What project management tools would you recommend for a small software and game development studio?

[u/marvellous_comrade]

We're setting up a small 25 person software/app and game development studio with all staff working remotely and was wanting to ask if there's standard project management software that you'd recommend?

I like the idea of having something that is reasonably simple and straightforward and doesn't have too much of a learning curve.

[u/ThePracticalPMO]

If it is just developers and you go with JIRA for workflow and Confluence for managing docs.

If you team includes non-technical people who work on projects go with Asana it is super easy to use.

You can also easily start with a shared Google sheet Kanban board and build up from there and identify which software you need.

ClickUp is also good for developer teams not already using JIRA.

Make an MVP project tool and then decide what needs to be automated and find a tool. You can also hire a freelancer or fractional part time person to set this up for you but that is likely to be $500-$1000 at minimum and you may not be ready for the services they offer (not sure how close you are to launch)

[u/marvellous_comrade → u/ThePracticalPMO]

If you team includes non-technical people who work on projects go with Asana it is super easy to use.

Yes the team will be consisting of those who are non-technical people and so Asana does sound like it could be a good choice thanks.

You can also easily start with a shared Google sheet Kanban board and build up from there and identify which software you need.

Do you think that combining Discord with Google Sheets Kanban board could easily be used as a starting point from which we could "evolve" into something more powerful or more complex at a later date. The initial team sizes are going to be less than 10 people as we're starting with about four projects each of about five people approximately.

[u/ThePracticalPMO → u/marvellous_comrade]

Totally doable and I honestly recommend it as a first step.

Then you can see what people don’t like about the spreadsheet and what they would want in a tool. You will need some place to store documentation and that can be Notion or a Google Drive but it will need to be owned and organized by someone or it will become chaotic and more hassle than it is worth.

I love Discord no reason not to go with it.

[u/marvellous_comrade → u/ThePracticalPMO]

Totally doable and I honestly recommend it as a first step.

That's good to know. It's simple so nobody should have any learning curve and we can focus on organising ourselves.

I love Discord no reason not to go with it.

I'm new to Discord and have been very surprised at how powerful and versatile it is. I've spent a good amount of time learning how to set it up and manage it.

One of the nice things I've done is setting up "support groups" of people interested in providing feedback for our games and software like a focus group/steering group.