If you’re a manager or aspiring to be one, you know that it’s not enough to have strong managerial skills. In a world constantly chasing better productivity and efficiency, you need the right tools to optimize your day-to-day operations.
According to the Rebel’s Guide to Project Management survey, 44% of managers lack adequate resources to do their jobs, and 43% say they’d love to avoid following up with people for status updates.
This got me thinking of ways to eliminate repetitive tasks and track work accurately. After much trial and error (and by delving into a little management theory), I’ve built a stack of the ten best managers’ tools available today.
These tools offer managers many features to streamline processes, enhance team collaboration, improve time management, and boost productivity.
But before we do that, let’s explore what you should look for when shopping for manager tools.
- What Should You Look for in Manager Tools?
- The 10 Best Manager Tools
- 1. ClickUp (Best for task management and overall team management)
- 2. ProofHub (Best email replacement)
- 3. Pipedrive (Best for lead management)
- 4. Zoom (Best for meeting management)
- 5. Scribe (Best for walkthroughs and tutorial management)
- 6. Time Doctor (Best for time management)
- 7. NiftyPM (Best for cost-effective project management)
- 8. Monday (Best for complex project management)
- 9. Chanty (Best for communication management)
- 10. Asana (Best for creating project overviews)
- Manage Projects Efficiently With the Right Manager Tool
Summarize this article for me pleaseWhat Should You Look for in Manager Tools?
Based on my extensive testing and research, these are some of the features that help make an effective manager:
- Integrations: Ensure the tool can integrate with other software you use, streamlining your workflow across platforms
- Task management: Ensure the tool allows for creating, assigning, and tracking tasks with due dates and progress monitoring
- Collaboration: Opt for tools that support real-time communication, file sharing, and live editing to enhance teamwork and on-the-job coaching
- Project planning: Choose tools with Gantt charts or similar features to visualize project timelines and dependencies
- Time tracking: Consider tools with built-in time-tracking features to monitor hours spent on tasks and projects
- Budgeting tools: Look for features that help estimate project costs and track expenses to maintain budget control
- User-friendly interface: Find tools that are easy to navigate, ensuring that employees can quickly adapt without extensive training
- Customization: Seek out features that allow you to tailor workflows, dashboards, and request forms to meet your specific needs
- Reporting and analytics: Select tools that provide automated reporting to help analyze project performance and team productivity
Summarize this article for me pleaseThe 10 Best Manager Tools
Like most disciplines, what makes a manager effective begins with mindset and behavioral changes. Aspiring managers must first identify areas they can improve in and then the tools to help them get there.
For example, if collaboration and communication are areas of improvement, then look for manager tools that can help you streamline the feedback, coaching, and delegation parts of your job. Similarly, manager tools that excel at report generation and dashboards can help you run projects with greater control, lower risk, and heightened visibility and efficacy.
With that, here are the ten best manager tools that cater to different use cases for professionals.
1. ClickUp (Best for task management and overall team management)
ClickUp is a powerful project and task management tool that significantly streamlines workflows. Its robust task tracking and customization options make it easy to monitor deadlines and project progress.
Here’s how ClickUp’s features can help you:
Project management
ClickUp Project Management can aid managers by offering a comprehensive suite of features to enhance productivity, collaboration, and project oversight.
Here are some ways it can help:
- Centralize task management with Custom Fields and Statuses
- Facilitate real-time collaboration through comments, document sharing, and email integration
- Establish dedicated ClickUp Chat views for effective management and communication
- Visualize project planning with Gantt charts, timelines, and mind maps
- Monitor time spent on tasks and projects with built-in time tracking
- Manage budgets efficiently by estimating costs and using resource management tools
Team management template
Effective team management is crucial for business success. With ClickUp’s Team Management Plan Template, you can keep your team organized and focused on their goals.
This template helps you:
- Customize dates, checklists, attachments, and Custom Fields to define the roles and deadlines
- Use the Agenda and Agenda by Department views to organize team and department meetings efficiently
- Use Task statuses to track progress and tick off Subtasks
- Invite feedback on shared documents and analyze productivity
With this template, you can help teams understand their progress at every stage, collaborate on shared goals while building accountability, maintain transparency with dependency warnings, and deliver projects on time!
ClickUp best features
- Manage Tasks and Subtasks: Add and customize multi-level ClickUp Tasks to define progress, improve transparency, and reduce information overload
- Collaborate on content: Invite and co-create ClickUp Docs to enrich content production and securely share with the right people to maintain privacy—all in the same place
- Brainstorm virtually: Dump real-time ideas on ClickUp Whiteboards, embed links, and create a visual canvas to maintain transparency
- AI-assistant: Use ClickUp Brain to import company knowledge securely into ClickUp. Maintain control with advanced permissions and version histories
- Integrations: Connect with 1,000+ other applications and streamline workflows via ClickUp Integrations
ClickUp limitations
- Some users report a learning curve due to ClickUp’s extensive features
ClickUp pricing
- Free Forever
- Unlimited: $7/month per user
- Business: $12/month per user
- Enterprise: Contact for pricing
- ClickUp Brain: Add to any paid plan for $7 per member per Workspace per month
ClickUp ratings and reviews
- G2: 4.7/5 (9,500+ reviews)
- Capterra: 4.6/5 (4,000+ reviews)
2. ProofHub (Best email replacement)
ProofHub has one of the cleanest and most intuitive UIs, which can help you quickly roll this out to team members. Depending on the project goal, you can use Gantt charts, tables, and board views as the central repository for documents.
If I had to distill ProofHub into one feature, I’d say it’s proofreading feedback and amendments to comments. It replaced never-ending email chains with fast messaging, real-time content updates, and link sharing.
ProofHub best features
- Streamline communication by integrating different channels within the same platform
- Improve productivity with accessibility shortcuts such as bookmarks, stickies, and keyboard shortcuts
- Stay up-to-date across devices with iOS and Android apps
ProofHub limitations
- Sometimes, notifications are slow to arrive and difficult to filter through
ProofHub pricing
- Small team: $89/month per 10 users
- Large team: $153/month per 100 users
- Large team plus: $310/month for unlimited users
ProofHub ratings and reviews
- G2: 4.5/5 (50+ reviews)
- Capterra: 4.6/5 (100+ reviews)
3. Pipedrive (Best for lead management)
Unlike the previous two manager tools, this one is geared toward a niche. If you’re a sales manager and leader, you’ll feel perfectly at home with Pipedrive.
This tool can be used to manage sales projects, and the AI CRM can help you identify the next course of action by considering deal stages, lead intent, and opportunity meters.
Even though it’s in beta right now, the AI deal summarization successfully contextualizes interactions and actions.
Pipedrive best features
- Take the right action based on meetings, timelines, and lead’s activities
- Sync Pipedrive with over 400 tools, including video calls, lead generation, phone solutions, and customer support
- Ensure data protection and stay informed of your sales team’s activities at all levels
Pipedrive limitations
- The mobile apps are not as intuitive as the desktop view
- Fairly limited to the sales department
Pipedrive pricing
- Essential: $14/seat per month
- Advanced: $29/seat per month
- Professional: $59/seat per month
- Power: $69/seat per month
- Enterprise: $99/seat per month
Pipedrive ratings and reviews
- G2: 4.3/5 (1500+ reviews)
- Capterra: 4.5/5 (2500+ reviews)
Also read: How to Thrive as a First-Time Manager
4. Zoom (Best for meeting management)
Zoom is often seen as just a meeting platform, but its capabilities extend beyond that. While it excels as a virtual meeting app, with features like concurrent sessions and live translation for global teams, it’s also a robust platform for project management.
I was pleasantly surprised by its productivity tools, which include document collaboration, whiteboarding, and video recording capabilities, which rival dedicated platforms like Loom.
Zoom best features
- Create, host, and customize events along with breakout rooms, live chat, and event data tracking
- Leverage AI-powered call summaries, advanced call routing, and chat and meeting integration
- Express feedback with emojis and other reactions in live meetings
Zoom limitations
- The management features are neither marketed well nor defined clearly
- Lacks project management-specific features
Zoom pricing
- Basic: Free
- Pro: $14.99/user per month
- Business: $21.99/user per month
- Business Plus: Custom pricing
- Enterprise: Custom pricing
Zoom ratings and reviews
- G2: 4.5/5 (55,000+ reviews)
- Capterra: 4.6/5 (13,000+ reviews)
Also read: How to Set SMART Goals for Managers
5. Scribe (Best for walkthroughs and tutorial management)
Scribe takes how-to manuals, visual guides, and tutorial creation to the next level. With Scribe, you can attach step-by-step guidance documents under each assignee tab and add custom fields—all with the auto-capture feature. It also helps with task delegation.
It’s particularly useful when team members have to explain long and complicated processes and create organizational training documents for new hires. My favorite feature, however, is the ability to redact sensitive information to share data without worrying about security.
Scribe best features
- Automatically create and manage walkthroughs with browser extensions
- Track views, process completion rate, and guide relevance in real time
- Reduce duplicate guides by quickly sharing information with Scribe Sidekick
- Integrate with tools your vendors and customers use for wiki and database sharing
Scribe limitations
- The UI for cropping and combining sub-pages and complex tasks can be jarring
- Support documentation lacks extensive data on how to make the most of Scribe
Scribe pricing
- Basic: Free
- Pro Team: $15/seat per month
- Pro Personal: $29/seat per month
- Enterprise: Custom pricing
Scribe ratings and reviews
- G2: 4.8/5 (150+ reviews)
- Capterra: Not enough reviews
6. Time Doctor (Best for time management)
As a manager, you have to oversee employee engagement and productivity analytics. While the tools so far focus on project-based work, Time Doctor is a management tool that can be deployed across the company for time tracking.
It can help you identify inefficiencies and the time needed to complete specific tasks, which prevents micromanagement and chasing people for updates.
Quantify productivity and understand when and how team members prefer to work to determine workforce availability for critical tasks.
Time Doctor best features
- Track work hours and use the data for payroll and scheduling
- Analyze web and app usage, create timeline reports, and track project/task progress
- Work without interruptions even when you’re offline
Time Doctor limitations
- The apps are not as stable and intuitive as the web version
- Sometimes, time tracking is not synced properly
Time Doctor pricing
- Basic: $7/user per month
- Standard: $14/user per month
- Premium: $20/user per month
Time Doctor ratings and reviews
- G2: 4.4/5 (350+ reviews)
- Capterra: 4.5/5 (500+ reviews)
7. NiftyPM (Best for cost-effective project management)
Nifty is a project management tool that ticks most of the features and efficiently consolidates multiple functionalities into a single platform.
Its clean interface and well-defined core features—discussions, tasks, and reporting—make it easy to onboard new users. For example, I swiftly migrated an existing project to Nifty, appreciating the granular level of detail offered by the goals and roadmap functions.
Assigning tasks and tracking progress is intuitive. With a single click, you can create task columns and assign team members.
NiftyPM best features
- Enhance team collaboration through chat, file sharing, and real-time commenting
- Create forms natively to capture data and modify documents to extrapolate takeaways
- Generate valuable insights through time tracking, project overviews, and custom reports
NiftyPM limitations
- Documents are prone to duplication and sync errors
- System stability requires improvement, as downtime and minor glitches are quite common
- While Nifty’s recent addition of Orbit AI is promising, its automation capabilities feel somewhat limited
NiftyPM pricing
- Free
- Starter: $49/month for 10 members
- Pro: $99/month for 20 members
- Business: $149/month for 50 members
- Unlimited: $499/month for unlimited members
NiftyPM ratings and reviews
- G2: 4.7/5 (400+ reviews)
- Capterra: 4.6/5 (400+ reviews)
8. Monday (Best for complex project management)
While Nifty is a fairly new entrant, Monday has been managing projects for years. Its strong reputation is well-deserved. Monday.com’s scalability is impressive, but it requires a structured approach.
You must define processes, automate forms, and create separate dashboards to keep projects in silos. If the project feels bloated at any point, you can organize tasks and information using folders, subfolders, and the Connect Boards feature.
Monday best features
- Balance team capacity with workload management features
- Facilitate teamwork with real-time commenting, file sharing, and @mentions
- Integrate with a huge lineup of third-party tools to work with clients, vendors, and other teams
Monday limitations
- Considering the capabilities, the learning curve can be quite steep
Monday pricing
- Free: up to 2 seats
- Basic: $36/seat per month
- Standard: $42/seat per month
- Pro: $72/seat per month
- Enterprise: Custom pricing
Monday ratings and reviews
- G2: 4.7/5 (12000+ reviews)
- Capterra: 4.6/5 (4500+ reviews)
9. Chanty (Best for communication management)
Chanty is a direct competitor to Slack but has enough project management features to warrant a place in this list.
You can chat with vendors and create tasks within the interface. Chanty’s project management dashboard is Kanban-based, and one of its unique features is the Teambook menu, which can host all your tasks, links, texts, and activity feeds.
Chanty best features
- Share simple code snippets to collaborate with devs right in the chat box
- Set roles and permissions to manage members working on your project
- Create workflows for message threads to access in-depth details of progress
Chanty limitations
- Heavily relies on chat interface
- Project management features require integrations to function properly
Chanty pricing
- Free
- Business: $4/user per month
Chanty ratings and reviews
- G2: 4.5/5 (40+ reviews)
- Capterra: 4.7/5 (30+ reviews)
10. Asana (Best for creating project overviews)
Asana is a popular project management tool known for its clean interface and focus on task organization.
One of Asana’s best features is its ability to consolidate projects, tasks, and progress into clear, actionable lists and visual overviews. Its flexibility allows you to effortlessly add tasks to multiple projects, eliminating the confusion of juggling various initiatives.
Asana’s emphasis on simplicity and clarity makes it a popular choice for teams of all sizes.
Asana best features
- Drag and drop dependencies to quickly modify tasks and subtasks
- Plan projects, forecast numbers, and track insights within one platform
- Integrate with your favorite tools to scale Asana’s productivity features further
Asana limitations
- Each Asana task can only be assigned to one person
- Doesn’t have as many visual cues as other platforms, leading to a steep learning curve
Asana pricing
- Personal: Free
- Starter: $13.49/user per month
- Advanced: $30.49/user per month
- Enterprise: Custom pricing
- Enterprise+: Custom pricing
Asana ratings and reviews
- G2: 4.4/5 (10,000+ reviews)
- Capterra: 4.5/5 (12,500+ reviews)
Summarize this article for me pleaseManage Projects Efficiently With the Right Manager Tool
Your skill set is no longer the sole criterion for defining your work productivity. You need the right tech stack to help you get more done in less time. For managers, it’s all about finding the perfect fit for their organization and working style.
Each of the tools listed here offers something unique. But if I had to choose only one, I’d go with ClickUp, an all-rounder that fits different use cases and project scopes.
ClickUp’s customizable and scalable features, visually appealing UI, and integrations with several business tools and platforms put it right at the top of our list of manager tools. It also makes work easier than ever before with ClickUp Brain, the AI assistant. Use it to automate tasks, generate valuable insights, and enhance the overall decision-making and management process.
So, sign up to ClickUp today and enhance your career!
Everything you need to stay organized and get work done.
