29

Feb

Zoho Projects vs. 37 Signals Basecamp: Simplifying Web Project Management

Posted by: Jeremy Reither

Over the course of more than two years I pitted two of the leaders in the low-priced, cloud-based, project management tool space against one another. The early leader was Zoho Projects, but what you’ll read here has ended up being a sort of chronological account of how, in the end, Basecamp‘s dead simple design and strong user adoption won me (and my clients) over.

Some people say that project management is more about methods than tools. In other words, if you want to keep track of your project’s tasks on scratch paper, and that works for you, then go for it. I’m pretty certain that whoever said that was a fan of the scratch paper method – but that’s not me. Sure, overcomplicating project management can reduce team efficiency, but a well-suited and well-adopted project management tool can be a true time, labor, and cost saver.

By “well-suited” I mean one that is appropriately complex for the project being managed, and the team using it. There are those very small-scale projects (one or two people; very low complexity) where project management isn’t required, and a simple to-do list will suffice (I recommend 37 Signals’ Ta-Da List (it’s free)). And then there are slightly more complex projects – the ones with longer timelines, involving more team members, and/or more tasks/to-do’s. Those projects can often benefit from the use of a “light weight” project management tool like “Zoho Projects” (by Zoho) or Basecamp (by 37 Signals). They’re both well developed, easy to use, and inexpensive.

Update (7/26/09): When I originally compared Zoho Projects to Basecamp there were some significant differences between the two tools…mostly with regard to amount of features and ease of use (Basecamp being simpler to use than Zoho; Zoho having more features than Basecamp). A recent redesign of Zoho Projects, taking cues from Basecamp’s design, closes the usability gap significantly, though, and makes Zoho a little more user friendly. But Basecamp is still incredibly popular for its simple yet effective design, and I think it’s a better tool for many teams. Update (12/14/09): As you’ll see below, my recent experience with Basecamp shows that its simplicity gives it a huge leg up in the race against Zoho because users simply like it better, and adopt it more easily. The learning curve with Zoho for non-tech users is definitely steeper.

Big Update (7/15/10): I used Zoho Projects for over a year, and was quite happy with it. My main issue was in getting my clients to fully adopt and use it. Zoho was useful to my team as an internal collaboration tool…but my non-tech clients indicated to me that they just weren’t interested in putting in the time required to learn and use it. Then a colleague encouraged me to give Basecamp another try for one client project. I saw such quick adoption from both my team members and my client team members. For that reason alone – a quick learning curve, and a great adoption rate – Basecamp ended up being a very effective tool for that client/project. Over 6 months I transitioned all my projects from Zoho to Basecamp exclusively. Although I think Zoho Projects is a great product, in the end Basecamp proved to be the right tool to manage my client projects. After all, what good is any software if the users don’t adopt it?

My “Big Update” from 2010 (above) supersedes my original review from 2008 (below). But here’s the review that shows how Basecamp beat out Zoho Projects for me…

Technically Zoho Projects and Basecamp are in direct competition with one another – and their pricing reflects that. Both are available in free versions, as well as upgraded monthly subscription versions (up to $80 and $140/month, respectively, as well as several in-between price points). But the design, usability and feature set of the two are pretty different. And I think ultimately they appeal to two different audiences.

Basecamp

Notable achievements are its simplicity and ease of use. 15 minutes of poking around, and I was able to use all of the major sections (To-Do’s, Milestones, Whiteboard, and Chat) with ease. For those who don’t have the time or ability to teach non-technical team members how to use a new tool, Basecamp just works. The dashboard is adequately informative without being overwhelming – the various pages are self explanatory. It’s easy to use.

But the tool’s simplicity may also be its biggest limitation. For example, in reality a to-do’s status is not always either “done” or “not done” – but Basecamp doesn’t give you another option. In these real life examples, it’s beneficial to be able to add notes or comments to a to-do, for tracking purposes, but Basecamp restricts you to “done” or “not done”. One workaround is to make changes to the task description each time there is an update, but this gets cumbersome. Update (7/26/09): Basecamp has added the ability for users to add comments to any to-do, milestone, etc. This is a great improvement, which means you can check a to-do’s comments (which are listed in chronological order) to determine the to-do’s current status. Still, Zoho Projects also allows users to make comments, plus has more advanced settings for tasks, such as “percentage complete,” and “end date.” Update (7/15/10): These Zoho features are nice, and I personally think they’re very useful, but I found they only served to confuse my client users.

Also, because of the simple Basecamp interface, I found that navigation often took more clicks than with Zoho Projects. To navigate from a writeboard (a simple tool for collaborative communications, similar to Google Docs) to the project overview, you must first click the project title in the header, then click ‘overview.’ This didn’t bug me as much until I got more familiar with Zoho Projects – where most pages are only one click away. Update (7/26/09): Basecamp has made improvements in this area, but Zoho Projects still requires fewer clicks for navigation. This is just a function of Zoho Projects’ busier interface – with more links available on each page. The upside for Basecamp, of course, is that its interface is cleaner and less cluttered. Update (7/15/10): I have been using Basecamp for months now, and I can honestly say this is no longer an issue for me. A new header menu makes it easy to jump from project to project, and most other features are just one or two clicks away.

Overall, 37 Signals does a great job implementing their “less is more” design in Basecamp. But I think effective project management, even for small projects, requires a little more flexibility and visibility than Basecamp offers. Upside: it’s a great step up from the Ta-Da List, and a simpler alternative to Zoho Projects. Update (12/14/09): Over the past several months I have worked with a handful of contractors who were familiar with Basecamp, but not with Zoho Projects, so we ended up using Basecamp to manage a few separate projects. What I noticed was really surprising – the level of user adoption with Basecamp was significantly greater than I have experienced on similar projects with Zoho. In other words, people tended to use Basecamp more regularly to document project issues, resolutions, communications, etc. This isn’t exactly a scientific study, but if Basecamp tends to elicit better user adoption due to its simpler user interface, then that may be the single biggest “pro” in its favor. Update (7/15/10): Simplicity of use and better user adoption is the reason I have started using Basecamp exclusively.

Zoho Projects

The more comprehensive and complicated of the two – although it’s not at all complicated by project management standards – this tool offers multiple options for categorizing and keeping track of to-do’s (called “tasks” in Zoho terminology), including % complete, duration, priority, e-mail notifications, and notes. Both tools allow you to assign a task to a particular user.

The busier design makes for a little bit more of a learning curve, but you can get pretty comfortable with it after a couple hours of use. On the plus side, more to look at means more readily available features. You have one-click navigation to most features of Zoho Projects, from pretty much any screen. You can even swap between projects from any screen – making this a much more efficient tool for those managing multiple projects (note: the ability to manage multiple projects requires an upgrade for both Zoho Projects and Basecamp). Update (7/26/09): A recent redesign of Zoho Projects really cleaned up the design – taking cues from Basecamp – and simplified the user interface in a big way. It’s still busier than Basecamp, but vastly improved since my initial review. Update (7/15/10): The ability to switch between projects with a click is no longer a Zoho exclusive feature. Basecamp has added this feature to their header menu.

Other valuable Zoho features include ‘Forums’, and the ‘Reports’ section (which automatically displays basic GANTT charts based on your tasks’ settings).

The Zoho Projects dashboard is a bit cluttered, but considering how much information is displayed, I think Zoho did a nice job. It would be nice to be able to configure the dashboard, to choose what information is displayed.

Another drawback of Zoho Projects’ more complicated design is that milestones (groups of tasks) are divided into four tabs (general, upcoming, overdue, and completed), which makes it difficult to get an overview of all the milestones at once. I often have to remind myself to look at the ‘overdue’ tab – not a tab you want to forget. Update (7/26/09): This was really my biggest gripe about Zoho Projects, and they fixed it in their latest re-design. No more clicking “Tasks & Milestones > Overdue” to see which tasks’ deadlines had passed – it’s all right there in front of you on the main “Tasks & Milestones” page.

Summary

All in all Zoho Projects has more features baked into the tool for those project managers who are looking for a relatively easy to use, yet surprisingly feature-rich, and inexpensive collaborative web-based project management tool. It’s a little less expensive than Basecamp, too (we’re talking a few bucks a month – nothing big). On the other hand, when simplicity and ease of use trump feature set, like they do for the projects I’m managing, then Basecamp offers a superior package that almost anyone can use with very little learning curve. For teams that consist of tech and non-tech members, Basecamp is superior, because it makes it so simple for everyone to use. A key to true collaboration is that everyone participate…and Basecamp has helped that happen for us.