What's the best project management platform for architects?

Recently, a few architecture clients have asked me which project management platform they should use, so I think it's worth putting my thoughts in a blog post.

Project management has been a hot topic in the AIA SFx group. Some like Monograph and other firms use other platforms. I'll spare you the suspense: there's no clear winner because every firm has different requirements.

Some need a client portal. Others need it to be a communications platform where they can engage owners, consultants, and their internal team. Some want this same platform to handle invoicing and bookkeeping. Others still want it to handle red lines and sharing. Some want Gantt charts because they follow the waterfall methodology, while others who have adopted Agile need Kanban boards.

Please keep this in mind while looking for a PM solution for your firm: you/we will not find one platform that does everything because your firm operates uniquely from every other firm on the planet! Your value prop is rooted in how you run projects and communicate with your clients! If your firm ran like other firms, you could simply copy and paste some other firm's workflows onto yours and be done. But it doesn't, so you can't.

Therefore, we need to find a solution (or set of solutions) that we can mold to your workflows. I strongly recommend considering platforms that integrate with other platforms. That is, consider platforms that provide a subset of required features better than every other platform and integrate with other platforms that provide a subset of features better than any other.

For example, you're not going to find a project management platform that invoices like a dedicated invoicing platform. Perhaps you've already settled on an invoicing system, so now you have your first requirement: your PM system must integrate with your invoicing platform. (Keep in mind that some of these platforms won't have built-in integrations but they might have integrated with Zapier, who creates intra-app integrations.) But what to do with all of your requirements?

I recommend creating a table like this one I created a couple years ago when I was shopping for a rain jacket. You'd create a similar table with potential project management platforms on one axis.

Now you can go shopping! On one axis, add all the project management platforms available: Monday.com, Asana, Dubsado, Monograph, ClickUp, BQE Core, as well as build-it-yourself-but-then-it's-just-how-you-like-it options like Notion and Airtable.

As you review each service's offerings, you'll discover features you hadn't considered. Add them to the other axis—your requirements. As you add more requirements, you'll go back through your list of platforms to see if they have that feature and then update your table with that info. After a few iterations, a handful of platforms will start to rise to the top!