Tuesday, 20 December 2016

Top Project Management Tools in 2016

Attempting to manage a software project without a project management software could turn into a chaos fast. Even with the best strategy and intentions, a wrong turn could rapidly demolish months of work. Taming a project gone bad could be a horror, particularly when you need to pay a lot of money in order to do it.


One of the high-responsibility tasks in modern organizations is project management. It is used by a lot of types of projects that range from software development to the development of the next generation fighter aircraft. To successfully execute a project, the project manager or the project management team must be supported by a set of tools. The tools could be specifically designed ones or regular productivity tools which could be adopted for a project management work. Usually, the use of tools makes project managers work easily. Furthermore, it also standardizes work and the project manager’s routine.

With the introduction of computer technology, there have been several software tools that are developed particularly for project management purpose. MS Project is one of these tools that has won the hearts of project managers worldwide. There are several project management tools that are used and the following are the top tools for 2016.

1. MyCollab. It is a multi-purpose tool with features of CRM or customer relationship management, project management, and document management. MyCollab-Project includes various features, such as milestones and Gantt chart, issue management and time tracking. Furthermore, it also supports agile development models. The project comes in three editions, wherein the community edition is the open source and free option. The recent 5.2.9 version is licensed under AGPLv3, needs Java runtime and MySQL stack. Furthermore, the source-code is available on GitHub.

2. Odoo. Is a full-suite of business apps, wherein project management is only one. It is a multi-platform solution that supports Windows, various Linux distributions as well as other operating systems. The community edition is a free and open source but has limited features than the enterprise version. The Odoo project management has several interesting features, like Kanban views, Gantt charts, graphs, tasks and issues and much more. Noteworthy assets are community resources and the official Docker image. It’s licensed under GPLv3 and needs Python and PostgreSQL. The latest 9.0 release is available for download and as a source on GitHub.

3. Taiga. Is an open source platform for beginners, agile designers, and developers. It focuses on agile development methodologies and has all the features needed such as backlog, tasks, sprints, Kanban board and issues. Noteworthy pros are integration with GitLab, GitHub, and Bitbucket, which make it an interesting project management tool for developers. The tool could also be extended via plugins and contains a REST API. It’s licensed under GNU Affero GPLv3 and needs a stack that includes Python, Nginx, and PostgreSQL. The latest 1.10.0 release Dryas Octopetala is available on GitHub.

4. OrangeScrum. Is a tool for agencies, freelancers and small to medium businesses. The features include a scrum task board, progress tracking, scrum task board, Kanban and Gantt chart views, progress tracking and resource planning. Notable is the new skin that is based on the Google Material Design. iOS and Android mobile apps 2.0 version were released in June. OrangeScrum is licensed under GPLv3 and based on the CakePHP framework. The latest 1.5.9 release is available for download and the source code could be found on GitHub.

5. Tuleap Open ALM. With a focus on software development projects, Tuleapoffers a feature rich platform that includes project management features such as Kanban and Scrum support, document management, tracking and other collaborative tools. The pros for the tool include support for agile, hybrid, traditional or custom processes for project management. Moreover, it supports sprints, planning, tasks, reports and more. The tool is very suitable for open source development organizations, as the tools also incorporate with SVN, Git, Jenkins and much more. Also, the tool provides an app installation or virtual machine or installation via Ansible. It is licensed under GPLv2 and the latest release 8.12 version could be downloaded from the website.

6. Agilefant. Focuses on agile approaches that involve Scrum and Kanban. Furthermore, it could also be bent to support traditional approaches such as the waterfall method. The tools provide a free and open source product which could be downloaded and deployed into one’s own private cloud. Called a solo plan, one could also sign up for a free cloud offering. Agilefant runs on Tomcat, Java, and MySQL. The source code and license are found on GitHub.

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