Does project management software work for you?

We use Intervals for our project management, and I happen to be one of the developers for it. Intervals has helped our small business (web development) tremendously. Our billable hours increased by 30% after implementing web-based time tracking. And having a centralized task management system keeps our developers on track. I agree, these tools help more than they harm, especially in a small business that can't afford a full time project manager.

I have heard rave reviews about LiquidPlanner

They are a Seattle based start up that is gaining a lot of traction.

I watched their CEO pitch the system at a VC party. I was quite impressed.

• Great functionality
• Gorgeous user interface
• Saas online with no installation needed

Hey Alex,

I've developed many custom project management packages for clients. I've seen a lot of canned software that these clients have used before -- some of them are REALLY BAD!

However, I don't see them as a crutch. Even the bad ones help a little. The most important thing is that you find there is a return for all the time you spend inputting data; you need to save some time, or increase your billables. Don't become a slave to data entry, without getting that return.

If you're a small or one-person business, have a look at one of the packages above. Once you start growing above 8 to 10 employees, you should really look at something custom.

I have tried 5pm and LiquidPlanner...both of which had some good points. Overall, I haven't found a solution that was all that I needed.

We're currently using dotProject for project management. It's open source and I suspect it lacks many of the features that some people need. I'm not 100% happy with it but works better than some of the other options we've tried. I'm curious to see what other suggestions will come out here; I may have time to re-evaluate the options after the tax season.

We're a little different in our PM needs in that we track a large number of small projects rather than a small number of large projects. With one project per client per year for bookkeeping and tax needs, we've got a few hundred projects, but none of them are more than about 50 billable hours in a year (many are less than 5 hours). We already have a separate time tracking and billing solution that's working just fine.

My best tools to manage small specific projects are the customized applications developed with Excel

I think it depends upon your specific needs - do you have a team that all need to input their project status/updates in one place (where the client may also access it),or is it just for you to manage your contacts, calendar, opportunities, projects etc.? If it's the latter, I LOVE Daylite...it was the answer to all my issues with tracking who I'd called when, worked with etc.