Top 5 Software for Effective Project Planning You Need to Try

Effective project planning is the cornerstone of successful project management. It provides a roadmap for achieving project goals, ensuring that all activities are coordinated, resources are allocated appropriately, and potential risks are identified and mitigated.

The right project planning software enables businesses to accomplish more in less time. In this blog post, we explore the importance of project planning, the best project planning options on the market, and how to select a tool that meets the specific needs of your team.

What is project planning?

Project planning refers to the stage in project management in which the project manager creates a roadmap that outlines the tasks, resources, and timeline needed to complete a project. It includes creating timelines, establishing a budget, setting milestones, assessing risks, and assigning tasks to team members.

Project planning is the master plan that keeps everyone on track and ensures orderliness.

Why is project planning important?

Project planning is important for the success of every project.

1. Communication: Project planning establishes communication channels, reporting structures, and responsibilities. This ensures that team members and stakeholders are well-informed and can collaborate effectively. Effective communication reduces misunderstandings, enhances teamwork, and ultimately contributes to project success.

2. Performance Tracking: Project planning sets specific goals and milestones. These objectives allow organizations to measure not only the project's success but also the efficiency and effectiveness of their employees. 

By tracking performance against these goals, businesses can identify areas for improvement and make informed decisions to optimize project outcomes.

3. Risk Assessment: Risk management is a critical component of project planning. During the planning phase, potential risks and threats are identified and evaluated. 

This proactive approach allows for the development of strategies to mitigate risks, reducing the likelihood of project disruptions and failures. Risk assessment ensures that projects proceed with greater confidence.

4. Usability of Resources: Project planning ensures efficient resource allocation. By identifying resource requirements in advance, organizations can avoid resource shortages, bottlenecks, or overallocation. Proper resource management leads to cost savings and ensures that resources are used effectively to support project objectives.

5. Intellectual Enhancement: Project planning encourages intellectual growth within organizations. It requires project managers and team members to think critically, solve problems, and make informed decisions. 

This intellectual enhancement extends to the entire team, fostering a culture of continuous learning and improvement.

6. Quality Management: Quality standards and guidelines are defined during project planning. These standards set expectations for project deliverables and outcomes. 

Effective quality management ensures that the project meets or exceeds these standards, enhancing customer satisfaction and reputation.

7. Time Management: Project planning is essential for setting realistic timelines and deadlines. It helps organizations allocate time efficiently to each task and phase of the project. Effective time management prevents delays and ensures that the project is completed within the agreed-upon timeframe.

8. Documentation: Project planning involves the creation of detailed documentation, including project plans, schedules, and budgets. These documents serve as references throughout the project, aiding in decision-making and accountability.

Also Read: A Guide to Top 10 Project Planning Tools

How do I build a project plan?

1. Create a Scope Statement: Begin by defining the project's scope, which outlines the project's objectives, deliverables, constraints, and assumptions. It provides a clear picture of what the project will achieve and its boundaries.

2. Create a Statement of Work (SOW): Develop a Statement of Work that specifies the project's objectives, tasks, and responsibilities. It outlines what needs to be done, who will do it, and what the expected outcomes are.

3. Conduct Research: Gather information and conduct research relevant to the project. This could involve market research, feasibility studies, or data collection to ensure that the project aligns with organizational goals and meets stakeholder expectations.

4. Identify Risks: Identify potential risks that could affect the project's success. This includes assessing both internal and external factors that may impact the project. Create a risk management plan to mitigate and address these risks.

5. Create a Project Plan: Develop a comprehensive project plan that includes detailed information on project objectives, timelines, resources, budget, and quality standards. This plan serves as a roadmap for the entire project.

6. Create a Project Schedule: Based on the project plan, create a project schedule that outlines the sequence of tasks, their dependencies, and their estimated durations. A Gantt chart or project management software can help visualize the schedule.

7. Review and Approve the Plan: Present the project plan, scope statement, SOW, and schedule to key stakeholders for review and approval. This ensures that all parties understand the project's goals, scope, and execution plan. Address any feedback or concerns before proceeding.

Project planning steps

Project planning includes the following fundamental steps:

1. Identify stakeholders: Anyone with an interest in the project is considered a stakeholder. They may include the customer or end user, project team members, other people in the organization affected by the project, and outside organizations or individuals with an interest.

2. Establish roles: The role of each stakeholder should be clearly defined. However, some people will play multiple roles.

3. Introduce stakeholders: Hold a meeting to bring stakeholders together and unify the project's vision. Scope, goals, budget, schedule, and roles should all be covered.

4. Establish objectives: Take the information gleaned from the meeting and turn it into a project plan. It should include objectives and deliverables that define the outcome of the product or service.

5. Prioritize tasks. List the tasks required to achieve your goals and prioritize them based on importance and interdependence. For mapping project dependencies, a Gantt chart can be useful.

6. Create a schedule: Create a timeline that takes into account the resources required for all tasks.

7. Evaluate the risks: Identify project risks and devise mitigation strategies.

8. Communicate: Distribute the plan to all stakeholders and provide communication updates in the format and frequency that they expect.

9. Reevaluate: Revisit the project plan as milestones are met and revise any areas that are not meeting expectations.

10. Final assessment: Following the completion of the project, performance should be evaluated to learn from the experience and identify areas for improvement.

Check this: Selling Project Management to Clients in 5 Simple Steps

Top 5 project planning software

1. ClientVenue

ClientVenue is an incredible project planning software that empowers teams to collaborate seamlessly while increasing their productivity. ClientVenue has a diverse set of features that enable teams to simplify their tasks, track their progress, share files, and manage resources effortlessly.

ClientVenue is designed with pre-built templates that facilitate project planning. This includes a phased project template, which helps break a complex project into manageable portions.

Features

• Resource Management
• Project Management
• Reporting
• Streamlined Client Onboarding
• Billing and Invoicing
• Scheduling

Pricing

Starter: The Starter plan is priced at $47 per month on monthly billing or $470 per year. This plan features 2 team members, unlimited clients’ accounts, a 5 GB storage drive, Whitelabel portal, onboarding and proposals, invoicing and payments as well as integration.

Professional Plan: This plan is priced at $97 per month or $970 per year. It features everything in the Starter Plan as well as 5 team members, a 100 GB storage drive, timesheets, a chat system, all integrations, priority support, and resource management.

Enterprise Plan: The Enterprise plan costs $247 per month or $2470 per year. It includes everything in the Professional plan plus client accounts, 20 team members, a 500 GB storage drive, a dedicated accounts manager, custom development, 1-on-1 custom onboarding and coaching, and advanced integrations.

2. Trello

Trello is a project planning software that improves project planning for users. It has a visually appealing and user-friendly interface, as well as the ability to facilitate collaboration among internal and external teams via a Kanban board system.

Features

• Kanban boards, timelines, and calendars for project visualization
• Extensive app integration
• Task automation
• Comments and attachments for collaboration
• Add-ons for extended functionality

Pricing

Trello offers four pricing plans. The four plans have different features and capabilities and include:

Free Plan: The free plan offered by Trello is suitable for individuals or small teams as it enables them to organize their work for free. 

It provides basic features like unlimited cards, up to 10 boards per workspace, unlimited power-ups per board, unlimited storage (10MB/file), 250 workspace command runs per month, custom backgrounds and stickers, unlimited activity log, assignee and due dates, iOS and Android mobile apps, and 2-factor authentication.

Standard Plan: The Standard Plan is designed for teams who want to manage their work and collaborate more effectively, and costs $5 per user per month. 

It includes all features of the Free Plan, as well as unlimited boards, advanced checklists, custom fields, unlimited storage (250MB/file), 1,000 workspace command runs per month, single board guests, and saved searches.

Premium Plan: The Premium Plan costs $10 per user per month and is designed to meet the needs of teams that need to track and visualize multiple projects in various ways. 

It includes all the features of the Standard Plan, in addition to views such as calendar, timeline, table, dashboard, and map, workspace views (table and calendar), unlimited workspace command runs, admin and security features, workspace-level templates, collections, observers, and simple data export.

Enterprise Plan: The Enterprise Plan is designed for organizations that require more security and control over their work. 

It costs $17.50 per user per month and includes all the features of the Premium Plan, plus unlimited workspaces, organization-wide permissions, organization-visible boards, public board management, multi-board guests, attachment permissions, power-up administration, free single sign-on (SSO) and user provisioning with Atlassian Access. 

3. ClickUp

ClickUp is a project planning platform that is designed with an intuitive and colorful interface which makes it easy for teams to adopt. ClickUp has a comprehensive set of features. Documents, reminders, goals, calendars, and an inbox are all accessible from a single platform.

The unique approach of ClickUp to task management sets it apart from other tools and makes it an ideal solution for teams looking to simplify their workflow and boost collaboration.

Features

• Client management
• Collaborative task management
• Customizable dashboards and reports
• Document management
•  Time tracking

Pricing

Free Plan: This plan offers unlimited access to tasks, members, 100MB Storage, collaborative docs, and whiteboards, among others.

Unlimited Plan: This plan costs $10 per user per month on annual billing, and $7 per user per month on monthly billing, with additional features and capabilities.

Business Plan: $19 per user per month on annual billing, $12 per user per month on monthly billing, suitable for businesses requiring advanced features and customization options.

Enterprise Plan: Custom pricing based on specific business requirements.

4. Asana

Asana helps organizations and small teams stay organized and collaborate effectively. It offers a range of features designed to streamline project management and improve productivity.

Asana also features essential security, privacy, and compliance capabilities to safeguard users’ data.

Features

• Task management
• Team collaboration
• Project tracking
• Calendar integration
• Automation

Pricing

Asana offers three pricing options, which include

Basic: This plan is free and suitable for individuals or teams and helps users to manage tasks and personal to-dos with resources like unlimited tasks, projects, messages, and unlimited activity logs among others.

Premium: The premium plan is priced at $10.99 per user billed annually or $13.49 per user per month when billed monthly. It is suitable for teams that need to create project plans and helps to track team projects with features and resources like time, a workflow builder, unlimited dashboards, advanced custom fields, and forms, among others.

Business: The business plan is designed to manage work across initiatives. Priced at $24.99 per user per month when billed annually and $30.49 per user per month when billed monthly, it offers everything in the Premium plan in addition to portfolios, goals, workloads, and a custom rule builder, among other advanced features.

5. Wrike

Wrike stands as a project planning solution ideally suited for teams comprising five or more members. Wrike offers capabilities for proactively forecasting and averting project delays, visualizing project timelines with precision, and enabling real-time monitoring of project advancement.

Features

• Project portfolio management
•  Interactive Gantt charts
• Pre-built templates
• Time tracking
• Visual proofing
• Dashboards

Pricing

Wrike offers five pricing plans to meet your specific needs.

Free: This plan is free and features web, desktop, and mobile apps, project and task management, board and table views, and active task limitations.

Team: The Team plan costs $9.80 per user per month and supports groups of 2 to 25 people. It offers an unlimited number of projects, custom fields, request forms, and 20 free collaborators. It also has interactive Gantt charts, automation features, custom workflows, analytics, and calendar views.

Business: The Business plan costs $24.80 per user per month and is best suited for teams of 5-200 people. Cross-tagging, project blueprints, custom item types, automation, approvals, and guest approvals.

Enterprise: The Enterprise plan is designed for large teams and provides enterprise-level security and scalability. This plan's pricing is not provided, but interested users can contact Wrike for more information. All of the features of the Business plan are included, as well as SAML-based SSO, two-factor authentication (2FA), and password policies.

Pinnacle: The Pinnacle plan is built for teams with complex work requirements, and it includes advanced tools and analytics. Pricing for this plan, like the Enterprise plan, is not provided, but interested users may contact Wrike for more information. It includes all of the Enterprise plan's features, as well as more advanced features.

Why ClientVenue is the best Software for project planning

ClientVenue is a versatile tool that helps with project planning and management. It allows users and clients to collaborate on projects, ensuring efficiency and timely completion. It also offers billing capabilities, allowing easy creation and sending of invoices, tracking payments, and managing expenses.

Furthermore, ClientVenue serves as a comprehensive project management tool, handling tasks, deadlines, and resources while also providing the ability to create and manage projects from start to finish. 

ClientVenue integrates well with other business applications, streamlining workflows and making it even more useful.

Also Read: What is Project Management and Integrated Marketing- All You Need to Know

Features of ClientVenue

1. Billing and Invoicing

ClientVenue has a cool feature called billing and invoicing. It helps you keep track of all your invoices, payment plans, and billing statements in one place. 

This makes it super easy to manage your payments and billing history. With this feature, you can complete your projects quickly and efficiently.

2. Client Portal

ClientVenue also offers a special client software portal for agencies. It's like having your own space to manage all your client-related activities. 

From onboarding to invoicing to day-to-day operations, you can do it all in this dedicated portal. It's a great way to stay organized and keep everything in one place.

3. Scheduling

The scheduling feature in ClientVenue is really handy. It helps you optimize your workflow, manage resources, and plan shifts. 

You can easily drag and drop tasks to schedule them. It also helps you keep track of deadlines and stay on top of all your tasks. It's like having a personal assistant to help you manage your time.

4. Reporting

ClientVenue has a reporting feature that gives you reports on project progress and performance. You can even create custom reports to make sure your projects are running smoothly. It's a great way to keep everyone in the loop and make sure everything is going according to plan.

5. Integrations

ClientVenue can connect with other tools like Slack and Dropbox. This makes it easy to share files and keep everyone on the same page. It also helps streamline your workflow, so you can get things done faster and more efficiently. It's like having all your tools in one place.

6. Resource Management

The resource management feature in ClientVenue is awesome. It gives you an overview of all your project resources, like tools, materials, personnel, contractors, and vendors. 

This helps you keep track of everything and make sure your project runs smoothly. It's like having superhero power to keep everything organized.

Check this: Best 6 Project Management Tools for Internal Marketing Team

Conclusion

ClientVenue is a very versatile tool that offers more than just project planning. It is highly flexible and supports a wide range of customizations. ClientVenue is designed to help businesses streamline their workflow and manage client projects effortlessly. 

ClientVenue handles your project planning, efficiently streamlines your workflows between teams, and provides a single system of record for all work.

Try ClientVenue now.