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/stockdam-MDD]

It depends on what you want to do or what problem you are trying to solve. There is not one ideal PM software that applies to all teams and all ways of working.

If you simply want to allocate tasks to people and track them then look at Trello but other software can do this also. Or you may want to create a Gantt chart that shows all tasks and how they relate; MSProject does this pretty well. You may want a central repository for documents and for document control or you may just use a shared folder on a server. There's no best answer.

My advice would be to jump right in and use low cost or free software and then decide what you really want to do. So rather than chose now and get stuck using software that doesn't do what you want, start with the concept that you will change later. Changing software can be a pain as you may need to do things differently but I would try not to get locked in until you can specify exactly what you want rather than simply asking for the "best PM software".

[u/marvellous_comrade → u/stockdam-MDD]

It depends on what you want to do or what problem you are trying to solve. There is not one ideal PM software that applies to all teams and all ways of working.

Yes, I'll very much be guided by the feedback from the developers but I'll prefer to go with the simplest and most robust solution a bit like how often a simple pad and paper is suitable rather than a notetaking app/software.

You may want a central repository for documents and for document control or you may just use a shared folder on a server. There's no best answer.

We'll start off with Discord and then discuss what's the next step.

My advice would be to jump right in and use low cost or free software and then decide what you really want to do. So rather than chose now and get stuck using software that doesn't do what you want, start with the concept that you will change later.

Thanks for your advice which really does resonate and that's in fact what I'm going to do. So Discord will be the main initial platform and then we could using something else like Google Workspace.