Intro
For this week’s blog post we will be reviewing the agile project management tool monday.com. Monday.com was founded in Tel Aviv, Israel in 2012, initially under the name of daPulse, by creators Roy Mann, Eran Kampf and Eran Zinman. It is a cloud-based platform that anyone from students all the up to major companies can use to create work management software and applications. This product has received overall very positive reviews through multiple review website with the company reporting over 127 thousand current customers worldwide. In this post we will look at a few of the features that I believe help this product stay in the good graces of its consumers and how they can make anyone’s life in project management and software development easier.
Versions
With Monday.com they provide you with multiple options to use their platform when on a project. You can access the platform either online, by downloading the desktop version (available for windows and mac) or you could download the mobile app for your phone and/ or tablets (apple and android compatible). The online and desktop versions also give you an alternative option to download the app outside of going to the app store by allowing the user to click a like on their profile page to access the mobile app. I will say I have not worked with the mobile app yet but if you’re interested, I would say to give it a try.
Easy to use?
With any project management software ideally, you would want something that isn’t too difficult to figure out. Within 20 minutes of being on the website and desktop versions I felt as though I could jump into any project team that I was supposed to be on and could figure out how to operate the system. It’s very user friendly while also providing users with tutorial videos, webinars, community post and a read and learn section for you to get as in depth with the platform as you desire. By having such a quick and easy learning curve, project managers can feel safe know that their team can get any help they need to learn the features of the software.
Versatile templates
A feature that I feel is very beneficial of this platform is that it provides you with multiple templates for many different aspects. As you see in the photo below here there many templates provided to you no matter if you’re a student of on a project team. If you’re a student who struggles with time management or planning but don’t know how to improve either one, this platform can help you organize, manage, and acknowledge any major assignments or events that you might have come up so that you stay on task. If you’re on a project, it can keep you on track with anything from task to meetings by using these templates along with their interactive weekly calendar.
App compatibilities
Monday.com allows its users to download and connect their projects and information with other apps that are compatible with the software. Apps such as google drive, zoom and Microsoft teams are a few of the many apps that’s that are provided for you to connect to. Although it can seem somewhat repetitive considering the platform does already include many of these features within itself, having that versatility and access to other platforms can be beneficial when dealing with parties outside of the main project development
Communication avenues
Communication is key whenever you’re apart of a project. That being said this is one negative you can say this platform has. Although the software does have notifications and a message inbox, it doesn’t have a chat system. Obviously, a chat system can be easier whenever you need to have a quick conversation with someone in your team so missing this feature does kind of suck. However as stated before this platform does allow you connect to certain apps so not having a chat system implemented in the platform can be fixed by connecting to an app like Microsoft teams or Slack.
Team invites
One feature that many people may think is minor but is important in my opinion is how easy is it to invite my team member to my project group? I’ve worked on other platforms and adding team members was more of a hassle than it should have been. Monday.com makes this process easier by giving you the options of copying and sending a link or adding someone by email. Luckily if everyone in your team is using the same email system (i.e. uncc.edu) then they will automatically be grated access to the project without having to request it themselves.
Personal customization and changes
Another minor feature that I particularly like is all the personal customization you can do within the app. Outside of updating personal information this platform lets you change things all the way down to how you’d want you dates to show and if you’d want to use a 12- or 24-hour clock setup. Personally, I appreciate those type of small details. Also, when looking at a workshop being able to do things such as changing the color of project groups or resizing the height of an item can help to reduce confusion within the project development. The platform also allows you to automate certain things like due dates to pop up for certain team members if something needs to be done at a certain time. Finally, you have access to integrating thing into that project like slack or teams which can help with communication and collaboration
Final thoughts
In my opinion, Monday.com is a great agile project management platform. This platforms allows the user to adapt to any changes that need to be made during project development which is necessary when using the agile approach. It’s very user friendly and does pretty much everything you need to keep up with a project. You can access it while on your computer or on the good which allows for great accessibility. Also, with the software allowing for compatibility with other applications it helps to cover more aspects of the project that may not be major features on the platform such as the chat system. That being said this platform isn’t just good for project management, it works well for students or anyone who would like to keep up with task and agendas that they might have come up. That type of versatility makes this software both beneficial and effective. I would recommend this platform to any student who’s trying to stay on top of task or anyone in project management trying to keep track of the team
Works Cited