Project management vs. task management tools! I always get these two confused. If you are stuck with this interchangeability issue, you won’t be after reading today’s blog post.
Both projects and tasks are birds of the same feather. However, they are similar yet different. Moreover, expertise in both project and task management is important for success.
The hierarchy is work, projects, and tasks. That’s how it is, regardless of the scale and sector of your organisation.
There are many differences and only a few similarities in managing tasks and projects. So, today, we will go through many useful insights to clear all your doubts. Today, we have in store for you the difference between tasks and projects and the tools for managing them.
Plus, the 3 key differences between the two, and the 10 best project management software solutions for businesses. So, without delaying it any further, let us get started right away with it.
How Do a Project and a Task Differ?
Make your workday more productive
Time tracking and work management can help you reach your goals
faster.
A task and a project will not confuse you after we go through this section. Simply put, a project is a collection of various activities, having a start and end date between which the project duration falls, which can range from a few weeks to several months. Remember that, regardless of anything else, a project must have a deadline. Moreover, a project:
- Includes multiple stakeholders
- Requires high-level planning
- Involves team coordination
- As we mentioned before, a project must have a fixed timeline
On the other hand, a task is a smaller chunk of work within a project. When talking about tasks, here are some crucial aspects that always go along.
- Tasks have dependencies
- Tasks are smaller in scope than the project
- Only one team or team member may be enough to complete tasks
Read Also: Remote Work Monitoring vs. Office-Based Time Tracking: Pros & Cons
How to Not Get Confused Between Projects & Tasks?
Getting confused between projects and tasks can be utterly frustrating. Let us clear your doubts with an example and a methodology. For instance, developing a new next-generation console video game is a project and not a task. Why? Because you won’t be able to complete it in a day. Even when you are using artificially intelligent tools and automation.
So, you need to break it up into several colour-coded tasks. Now, it’s much simpler to slowly work on the tasks to complete the project, stress-free:
The Getting Things Done Methodology
It’s a great assistant for easily separating work into long-term and short-term categories. It involves 5 simple steps:
- Note every work that requires your attention
- Divide the work into tasks and projects with clarity
- Organise them in a file, folder, or an app (recommended)
- Don’t forget to ensure that everything stays updated and effective
- The final steps involve scheduling, prioritising, etc.
Should You Use Task Management or Project Management?
It depends on the size of your project. Generally, if you are working on a small project, you will get through it with task management:
- Track task progress
- Evaluate dependencies
- Analyse task owners
- Make guides for daily repetitive and ongoing tasks
For larger projects, we strongly suggest using the best project management software. So, when can you consider a project as large? Simply put, that’s when there is extensive planning and coordination between multiple stakeholders. Typically, you should use project management when you need to have:
- Multiple teams
- A timeline
- A budget
- Multiple tasks
| Project management assists you in ensuring that your target doesn’t go out of your project’s scope. |
What are Task Management Tools?
Task management tools focus on essentials such as to-do lists and other notes. These applications assist you in centralising everything on a single dashboard. Overall, such software helps you get tasks checked off sooner than you would expect, every time you start working on a new project.
The software helps you make task lists, group tasks, and schedule timelines for them. Such a software solution ensures streamlined processes as you complete one task at a time with no dependencies. Well-known task manager software solutions include:
- DeskTrack
- Todoist
- Any.do
| Did you know that anything and everything can be a task? Even gathering the needed resources for a project is a task. |
What are Project Management Tools?
On the other hand, project management tools or project management software solutions provide you with all the features that a task manager tool provides. Plus more. To help you coordinate projects, these solutions provide you with:
- Collaboration tools
- Coordination tools
- Project planning tools
- Subtasks
- Comments
- Attachments
- Task descriptions
- Gantt charts
- Timeline views
Overall, it takes what you would do with post it notes a step further and provides you with a clutter-free interface to manage projects more optimally:
- Make time estimates
- Track work
- Make project reports within a few clicks
What is the Distinction Between Project Management & Task Management Tools?
Generally, spotting whether a tool is for managing projects or tasks is simple. You only require wrapping your head around these 3 aspects:
|
Project management is essential for completing a larger goal. Tasks are smaller in size and scope. However, these short chunks path to the success of the big target. Both tasks and projects are interlinked with each other. |
|
Contrary to what you might think, tasks are more detailed with workflows, subtasks, checklists and descriptions. On the other hand, projects just come with a brief on what needs to be done:
|
|
Regardless of what anyone says, tasks are permanent. Even daily clock-in and clock-out are tasks. On the other hand, projects are temporary as they have an initial and final date. |
Read Also: All You Need to Know About Productivity Monitoring Tools for Remote Teams
What are the Similarities Between Project Management & Task Management Tools?
Other than the differences between the two, project management and task management tools do have a few similarities. Both projects and tasks are:
- Crucial in achieving success.
- Must have strong communication and organisation for success.
- Require coordination and planning.
Which are the Top 5 Project & Task Management Tools?
Wondering which project or task management software is right for your business? We have you covered with the top 5 options.
- DeskTrack
- Wrike
- Asana
- Monday
- Adobe Workfront
1. DeskTrack
Task and project management is just one primary function of DeskTrack. It is the best integrated project management, employee monitoring, time tracking, and productivity monitoring tool for your remote, in-office, hybrid, and on-site employees. What makes this one the most popular is that all the analysis and reporting happen in real-time.
| Best For | Initial Pricing | User Rating |
| Best overall | $5.99/user/month | 5/5 |
2. Wrike
Wrike is a work management application that over 20000 organisations and 2.4 million users across 140+ countries use. It is one of the best for your remote teams because it breaks all communication barriers with the multiple language support feature.
It’s one of the best management platforms for collaboration, providing a range of tools for every employee, including project managers and marketing heads.
| Best For | Initial Pricing | User Rating |
| Cross-functional collaboration | $10/user/month | 4.4/5 |
3. Asana
The next project management software on our list is suitable for businesses of any size. What it does is integrate file storage, project roadmaps, dashboards, and other useful tools into one compact and clutter-free user-friendly interface.
| Best For | Initial Pricing | User Rating |
| Attractive visuals | $10.99/user/month | 4.5/5 |
4. Monday
Monday is one of the most adaptable software solutions for managing projects on our list. It’s one of the most popular project and task software solutions across multiple teams and industries.
What we like about it is how it provides you with premade templates and tools to streamline project work and processes and increase productivity.
However, because of too much information than one can handle, crucial things can get overlooked.
| Best For | Initial Pricing | User Rating |
| Use case templates | $9/user/month | 4.6/5 |
5. Adobe Workfront
Adobe Workfront is quite handy in industries that require creativity and heavy brainstorming, such as marketing and advertising enterprises.
Large businesses rely on it, and the reason behind it is that it provides you with a plethora of task management features to handle complex projects.
However, it is too costly for small businesses.
| Best For | Initial Pricing | User Rating |
| Adobe integration | Quote on contact | 4.4/5 |
Conclusion
Now, we hope that it’s all clear to you and you will never need to bring up project management vs task management tools. As a final word, we can conclude that both tasks and projects are crucial and need to be properly managed. No matter how different these two are, projects and tasks are interlinked, as completing tasks in a streamlined way leads to project success. However, to streamline project-task management, you need a powerful software solution. Look no further than DeskTrack, which integrates task management, time tracking, project management, productivity tracking, and employee monitoring in a balanced way in the most user-friendly interface.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Q. What is a Task Management Tool?
Ans. Task management tools focus on essentials such as to-do lists and other notes. These applications assist you in centralising everything on a single dashboard. Overall, such software helps you get tasks checked off sooner than you would expect, every time you start working on a new project.
Q. What is the Difference Between a Task and a Project?
Ans. A project is a collection of various activities, having a start and end date between which the project duration falls, which can range from a few weeks to several months. Remember that, regardless of anything else, a project must have a deadline. On the other hand, a task is a smaller chunk of work within a project.
Q. What is the Difference Between Project and Task Management?
Ans. Project and task management are usually differentiated based on:
- Size and scope in the sense that projects always have a large size and scope, while tasks are always smaller.
- Tasks are more detail-oriented.
- Tasks are always in existence. On the other hand, projects have an end date.
Q. Which are the Best Task & Project Management Tools?
Ans. Below, we have the top 5 project and task management tools for your business.
- DeskTrack
- Wrike
- Asana
- Monday
- Adobe Workfront
Q. Is DeskTrack a Project Management Tool?
Ans. Task and project management is just one primary function of DeskTrack. It is the best integrated project management, employee monitoring, hours monitoring, and productivity monitoring software for your remote, in-office, hybrid, and on-site staff.
