Understanding your business needs
The first and most important tip for choosing the right task management tool is to understand your business needs.
- What does your company need to accomplish?
- What are your company’s current work processes?
- How do employees work together to achieve the company’s goals?
The answers to these questions will help you identify the features needed for a task management tool that is right for your business.
The features of task management tools
Task management tools are very different from each other. Some are simple (even simplistic), with limited functionalities, while others are more complex, with advanced functionalities allowing to go up to project management.
It is therefore important to position the cursor well and to take into account the necessary functionalities for your company. For example, if your business requires real-time collaboration or if your business needs to track the hours worked by employees you should look for a task management tool that offers such features.
This is a fundamental question because the temptation to choose a very complete tool is great, based on the adage “who can do more can do less”, but this ignores the future difficulties of getting used to it and the natural reticence to change. Besides, an oversized tool is likely to be more expensive, which will not do your business.
Financial considerations
The price of the tools can vary significantly, from free to several hundred euros per month! It is therefore a decisive criterion of choice.
For a team of 2 or 3 people, or to work alone, a free solution can sometimes be enough. But as soon as you want to collaborate efficiently, you have to turn to paid solutions.
Today, billing is done by monthly or annual subscription. We advise you to contact directly the publishers you are interested in and to negotiate a contract over 2 or 3 years in order to get the best price.
But beyond the subscription to the service, one must also weigh the sometimes hidden additional costs:
- Set up
- Training
- Integration
- Expansion of data storage volume
- Paid mobile application
Depending on the solution, the price of the monthly subscription (excluding configuration and training) varies from 10€ to 25€ per month per user.
Compatibility with other company tools
Most companies use several different tools to perform and manage daily activities. It is therefore important to choose a task management tool that is compatible with the other tools your company uses. For example, if your company uses an internal messaging system, you should look for a task management tool that can connect to that system to facilitate communication.
Similarly, since meetings are an opportunity to decide and assign tasks, it is recommended to choose a tool that is compatible, or even integrated, with your video conferencing solution.
Computer security
The multiplication of hacking and data leakage cases prove it, the security of information systems is a key factor that must guarantee the integrity of your data. Most solutions offer quality hosting with the necessary guarantees and security of data flows. But it is essential to check these aspects and to work upstream with the IT managers of your organization. Their skills will be essential to evaluate the seriousness of the editors and their compliance with the IT standards of your organization.
The accompaniment
It is a mistake to believe that the implementation of a task management tool is trivial in an organization. By definition, this solution will reach a large number of people whose appetite for this kind of tool is not equal. In addition to the more or less intuitive functionalities, you have to think about how to organize the data inside the solution, at the risk of ending up with a huge catch-all in which you will lose all the benefits that the use of the solution could have brought you. The advice and support provided by the solution provider or its partners are important to take into account.
Effective task management can help your company save time, improve communication and increase productivity. There are many task management tools available, each with its own advantages and disadvantages. By choosing the right task management tool for your business based on selected and thoughtful criteria, you can ensure that you are able to foster its adoption by your teams, and thus effectively manage your projects and achieve your goals, while decreasing the mental load of your teams.