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Table of Contents

• What is Project Planning Software?
• The benefits of Project Planning Software
• Typical features of Project Planning Software
• The cost of Project Planning Software
• Considerations when purchasing Project Planning Software
• Relevant Project Planning Software trends

What is project planning software?

Project Planning Software enables project stakeholders to define and execute tasks required to successfully complete a project, and plan and visualize project execution strategies on connected timelines. It’s available as a stand-alone product or offered as an integrated module within a project management suite.

Project planning software is closely related to Gantt Chart software, Kanban tools, product roadmap software, and Agile project management software.

The benefits of project planning software

A project plan is the roadmap that guides a team through the inception to the completion of a project. Project planning software provides complete clarity into "what to do," "how to do it," "when to do it," and "who will do it." Further, the software helps to:

• Manage resources efficiently:A project can be delivered successfully only if all its resources, including time, labor, and budget, are well planned in advance. Project planning software helps businesses estimate and appropriately allocate resources to different stages and processes of a project.
• Clearly defines project and task ownership: A well-defined project plan gives complete clarity around the roles and responsibilities of every involved resource. Project planning software establishes accountability by providing visibility into who is responsible for each task, and the timeline for those tasks.

Typical features of project planning software

• Resource management: Track business resources such as labor, time, or money, and distribute them among various tasks and subtasks as needed.
• Visualization: Outline tasks, deliverables, deadlines, and milestones of a project on a visual timeline.
• Task management: Create and manage tasks throughout a project’s life cycle.
• Collaboration tools: Provide channels for team members to share media files, communicate, and work together on tasks and projects.
• Gantt charts: Plan, schedule, coordinate, and track specific tasks in a project using graphic illustrations.
• Progress tracking: Track completion of individual tasks as well as overall projects. Display task/project progress on a timeline or status bar.

The cost of project planning software

Most products in the market are priced on a per user, per month basis, and can be divided into three pricing tiers based on their starting price.

Price ranges*:

• $3 - $7
• $7 - $10
• $10+

*The pricing included is for the entry-level/lowest-priced offering found on vendor websites on July 2, 2019. These ranges correspond to the 25th, 75th, and 100th percentile of the pricing information gathered from the vendor websites of sample products.

The above list summarizes pricing for the base plans of most products. An enterprise, or premium product, which is priced higher, may include some additional features such as custom fields, group sharing, multiple project boards, and advanced rule-based automation.

Considerations when purchasing project planning software

• Suite vs. stand-alone: Choosing between stand-alone project planning software or a full-fledged project management suite is a difficult decision that every business needs to make. It can be easily addressed if a business is fully aware of its needs and requirements. Consider purchasing stand-alone software if you are simply looking for a project planning and visualizing tool. If you’re looking for a holistic solution with a variety of features, including task management, collaboration, reporting, and progress tracking, go for a full-fledged project management suite.
• Project management tools: Every business uses a different type of tool or template for project planning, such as Gantt charts or Kanban boards. Make sure that the software you choose offers the tool that you and your team typically use.
• Integration: Project planning requires real-time data from multiple applications. Project planners need updated information about resource availability, company finances, and client requirements. The project planning software you choose should integrate with your existing applications so that you can collect information in real-time and avoid duplicate data entry.

Relevant project planning software trends

• AI-enabled process automation will improve project planning: Project planners have started optimizing plans using AI and machine learning. An AI-enabled system collects and analyzes huge volumes of historical data around time estimates, resource availability, productivity rates, and other external and internal factors. It helps to identify patterns that can highlight critical situations or help build up fail-proof project workflows.
• Project planning will go Agile: Traditional project management methodologies can be limiting for modern projects, as they don't match the dynamic nature of such projects. To counter this, new and hybrid methodologies are being developed, which combine two and more traditional methodologies. Agile is one of the popular hybrid methodologies that offer an adjustable project-planning environment. Agile's flexibility to adapt to sudden changes in a project cycle makes it popular in organizations. Going forward, a growing number of project planning software vendors will support the Agile framework in their products.