Managing complex engineering projects can create significant bottlenecks for many teams. You’re constantly juggling priorities: aligning with business goals, tracking delivery, and ensuring efficient resource allocation.
Without the right software, these challenges slow delivery times, affect productivity and hinder effective collaboration.
You’re on the right page to solve these issues.
This article delves into the best engineering management software options for optimizing team performance, automating repetitive tasks, and ensuring that your engineering efforts drive meaningful results.
Let’s start.
What Is Engineering Management Software?
Engineering project management software (EMS) is a solution designed to help engineering managers balance technical execution and business objectives.
Companies using project management practices report a 92% success rate in meeting project objectives.
EMS helps engineering teams with the following:
- Project planning
- Tracking resource allocation
- Effective communication within teams
- Improving delivery operations
That’s essential, particularly for complex projects.
Real-time visibility into your operations allows you to streamline processes and reduce bottlenecks.
Don’t worry about the ease of use.
EMS platforms have evolved from basic spreadsheets to comprehensive tools that offer extensive features like collaborative design and task automation. The shift to real-time tracking and robust features enables engineering teams to tackle increasingly complex challenges while maintaining efficiency.
Why Your Team Needs Engineering Management Software
We know that mismanagement leads to a slew of problems like:
- Poor team collaboration
- Inefficient resource management
- A lack of real-time data
All this leads to:
- Lack of visibility on the actual work being done or where you spend your efforts
↓ which leads to:
- Not working on the genuinely high priorities
↓ which leads to:
- Increased technical debt that constantly delays deadlines
These issues are among the leading causes of project failure. 47% of Agile projects exceed their budget, miss deadlines, or have unsatisfied customers.
Solution: EMS improves resource availability and helps teams balance workloads.
Businesses that utilize this kind of software experience fewer delays and reduced project failure rates, so they’re 2.5 times more successful on average.
That gives you a massive competitive advantage.
Being data-driven and improving insight into project schedules allows you to be more strategic. That means you can discuss trade-offs with management to create better outcomes and higher project success rates. You’ll also improve your team’s job satisfaction rate, which means you’ll attract – and keep – the best professionals.
Pro tip: 52% of people are unhappy with their company’s project manager maturity level. A low maturity level also translates to a higher project failure rate of 21%. To avoid that, take our free Team Maturity Assessment. You’ll get a team score and valuable recommendations you can implement instantly.
Key Features to Look for in Engineering Management Software
- Performance metrics tracking: You can’t manage complex engineering projects easily without a holistic view of your performance metrics. So, you need management software that shows project performance, resource allocation, and timelines in an easy-to-read, centralized dashboard. Besides, tools with real-time data tracking can help you meet project objectives faster.
- Integration capabilities: Software for engineering firms should integrate seamlessly with your existing tools like GitHub or Jira to optimize your engineering team’s workflow. Tools that lack integration options lead to miscommunication, poor planning, and inability to set clear goals. Incidentally, these are the three most important causes of project failures.
- Collaboration tools: Effective communication is a pain point in larger teams because there are more people to coordinate. Your EMS must include collaborative design features, team dashboards, and tools that provide real-time visibility into progress. Besides, 25% of professionals say that lacking good collaboration tools prevents them from reaching their goals.
- Data-driven insights: Your EMS should have data-driven reports that help you extract actionable insights. These insights are crucial for strategic decision-making. Companies that leverage data for continuous improvement and project planning are more likely to see success. For this exact reason, 77% of high-performing projects use project management software.
- Security & compliance: Given the sensitivity of project data, your EMS must provide security features that ensure data privacy and compliance with industry standards. Features like secure access to dashboards, encryption, and compliance with regulatory frameworks are critical. 75% of companies consider cloud security a primary concern, making this a non-negotiable feature in your EMS.
Top 5 Engineering Management Software Solutions for 2024
Now you know why you need an engineering management software and how to assess its features. Let’s see the best options on the market.
1. Axify: Best Overall for Engineering Management
Your EMS should help you turn metrics into insights that improve project performance and reduce bottlenecks.
This powerful tool gives you a comprehensive view of software development, tracking key engineering metrics, resource allocation, and team morale. It offers insights for engineering leaders, product managers, and operations professionals.
User reviews note its ease of use and flexibility. Some customers would also like to see how Axify calculates real-time results. However, they agree that Axify’s top-notch customer support team always clarifies their questions.
Key Features:
- DORA metrics dashboard: Real-time tracking of all four DORA metrics to improve performance.
- Value Stream Mapping: You can visualize and optimize workflows to reduce bottlenecks.
- Organization-wide insights: Axify’s engineering dashboard provides comprehensive data across all teams and projects, helping you compare team performance and identify areas for improvement.
- Software delivery forecasting: Receive delivery date predictions by analyzing historical data and current team performance. This will help you reassess your goals and set your priorities better.
- Daily Digest: The feature improves team collaboration and makes the work visible. You will see your current work in progress, with all your bottlenecks and priorities. That way, you can unblock the workflow and even organize more productive daily standup rituals based on that data.
- Goals and reporting: Monitor your objectives and key performance indicators to align your teams and support continuous improvement. Here’s where you can set customizable metrics like NPS scores or the number of users per month.
- Excellent integrations: Axify integrates with tools like Jira, Azure DevOps, GitHub, and GitLab, importing your project management structure. That means you’ll get an overview of your software development process. The benefit is that you can optimize your workflows and deliver faster.
- Good data security: Axify implements best practices and works with trustworthy third-party firms to test that security. They also have SOC2 Type 1 and Type II certifications.
2. LinearB: Good Workflow Automation and Developer Productivity
LinearB focuses on automating pull request workflows and improving developer productivity by reducing manual tasks. It’s designed to optimize team collaboration and streamline the development process.
We appreciate their team-level metrics, which help improve performance without micromanaging individuals. Besides, LinearB provides valuable insights into bottlenecks and task progress.
There are two main downsides, though:
- Security concerns: LinearB clones repositories for analysis, raising privacy and security concerns for some teams.
- Limited incident management: Relies heavily on Jira for tracking, which may not provide the comprehensive view some teams need. Their limited incident management also leads to them having poor DORA metrics instrumentation.
Key Features:
- Workflow automation: Automates tasks like pull request reviews to reduce manual workload.
- DORA metrics integration: Tracks software delivery performance with integrated DORA metrics.
- Resource forecasting: Allows teams to predict project outcomes and optimize resource allocation.
3. Jellyfish: Good Business Goal Alignment
Jellyfish is an engineering project management tool for leadership teams to align engineering efforts with business goals. It provides comprehensive insights into resource allocation and helps track how effectively teams work toward strategic priorities.
It also has a strong focus on reporting and data visualization.
On the downside, user reviews about Jellyfish have noted its:
- Limited flexibility: This tool is primarily focused on leadership and unsuitable for hands-on roles like developers.
- High learning curve: Requires significant organizational admin adjustments, which can be cumbersome for smaller teams.
Key Features:
- Resource allocation: Detailed view of how resources are distributed across projects.
- Scenario planning: Allows teams to model different delivery outcomes to anticipate risks.
- Comprehensive reporting: Offers detailed insights into team performance and delivery timelines.
4. Plutora: Good for Release Management
Plutora is ideal for large enterprises focused on release management and project planning. Its collaborative design allows teams to manage multiple releases and projects simultaneously.
Plutora also tracks project performance well.
However, users have noted that Plutora could benefit from enhanced integration capabilities with other tools and more efficient workflow management. Many have also expressed a need for better performance during peak usage, better reporting features, and better customer support.
Key Features
- Release management: This tool optimizes your software releases, aligning your work with broader business objectives.
- Deployment planning: You can plan and implement software deployments strategically.
- Environment management: Plutora helps you manage resources and resolve conflicts quickly.
- Software delivery analytics: You’ll see good software delivery metrics, from which you can gain actionable insights that improve your development processes.
- Compliance: The tool allows you to implement governance best practices quickly in your engineering workflow. The point is to ensure continuous compliance and easy audit trails.
5. Waydev: Good Team Productivity and Performance Metrics
Waydev helps teams track engineering performance metrics and visualize developer productivity. This software helps you focus on continuous improvement by tracking real-time progress through collaborative dashboards at an organizational level.
That means you’ll gain data-driven insights and streamline your resource allocation well.
However, this engineering software has received mixed reviews.
For example, many users highlight it as expensive software. They also noted limited features, such as insufficient pull request statistics and a lack of granular reporting. Besides, some users encountered performance issues, including slow loading times and errors during setup.
Key Features
- DORA metrics & engineering intelligence: Waydev gives detailed insights into your software delivery through DORA metrics and engineering performance data.
- Project cost monitoring: Track deliverables and project costs in real-time so you can meet deadlines and communicate progress effectively to stakeholders.
- Benchmarking tools: You can visualize data through cards, scatter plots, radar charts, and more to understand how team dynamics evolve.
- Pull request cycle analysis: Identify bottlenecks in your pull request cycles, visualize team interactions, and pinpoint areas for improvement in PR workflows. The point is to allocate resources better and optimize your development process.
How to Choose the Right Engineering Management Software
- Assess your team’s needs: Before selecting an engineering project management tool, evaluate your team’s size, task lists, and the most relevant performance metrics. According to the State of the Agile Report, the main ways to improve agility would be to track cycle time (according to 34% of respondents) and value stream (according to 44% of respondents). As a side note, Axify excels in tracking those metrics. Besides, ensuring the tool can meet your resource-tracking needs is crucial. Don't forget to assess pricing structures and additional resources, like invoicing capabilities.
- User experience and onboarding: Evaluate the user-friendly interface and how quickly your team can onboard. Tools with intuitive interfaces reduce the learning curve and boost adoption. The quicker the onboarding, the faster your team can start realizing value. This also increases DevEx.
- Recommendations and practical insights: Choose tools that offer data-driven insights and provide recommendations to improve your project timelines and business processes. These insights should align with your business goals to deliver measurable value.
- Vendor support and resources: Consider the level of support provided by the software vendor, including access to resources and customer support for your project demands. The best vendors offer ongoing guidance to ensure your team maximizes the tool’s capabilities. Look at their other client relationships to get more insights.
Common Challenges in Implementing Engineering Management Software
- Resistance to change: One of the biggest hurdles is team resistance to adopting new tools. Employee resistance is the leading cause of failed changes, accounting for 39% of failed transformations. Poor management support is the second cause, accounting for 33% of failures. Many teams find adapting to new processes and software challenging, especially when there’s a steep learning curve. Overcoming this requires strong leadership and gradual onboarding strategies.
- Integration issues: Integrating new project management tools into your existing tech stack can cause disruptions if not appropriately handled. The problem is 89% of companies report difficulties with tool integration, leading to inefficiencies and data silos. To avoid this, choose software that offers flexible integration options to ensure a smooth transition.
- Data overload: Managing large volumes of data can be overwhelming, primarily if the tool doesn’t provide actionable insights. Your engineering management software should filter and present relevant metrics clearly to avoid drowning in data and ensure teams make informed decisions.
Wrapping Up
Choosing the right engineering management software is essential for improving team performance, aligning engineering tasks with business goals, and fostering a collaborative environment. The right tool enhances resource management and project performance and drives continuous improvement by providing actionable insights.
As you evaluate your options, consider your team's needs, integration capabilities, and vendor support to find the best tool for your workflows.
Axify is your best solution because it has real-time, intuitive dashboards for engineering managers. We show you key engineering metrics, help you optimize resources, and offer actionable recommendations to improve team maturity. We also take security very seriously.
Ready to take the next step?
