Project management

Every growth team eventually hits the same wall. Work is happening everywhere. Tasks live in Slack threads, email chains, and people's heads. Nobody knows what's prioritised and things slip through cracks.

Project management tools solve this by giving work a single home. When everyone can see what's happening, what's blocked, and what's next, the team moves faster with less coordination overhead.

The challenge isn't finding a tool. It's finding one your team will actually use. The fanciest features mean nothing if people work around the system instead of in it. I've seen teams fail with enterprise platforms and succeed with simple kanban boards. The difference is usually adoption, not capability.

This chapter covers what to look for in a project management tool for growth teams specifically. Marketing and sales working together have different needs than engineering teams, and most tool recommendations ignore this.

Growth teams use project management tools differently than other departments. You're not shipping code with sprints or managing client projects with billable hours. You're running campaigns, executing experiments, and coordinating between marketing and sales.

Campaign coordination is the most common use case. When a launch involves content, ads, email sequences, and sales enablement, everyone needs visibility into dependencies and deadlines. Without a shared system, things get missed and launches slip.

Experiment tracking is another key use case. Growth teams run lots of small tests. You need somewhere to log hypotheses, track results, and document learnings. Spreadsheets work initially but break down as volume increases.

Cross-functional handoffs between marketing and sales require clear ownership. When does a lead become sales' responsibility? What assets does sales need for follow-up? Project management tools make these handoffs explicit instead of assumed.

Views matter more than features. Some people think in lists, others in boards, others in timelines. The best tools offer multiple views of the same data so everyone can work how they prefer.

Integrations determine whether the tool becomes your hub or another silo. At minimum, you need connections to your communication tool, CRM, and calendar. Native integrations beat Zapier workarounds for reliability.

Templates save setup time for recurring work. Campaign launches, quarterly planning, and experiment cycles follow similar patterns. Good templates encode your process so you're not rebuilding from scratch each time.

Permissions and sharing let you collaborate with external stakeholders without exposing everything. Agencies, freelancers, and executives need different levels of access. Clunky permissions create friction that kills adoption.

Start with how your team actually works today. If people live in Slack, you need strong Slack integration. If you're already in the Google ecosystem, tools that play nicely with Google Workspace reduce friction.

Consider your team size and growth trajectory. Simple tools that work for five people can become chaotic at twenty. But enterprise tools designed for hundreds create unnecessary overhead for small teams.

Price per seat adds up quickly. Calculate the real cost for your team including any premium features you'll actually need. Free tiers are great for evaluation but often lack the integrations or permissions you need in practice.

Trial with real work, not demo projects. Import actual tasks and run your process for two weeks before committing. The friction points only emerge when you're using it for real.

For small teams (under 5), prioritise simplicity and speed. You want something you'll actually use, not something that requires a week of setup.

For larger teams, prioritise permissions and structure. You need to control who sees what, and you need consistency across projects.

If you value flexibility and want one tool to replace your wiki, task manager, and database, choose Notion. If you want a structured, opinionated system that's easy to adopt, choose Asana. If you need extreme simplicity, Trello works but you'll outgrow it. Avoid ClickUp if you value clean UX - it tries to do everything and the interface suffers.

The best project management tool is the one your team uses consistently. Features don't matter if people revert to Slack and spreadsheets within a month.

Start simple and add complexity as you need it. Most teams over-buy on day one and then abandon the tool because it's too heavy. Pick something your team will actually adopt, build the habit, then expand from there.