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How to track projects and tasks for a small team

To track projects and tasks you need one shared place where every task has an owner, a due date and a status that the whole team can see. Project management software does this with lists, boards, timelines or Gantt charts, and sends reminders as deadlines approach. Team chat sits alongside it for quick questions, while decisions and deadlines stay in the project tool.

By Bill Belcamino · Page updated September 23, 2026 · Our methodologyResearched and fact-checked by the HelpCompare team

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Bottom line up frontby Bill Belcamino, founder of HelpCompare

Editorial assessment

Bottom line up front: How do we get a small team to actually use a project tracker?

Pick for adoption, not features: all 6 project tools we track list a free plan, so cost won't stop you, but a board nobody updates will.

Free plans do differ in size, with Trello allowing up to 10 collaborators per Workspace and Jira up to 10 users, while Asana and Monday.com stop at 2, and Monday.com's paid plan starts at $9/seat/mo with a 3-seat minimum. The adoption trick I trust most is simple: run the weekly team meeting from the board itself, on screen, task by task. The moment status updates happen in a separate slide or chat thread, the tracker becomes optional, and optional tools go stale within weeks. Give every task one owner and a due date, and hold off on custom fields and automations until the board has survived a month of real use.

My read of the verified data on this page, checked against vendor sources on September 23, 2026. Disagree or spot an error? Tell Bill

How to track projects, tasks and deadlines, step by step

List your active projects and the tasks each one needs.
Give every task one owner and a due date.
Choose a view that matches how you work, such as a board, list or timeline.
Move all task requests from email and chat into the project tool.
Hold a short weekly review of overdue and upcoming work.
Archive finished projects and reuse them as templates for the next one.

Why it matters

QuickBooks 2024: 54% cite too many manual and repetitive tasks. Source

The software this job takes

Which categories a job needs is Editorial assessment; the tools, prices and dates are Verified data.

Prices are each vendor’s published entry plan, recorded from its own pricing page and dated. The example column prices a team of 10: only per-user prices are multiplied; flat and per-account prices are shown as published. Change the team size in the finder.

You need this

Project Management Software

Project management software tracks tasks, owners and deadlines across the team.

Tool	Entry price (as published)	Billing unit	Example: team of 10	Free plan	Verified
Asana	Free (2 users), from $10.99/seat/mo	Per seat	$109.90/mo$10.99 × 10 seats	YesYes — Personal plan, up to 2 users	Sep 17, 2026Vendor pricing
ClickUp	Free, from $7/seat/mo	Per seat	$70/mo$7 × 10 seats	YesYes — Free Forever	Sep 12, 2026Vendor pricing
Monday.com	From $9/seat/mo (3-seat min)	Per seat	$90/mo$9 × 10 seats	YesYes — up to 2 seats	Sep 17, 2026Vendor pricing
Trello	Free, from $5/user/mo	Per user	$50/mo$5 × 10 users	YesYes — up to 10 collaborators per Workspace	Sep 17, 2026Vendor pricing
Jira	Free (10 users), from $9.05/user/mo	Per user	$90.50/mo$9.05 × 10 users	YesYes — up to 10 users	Sep 17, 2026Vendor pricing
Linear	Free, from $10/user/mo (billed yearly)	Per user	$100/mo$10 × 10 users	YesYes — unlimited members, 2 teams, 250 issues	Sep 17, 2026Vendor pricing

Compare all Project Management pricing →Head to head:ClickUp vs Trello Asana vs Jira Trello vs Asana Jira vs Linear Asana vs Monday.com Monday.com vs ClickUp14 switching guides Build a decision brief for these →

Often added

Team Chat & Communication Software

Team chat keeps quick questions and updates out of email.

Tool	Entry price (as published)	Billing unit	Example: team of 10	Free plan	Verified
Slack	From $7.25/seat/mo	Per seat	$72.50/mo$7.25 × 10 seats	YesYes — 90-day message history	Sep 12, 2026Vendor pricing
Microsoft Teams	From $4/user/mo (Teams Essentials)	Per user	$40/mo$4 × 10 users	YesYes — 60-minute group meeting cap	Sep 12, 2026Vendor pricing

Compare all Team Communication pricing →Head to head:Slack vs Microsoft Teams2 switching guides Build a decision brief for these →

What to look for

Editorial assessment

Views that match your work Check for the views you need, such as boards for ongoing work or timelines and Gantt charts for deadline-driven projects. The wrong view makes the tool feel like overhead.
Task dependencies If one task cannot start until another finishes, check that the tool can link them and show the knock-on effect of a delay.
Pricing per user Check whether the tool charges per user and whether seats are sold in fixed blocks. Count everyone who needs to create or update tasks, not just the managers.
Guests and clients If clients or freelancers need to see progress, check whether guest access is included and what they can see.
Chat and calendar connections Look for notifications in your team chat and due dates in your calendar. This keeps the tool in people's daily flow.
Templates Check that you can save a project as a template. Repeat projects are where tracking saves the most time.

Common mistakes to avoid

Tasks without owners A task assigned to the whole team belongs to nobody. One owner per task, always.
Keeping tasks in chat Requests made in chat and never moved to the project tool get forgotten. Agree that if it is not in the tool, it is not a task.
Over-building on day one Custom fields, automations and complex workflows put people off before the habit forms. Start simple and add structure later.
Skipping the weekly review A board nobody reviews fills up with stale and overdue tasks until people stop trusting it. Keep the weekly check even in quiet weeks.

What to settle before you buy

How many people will create and update tasks, and how many only view?
Do projects have hard deadlines and dependencies, or ongoing work?
Which view does the team think in: lists, boards or timelines?
Do clients or freelancers need access?
Which tools must it connect to, such as chat, calendar and file storage?
Who will set up the structure and keep it tidy?

Ready to take it to whoever signs off?Turn your shortlist into a one-page decision brief with verified prices, or price the whole job for your team size.

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Frequently asked questions

What is the best project management software for a small business?

Look for one that matches how your team plans work, is priced sensibly for your number of users and is simple enough that everyone keeps it updated. We track 6 project management tools: Asana, ClickUp, Monday.com, Trello, Jira and Linear. Compare them on views, per-user price and integrations.

What are the best free project management tools?

Of the 6 project management tools we track, Asana, ClickUp, Monday.com, Trello, Jira and Linear list a free plan or free tier (limits are in the table above). Free plans often limit users, views or features like timelines, so check those limits against your team size.

How do I manage team tasks?

Put every task in one shared tool, give it one owner and a due date, and review overdue work together each week. Keep quick discussion in chat but record decisions and deadlines on the task.

Do I need Gantt chart software?

You need a timeline or Gantt view if your projects have fixed deadlines and tasks that depend on each other. For ongoing work, a list or board is usually enough. Check which plan includes the view you need.

How we built this page

We start from the job, not the product. The phrasings people search for this job (for example “project management for small business”) come from our research into how small and mid-size teams describe it. Which software categories the job takes is our editorial judgment. Every tool, entry price, billing unit and date comes from HelpCompare’s open dataset, recorded from each vendor’s own pricing page; nothing is estimated, and where a vendor publishes no price we say so. We take no affiliate commissions and publish no scores of our own. See our methodology or download the data from Open Data.

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Source links on this site are checked every month; last check October 4, 2026. How sources are checked.

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How to track projects and tasks for a small team

Bottom line up front: How do we get a small team to actually use a project tracker?

How to track projects, tasks and deadlines, step by step

The software this job takes

Project Management Software

Team Chat & Communication Software

What to look for

Common mistakes to avoid

What to settle before you buy

Frequently asked questions

What is the best project management software for a small business?

What are the best free project management tools?

How do I manage team tasks?

Do I need Gantt chart software?

How we built this page

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Bill Belcamino