflow and works the way your team works.Here’s a roundup of 50 of the top project management apps, in their own respective categories, with a quick description of what makes each one great:Task Lists Apps:Asana to manage team to-dos with updates and progress graphs to keep everything on track.Dapulse to visualize each task’s progress with labels that show the results of each task’s workflow.Insightly to focus on contacts and projects together in one app.Toodledo to outline everything your team needs to do in task lists with custom fields.Allthings to write down tasks in simple lists, add extra data with custom fields, then turn those fields into kanban lists.Due Date-focused Project Management Apps with Gantt Charts:Wrike to manage team and personal tasks together in a list, spreadsheet, or gantt chart view.Pagico to work on personal and team tasks in a professional project management tool.Microsoft Project to outline and plan projects with familiar microsoft office tools.Sandglaz to plan scrum sprints in kanban-style lists for a simple way to prioritize tasks and plan the week’s work.Aha! to turn ideas into broad goals, detailed schedules, and individual releases for effective projects.Runrun.it to know when your projects will actually ship with automatically calculated delivery dates.Projectplace for a gantt charts and kanban mix to manage due dates and processes together.Kanban Project Management Apps:Trello for easy to use kanban boards with just the features you want.MeisterTask to brainstorm projects in a mind map, then turn them into kanban projects that automate work.Blossom to build clear kanban boards with analytics and email reports to quickly analyze your work.Kanban Tool to nest kanban columns to create detailed workflows for your projects.LeanKit to custimize kanban boards to fit your team’s workflow, and collapse the columns you’re not using.Kanbanery to list estimated effort needed and blockers on tasks for a realistic way to plan your work.AgileZen to organize projects on simple kanban boards, then get notified about updates with instant messages.KanbanFlow to get work done directly on kanban cards with checklists, timers, and more.Breeze to manage tasks and track time in simple, clean kanban boards.Matterhorn to plan what your team will work on today and this week—and quickly reschedule tasks.Lavagna to create flexible kanban boards that run on your own servers.Scrum and Agile Focused Project Management Apps:Pivotal Tracker to view the most important parts of all projects in one customizable dashboard with everything in lists.JIRA to speed up software projects with customizable scrum workflows and plugins for extra features.Taiga to custome a scrum and agile project management workflow on your own servers.Targetprocess to visualize projects in kanban, scrum, timelines, portfolios and more for a better overview of each project.LiquidPlanner to organize tasks in detailed hierarchy and get best and worst case completion estimates to plan effectively.Axosoft to plan releases with scrum sprints, then organize indivdual task workflows with kanban in the same app.Communications Focused Project Management Apps:Basecamp to only focus on work, at work, with notifications that only come in during work hours.Redbooth to collaborate on projects with live chat, voice, and video calls alongside kanban projects.Flow to combine team chat, projects, and personal tasks in one simple interface.Azendoo to keep up with everything in projects with a built-in social network, progress charts, and live chat.Client Focused Project Management Apps:Avaza to quickly turn quotes into tasks, expenses, time sheets, and finished projects.Paymo to manage multiple client projects together easily, and switch betwen them in seconds.Pancake to focus on client projects in a self-hosted project tool.Thrive to get client work done quickly with a beautiful typography-focused project management app.Trigger to turn client emails into to-dos, then plan all of their projects and share details with them automatically.Mavenlink to make sure you complete client projects on time with critical path planning and gantt charts.Easy Projects to inform clients with a dedicated dashboard—and get important tasks completed with dependencies.Teamwork Projects to stay on track for shipping the next big thing with milestone-focused projects.Magnetic to track everything about client projects and manage them along with accounting and crm in one app.Project Bubble to start client projects quickly with templates and task dependencies to reschedule tasks together.Zoho Projects to manage client projects of every shape and style inside one app.Active Collab to visualize client projects the way that works best, then track time and invoice from one app.Freedcamp to manage projects for free then pay for CRM, issue tracking, and other add-ons as needed.Customizable Project Management Apps:Smartsheet to use smart spreadsheets to manage projects, plans, and other data in one place.Podio to build apps for everything you need, and connect them all with an internal social network.Redmine to create the self-hosted project management tool you want with hundreds of plugins and themes.Odoo to get apps for everything your team needs for projects and more, and run them on your own servers.We’re written more about each of these apps at Zapier, so for a full review of each tool check out our full project management app roundup: The Best Project Management Software: 50 Tools for Team Task Management.

Thanks for the A2A. I'd recommend:LiquidPlannerCapterra named LiquidPlanner as one of the best project portfolio software options earlier this year. One reviewer notes,We absolutely love the ability to layout a project plan with a finite set of resources without having to hardwire task dependencies to get a sense of schedule. We’re never going back to MS Project.When facing Microsoft Project head on, LiquidPlanner is prepared. They have anentire PDF dedicated to comparing themselves to the leading project management solution. Some highlights include:LiquidPlanner ties together all your projects, so if you have a change, the rest of the projects are updated (in MS Project, this is done manually)LiquidPlanner forgoes MS Project’s manual scheduling functionality and instead offers priority-based schedulingLiquidPlanner offers PERT analysisLiquidPlanner offers integration with Google DriveUnfortunately, unlike Microsoft Project, LiquidPlanner has users create their own templates, instead of having premade templates available.Price: Starts at $29/user/monthGanttProjectGanttProject is another open-source free project scheduling and management tool.Reviewers have compared this heavy-hitting application to Microsoft Project—both in terms of features offered and complexity. This system can generate Gantt and PERT charts, produce reports in HTML and PDF formats, and offers versatile scheduling and time management tools. It does not, however, integrate with Google Drive.ProsThere is no limit to what you can do with GanttProject. The management platform allows users to quickly create a structured schedule for any project. It offers task assignment and milestone implementation. The open-source software also enables project managers to identify problem areas in the workflow so that companies can set goals for improvement.ConsI would not recommend GanttProject to people who are unfamiliar with project management software. Many have found it overwhelming—and support is largely left to its forums.RationalPlanRationalPlan is a well-known Microsoft Project alternative that matches MS Project feature-to-feature — and it’s a lot cheaper to boot. One reviewer noted, “It doesn’t have the big brand name on it like MS Project, however, it offers superior performance and more functionality, in particular the possibility to schedule work at a percentage of someone’s time – a big gap in that big brand product. Customer support is really good and helpful, with knowledgeable staff.” It’s available in English, Dutch, and Italian.RationalPlan has incredibly strong PERT and Gantt chart features. It has users start off by making a work breakdown structure to create task lists for your team. The whole system is drag-and-drop, and the system automatically highlights tasks that are along the critical path. It also integrates with GoogleDrive.RationalPlan is particularly good for small businesses because it also offers budgeting features, like forecasting and cost management. While RationalPlan would work well with larger businesses, it doesn’t have that many enterprise clients… yet.Price: Unpublished price for installed; starts from $19 per user/month for webOperating System(s): Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, OnlineCompany size: Small to Mid-sizeOf course, there are lots of other options to consider. I'd check out this article to start you off (6 of the Best Gantt Chart Software) and looking through the project management software directory.

We recently published an article about how to create a project timeline. This also works for group projects. If you like, you can follow this step by step instruction.1. UNDERSTAND THE SCOPE OF YOUR PROJECTAs a marketing project manager, your project will begin with a brief. To make sure that your project timeline flourishes healthily, you need to take good care of these foundations.You need to develop a clear understanding of the brief and everything that is required. This can take some time and require close consultation with your client. It is critical, though, that the project scope is as accurate and detailed as possible.You should produce a project scope statement that everyone understands. This will be a statement that succinctly and accurately sums up the goal of the project. For example:“Our team will design, develop, and populate a new blog on the website of our client.”2. BEGIN BREAKING THE PROJECT DOWN INTO SMALLER PIECESNow that you have an idea of the big picture, it’s time to zoom in and see which smaller pieces actually make up that large statement.In our example, the marketing project manager is going to coordinate the design, development and content of a new blog. There are a lot of moving pieces here and a lot of constituent parts. The project will require, for example, the following parts:A theme for the blogVisual guidelinesTone of voice guidelinesA content planContent for the blogThis will always vary according to the project scope statement that you defined, but it’s important that you think about every sub-deliverable that you will need to provide to deliver the whole.3. EXPLORE THOSE PIECES TO CREATE TASKSNow that you have your sub-deliverables, it’s time to dig deeper. Let’s take the theme, for example. Your team will have to complete the following work to create that sub-deliverable:Conduct competitor researchBrainstorming and feasibility testingUI & UX attentionDesign of wireframesDevelopment of the themeQuality testingOf course, this might vary according to the specifications of the project. But this gives you an idea of how you need to start thinking about the constituent tasks that make up the sub-deliverables. This will give you a good look at the iceberg resting beneath the surface, helping you to plan accurately in the following steps.4. THINK ABOUT DEPENDENCIESSome tasks cannot begin until others have been completed. The design of the wireframes, for example, might not be able to take place until a key section of the visual guidelines has been created.These dependencies mean that your project has a definite natural order. Depending on the complexity of your project, though, this can become quite a headache. (There are some tools that can help, though, and we will look at those soon.)Once you have organized which tasks need to come first, you will find that your timeline is beginning to adopt a more conventional shape.5. CALCULATE THE TIME REQUIRED FOR EACH TASKThe tasks are now in a nice neat order, but how far apart do they need to be?You need to call upon your marketing experience to create accurate estimations for each of the tasks in your project. You might find, for example, that you need to allow three weeks for the development of the wireframes but just a few days for quality testing.As you space out the tasks on a horizontal line, you will begin to see that you naturally develop an estimation for how long a project might take. Creating accurate estimations is no easy task, and many marketing project managers consult with a range of professionals to get a better idea.6. ASSESS YOUR RESOURCESNow that you know what you need and how long it will take, it’s time to fill in the gaps. The best marketing project managers are eventually able to take the abilities and preferences of their team into account. This can help to create more accurate timelines.Balancing responsibilities is tough. Even though a given task might take four hours, for example, unexpected occurrences can derail the process and this can have an impact on other areas of the project.Project management demands that you think on your feet and make the best of the project management tools that are available to you.7. OUTLINE IMPORTANT MILESTONESYour project timeline is almost there, but now you need to think about tracking the progress of the project at regular intervals. This is a very important step, given that it means your team can get the feedback and approval they need far before the final deadline.This means that if necessary, you can take the initiative to adjust plans to ensure that everything stays on track. Milestones should be placed regularly and based around certain key moments, like the completion of a large task.8. CHOOSE THE CORRECT SOFTWARE TO BUILD YOUR TIMELINEYou have planned out your timeline, but now it’s a question of actually putting it together in a way that is logical, accessible, and adaptable. Until now, this was easier said than done. But there are many quality project management applications available to you now.Project Timeline SoftwareYou will find that there are many project timeline software options on the market. Here is a closer look at the key options that might fit your project management needs.MONDAYMonday is a visual tool that makes it possible for marketing project managers to plan, organize, and track their team’s projects. The platform prides itself on easy onboarding and fast adoption, offering six views to help teams keep up with plans and adjust for the future.“Since our projects bring teams from various departments, it’s great to have a central place to communicate and collaborate. monday - team management software | monday.com has tremendous potential but we also find some challenges with it including sub-tasks, notifications, and the pricing.”Nathan S, CapterraTEAMWORK PROJECTSThis is a cloud-based project management solution that helps businesses and project managers to manage the various parts of a project to control objectives and businesses processes. The features include task lists, time tracking, and more.“It’s awesome how the projects and tasks are set up and all the actions you can take on them to keep things logged and up to date and organized. I do wish there was a calendar view of all the tasks assigned to you so you could see the density on how stuff is assigned and when so it’s easier to work ahead.”Kari K, G2 CrowdIf you would like to know more about project timelines, feel free to follow this link: How to Create an Effective Project Timeline (Incl. 5 Templates) | The Advertising Bible.