Hardware and Software PM tool?

October 18, 2014 11:44 PM

Another PM looking for my snowflake scheduling tool. Challenge: hardware and software.

I work at a multidisciplinary mid-sized agency. We’re a team of business strategists, industrial, digital, and brand designers. As our new senior program manager I’ve taken on the task of getting us off Keynote and Excel for project scheduling. Yay!

Here are the snowflake challenges in finding the right tool:

1. We want one common tool across the studio even though our client projects are widely different in scope, length, and complexity. From hardware only, to software only, to fully integrated programs, this tool needs to be useful in a variety of use cases.

2. Important that the tool looks great. The design of the tool will be prioritized over certain aspects of the functionality.

3. Needs to be cloud / web based.


Nice to have: iOS and Android app. A tool that can pull all the major milestones across 30 + projects and integrate them into a master milestone calendar.

Out of scope: We do not need task tracking or resource loading as part of this tool. MS Project, Fast Track, and Basecamp are all off the table as not the right tools.

I've looked at Smartsheet so far as the best option. Any other suggestions from the green?

posted by gillianr to Work & Money (2 answers total)

I haven't used the other solutions you mentioned, so I don't know if this is too similar to them or not, but at work, we use Teamwork: https://www.teamwork.com/

While it does do task tracking (which you don't need), it does have milestones, iOS/Android apps, it's in the cloud, there's a calendar... I think it looks pretty great, but that's pretty subjective. :)

Hope that's helpful!
posted by juliebug at 12:27 AM on October 19, 2014

Pivotal Tracker?

It looks a lot more stylish if you opt-in to the beta.
posted by mellifluous at 2:34 AM on October 19, 2014