Project Management Vs Task Management: Which One Is the Best for You?

To manage tasks is part of managing a project. 

So, broadly speaking, task management is a subset of project management. 

But, is it really? Or are they the same? 

Let’s unfold the difference and similarities one by one. And then, decide which will work best for you. 

Project management vs Task management: The difference 

What is the difference between project management and task management? 

Consider this example: 

In case the project is about product development, the tasks could be around ideation, features requested by clients, analysis of the requirement, development of the features, testing, launch, etc. 

In the above example, a project has been divided into smaller manageable chunks called tasks. So, when you divide your project into tasks, it is easier for your teams to understand the workflow, deadlines, and timeline of the work. Eventually, everyone becomes part of something bigger. 

Project management in the above example requires team effort. The tasks, however, are to be completed at an individual level. And the outcome of everyone’s task management will be a finished project or could be any other goal, depending upon the type of the project.  

Clearly, task management here is part of project management. 

Here is another example: 

In the above example, the project is about marketing. The tasks are around social media following, outline promotional messages, gather feedback from clients, research, etc. 

This is how you can view and manage tasks with ProofHub’s task management features. 

There are individuals assigned to these tasks. So, the marketing project is an accumulative effort of the team. 

Further, some of the tasks may also have subtasks. 

Chances are some tasks are dependent on the others. This means that you can only start them if the previous tasks are completed. You may also need tools like Gantt chart to manage dependencies, which we will discuss later in this article. As soon as the tasks are completed in the defined timeline, the team achieves bigger goals related to the project.

Want to explore all task management features? Sign up for FREE now! 

From both examples, it’s also clear that finishing a project might not be the only goal. Some projects are ongoing. For example, in a marketing project, you sure have goals like better rankings on search engines or more engagement on social media, but they are ongoing. In the product development project, however, the goal is feature development — once developed, it is a finished project.  

Project management vs Task management: The similarity 

People often use the terms project management and task management interchangeably. It probably is for a reason that in some cases these two terms can also be considered the same. 

Are you confused?

Let us explain. 

There are times when tasks are independent of a project. 

Consider this example: 

When you are a customer care executive, you have to reply to a lot of emails and make several calls. Your task is to reply to the next person on your list. 

The project, in that case, would be you following up with say 100 contacts that you have received queries from. 

Some of them you’ll call (tasks), others you may email (more tasks). 

Projects, on the other hand, often involve more than one person, with every individual playing a different role towards the accomplishment of the defined goals. 

That’s exactly how product development is a project that requires task management as it involves more than one person and tasks of various kinds.

Why is task management important? 

So, why is task management important in project management? When do you really need it? 

1. Task management is important when you need to divide a project into smaller and manageable chunks. 

2. It also enables you to leverage the art of delegation as there are different individuals involved. 

3. It helps you prioritize tasks.

When you manage projects you are bound to manage tasks, but when your tasks are independent of a project you can manage tasks independently.

Task management software vs Project management software: What is the difference? 

Task management software aims to provide help with specific tasks. It enables you to add tasks, name them, categorize them, and also offers the ability to define the start and due dates. There are endless options of task management tools available in the market. Some of them are Todoist, Evernote, Trello, etc. Software of this kind is not really focused on planning, time tracking, or reporting. 

A task management software may or may not be a project management software.

Project management software is a collection of tools that help you plan, collaborate, organize, and deliver projects, all under one roof. It offers all the abilities that a task management software offers in addition to planning, resource management, task dependencies, file management, time tracking, milestone and event settings, reports, etc. The popular project management software list includes ProofHub, Wrike, Microsoft Project, Asana, Atlassian Jira, etc.

The best project management software is also a task management software. 

A project management software replaces multiple tools with one. It has chat, Kanban boards, projects, task management, time tracking, reports, request forms, etc., under one roof.  So, instead of spending on Slack for chat, Trello for tasks, and maybe Dropbox for files, you can spend on one software and save both money and time. Well, how chat tools like Slack can kill your productivity is a discussion saved for another day.

ProofHub: Used for both project management and task management

FACT: 89% of the people signing up on ProofHub ask us if we are a project management software or a task management software.

The answer? We are both. 

Why? Because, as mentioned earlier, the best project management software is also task management software. 

ProofHub has all the task management features that help individuals finish their tasks, such as:  

1. Tasklists and tasks in list view to add your to-do lists, mark them complete, label them, prioritize them and mark them complete as soon as you finish them   

2. Quickies to jot down personal ideas and take notes 

3. Me-view to have a look at everything that you personally are working on, at one place  

It also has all the powerful project management features to help teams get work done: 

1. Kanban boards to view tasks boards and let everyone on the team move tasks from one workflow stage to the other 

2. Gantt charts to set dependencies among tasks and get a timeline view of the project 

3. List view of tasks 

4. Calendar to schedule events, milestones, and tasks 

ProofHub is available in multiple views: list view, board view, Gantt view (timeline view) and calendar view. Try them all now!

5. Chat to send quick messages and get quick replies    

6. Multiple assignees to collaborate over tasks and divide part of tasks among team members  

7. @Mentions to mention people in comments, grab their attention, address them or keep them in the loop                                   

8. Workload reports to visualize the work capacity of your team

9. Resource reports to track individual progress  

10. Project reports to track project progress 

11. Time tracking to track time manually or even using multiple times that you can pause and start as you switch between tasks

12. Request forms to streamline the way your team accepts work requests from multiple sources, with work requests directly being added to ProofHub in the project of your choice

13. Discussions to have project-specific, driven conversations around topics that don’t get derailed which is more likely to happen in the messy email threads   

14. Announcements to announce company-wide matters, give birthday wishes, congratulate on promotions or maybe on work achievements 

15. Custom roles to define who on the team or clients gets to access what part of the account 

16. Proofing tool to help you proof and review files and images while annotating them with markup tools and add comments for specific regions

17. Notes to jot down project-specific ideas, meeting minutes, collaborate over them 

18. Project manager to define who is in charge of the project and is receiving all the important notifications for the missed deadlines and overdue tasks and stay accountable

19. Real-time in-app, desktop, mobile and granular email notifications for the activities you choose to receive updates of 

20. Project templates to save them and create similar projects without having to fill details from scratch 

Apart from these, it also has core personalization tools, such as: 

1. The multilingual feature allows you to choose from more than half a dozen languages which include English, German, French, Russian, Portuguese, Polish, Spanish 

2. White-labeling to personalize your account according to your brand’s identity with a theme, brand logo and custom domain of your choice 

3. Integrations to continue working with the apps you like. You can access FreshBooks, Google calendar, iCal, Box, Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive and Outlook     

4. ProofHub’s API is a key unique to your profile that allows you to access information from other apps through a scripting interface.

ProofHub has a feature for every problem. 

Join over 85,000+ teams who are managing tasks and projects under one roof. Sign up now! 

Conclusion

Project management and task management go hand in hand when the tasks are dependent on planning, collaboration, organization and delivery of successful projects. At times, tasks are independent of projects and can be completed at an individual level using task management software. Choosing the right project management software, one can not only manage projects and tasks, but also get access to reports, request forms, time tracking, multiple assignees, access roles and much more. A project management software gives managers an ultimate control over projects, tasks, and teams. Read here how to choose the right project management software.