Project Management Software for Small Teams: A Practical Shortlist

Start with the constraint that changes the choice

In this shortlist, I organise the options around the constraint that matters most: request intake, backlog organisation, repository-linked delivery or a simple shared task board. ClickUp, monday work management, GitHub Projects and Trello offer different approaches worth investigating. Include the current process too; a new subscription should solve a specific problem.

First decide whether the problem is request intake, backlog organisation, repository-linked delivery or simply unclear ownership. A single owner and a consistent review routine may solve the last problem without a new subscription. Do not select a tool before agreeing the work it must improve.

Four candidates and the current process

ClickUp is a candidate for task-based project planning and backlog organisation. Validate whether the team understands locations, priorities and status, and whether the chosen plan meets the access and exit requirements.

monday work management is a candidate for structured request intake and board-based coordination. Check the form mapping, approval responsibility, duplicate handling and the real billable seat bundle. Keep CRM and dev outside this shortlist.

GitHub Projects documents table, board and roadmap views linked to issues and pull requests. Investigate it when delivery already lives in GitHub; test whether non-developer reviewers can complete their part without creating another tracking process.

Trello’s pricing page lists a Free plan for up to ten collaborators per Workspace and ten boards. It is a candidate for a compact shared task board. Check whether the required approval record, permissions and export route fit the actual plan before treating free access as a complete solution.

The current shared register is a fifth option. Record its owner, review cadence, access boundary and method of retaining decisions. Apply the same task exercise instead of treating the baseline as automatically inferior.

Use comparable evidence

Run the same synthetic request through each plausible candidate: intake, ownership, priority, acceptance criteria, a prohibited access attempt, approval, status communication and export. Eliminate a candidate only for an essential requirement or a documented tradeoff the team accepts.

Illustrative decision note: “External reviewers must only see their client’s records; export must preserve the approver and accepted version.” This is stronger than “easy to use”, because the pilot can establish whether it is met. It is a proposed criterion, not a result.

Price the working arrangement

Record the required plan, internal members, guests, minimum billable seats, currency and billing cycle. Add training, administration, migration, overlap and exit work. Check paid automation or AI requirements separately. An advertised per-seat rate does not establish the whole cost.

Use the requirements worksheet before the evaluation scorecard. Set criteria before scoring and retain evidence beside each score. Do not use commission as a criterion.

Turn the shortlist into a choice

Use the ClickUp and monday comparison if those two approaches fit your requirements. Include GitHub Projects or Trello when their documented model better matches where the team already works. Give each serious candidate the same relevant tasks and cost assumptions; do not score an untested permission boundary as passed.

Select one or two candidates for a bounded pilot, name the operational owner and agree a go/no-go decision date. Keep the current system available until essential access and exit checks pass. When no option clears the gates, improve the process or resolve the remaining requirement before buying.

Compare the candidates

Shortlist by workflow to investigate
Candidate	Reason to investigate	Main check
ClickUp	Task-based backlog planning	Can the team maintain the hierarchy and obtain the required permissions/export route?
monday work management	Structured project-request intake	Do mapping, ownership and approval survive invalid and duplicated submissions?
GitHub Projects	Work already tracked in issues and pull requests	Can non-developer participants perform their work with the intended access?
Trello	A compact shared board	Does the chosen plan support the required controls and exit record?
Current process	Ownership and review already work	Is the actual cost or failure rate sufficient to justify switching?

Explore the options

View ClickUp · View monday work management

Sources and scope

The sources below support the feature, price and plan details in this guide. Prices and limits may change; check the actual order and plan.