Designers and project managers are like oil in vinegar — they don’t mix. Project managers focus on budgets, objectives, deadlines, and the process of getting from point A to point B. That’s foreign language to designers. We’re concerned with colors, patterns, fonts, and the way things look. Creativity doesn’t always spark according to a detailed timeline. 

Of course, if graphic design is going to behave like a business, clients need to pay for our services. That means, for small to mid-size creative studios without project managers, creative leaders must manage our own projects. Enter, the modern project management system. For a project management system to help designers get from problem to solution, it would be helpful if we spoke the same dialect. Perhaps a creative brief will help us find the right solution.

Creative Brief

Objective: Find a project management system that speaks the same language as the creative team.

Mandatories: User interface must be intuitive, the system should be easy to learn, and the software needs to be free, forever. 

Timeline: Monday, research project management systems. Tuesday, narrow selections down to three options. Wednesday, test final options. Thursday, make final decision. Friday, go to happy hour. Saturday, write blog post.

The Candidates

The team reviewed four options: Podio, Asana, Trello, and Miro. Podio was the first option to be nixed from the list. Users need to request a demo of their app, and that initial time investment was too big to overcome. While we appreciated the introductory video on Asana’s website, it became quite clear that their primary audience is corporate businesses, and not boutique creative studios. Trello has a modern user interface, custom illustrations that help guide their process, and plenty of features. Trello was a finalist, however, we wanted something more intuitive.

The Winner

Turns out, we already owned the project management system we had been looking for all along. With Miro, we can easily sign in through our Google account, and there are plenty of visual templates to get started with. We can choose from any of the traditional project management frameworks — from Agile to Kanban — and they are only a click away.

Conclusion

The best solutions are often right in front of your eyes. While we researched multiple project management platforms, Miro was included with our paid Google Business account. Not exactly free, but we incurred no additional costs. We tested the software on a new project, and there was virtually no learning curve. Everybody spoke designer, including our client. Problem solved.