Apologies, Marcos, for not seeing your answer earlier.

Just to follow up with future readers. About six weeks ago, I got my 10 person research team (7 co-investigators, 2x graduate students, and 1x field crew leader) using the Asana teamwork application (https://asana.com/).

Though we did not quantify how relatively inefficient we were before we began using Asana, we all feel that we've been working extremely efficiently. We now have records of when we complete tasks, and we no longer have to remind each other about tasks via email.

For larger projects (3+ lead investigators and a few graduate students), I cannot recommend the Asana tool more highly. 

*Note that I am in no way (or ever have been) affiliated with the Asana company.

Hi

I am particularly interested in answering that question, so far we have an wide range to define that, below I am providing links for aproaches on that question:

1 - http://www.capterra.com/infographics/top-project-management-software#.UoKq__lQGCn

2 - http://www.getapp.com/infographics/top-online-project-management-software

3 - http://online-project-management-review.toptenreviews.com/

4 - http://www.getapp.com/project-management-software

5 - http://project-management.com/software/top15/

I understand personal/professional requirements will count on defining the "best option", of course popularity and Social Media presence will also take important role in this process.

Apologies, Marcos, for not seeing your answer earlier.

Just to follow up with future readers. About six weeks ago, I got my 10 person research team (7 co-investigators, 2x graduate students, and 1x field crew leader) using the Asana teamwork application (https://asana.com/).

Though we did not quantify how relatively inefficient we were before we began using Asana, we all feel that we've been working extremely efficiently. We now have records of when we complete tasks, and we no longer have to remind each other about tasks via email.

For larger projects (3+ lead investigators and a few graduate students), I cannot recommend the Asana tool more highly. 

*Note that I am in no way (or ever have been) affiliated with the Asana company.

Patrick, thanks for the helpful discussion here and other threads. Can you give us an update now that several months have passed?

I'm just beginning to expand a long-term research project to include several groups at different institutions. Do you find that Asana (or presumably, similar PM tools) integrates or replaces file sharing via DropBox?

I'm having a hard time keeping track of email conversations with different subsets of people. Would some kind of team chat tool be helpful or does much of the email traffic get diverted (or replicated?) on Asana where it is more structured.  

In short, what combination of team communication & management tools do you end up using the most, and would you assemble the same set if you were starting from scratch? 

Hi David,

Apologies for not giving an update! Here's the update:

Asana (www.asana.com) is working beautifully for our new project (the Hawaii VINE project...https://www.facebook.com/hawaii.vine.project). We have been using it since June 2014 for our Principal Investigator team, and I also created a separate workspace for our field team. We have set up different Asana workspaces for our projects in Panama, personal collaborations, and even our our household (things to by for our new baby, etc.). You will not be disappointed in Asana. Here are some facets of Asana that our team has loved:

[1] It has dramatically reduced email and has those email threads. One can still set Asana to send email updates about followed tasks or projects.

[2] Asana becomes your virtual boss. It will send due date reminders and info about updated tasks (if you have been designated or have designated yourself as a follower). Our team has often complained how Asana is pesky with its timely reminders, but they acknowledge that it helps keep them on track.

[3] By using a list of subtasks under a task for a weekly agenda, team members can propose items for discussion and other members can vote on them (by giving them a heart). Then, we can easily prioritize and then, during the meeting, each member can add their own notes to the subtasks.

[4] Everything done in Asana is timestamped, and it’s impossible to change this. Everyone can see what tasks were completed or changed and when. Thus, there’s accountability. We’re using it to help with document our productivity; after all, it helps to have a pat on the shoulder every once in a while. There’s something rewarding about checking the “Task complete” box for all to see.

[4] It integrates well with (but doesn’t replace) DropBox. It has a built in link for attaching files from DropBox, Google Drive, or your local drive.  We have had a problem with members only attaching to Asana from their local drive and NOT putting the primary document on DropBox.

[5] Personalized Inbox. Each member has an inbox that shows all tasks that are relevant to them. It allows you to quickly see if a task has been updated or completed, and also gives you a visualization of upcoming due dates so you can re-prioritize if necessary.

It currently doesn’t have a team chat function. But the comments do function similarly. Much faster than email. I would not be surprised if the great Asana team adds a Google Hangout style function in the future.

One caveat for you: You can create unlimited workspaces (e.g. for one of your collaborative projects), on which you can have no more than 15 members on each workspace. For larger groups, you need to pay. That said, the free software has no advertisements or anything. For our team, we made a workspace for the administrators and graduate students (11 people) and another for the crew (7 members plus two PI facilitators). It’s been working for us very well.

For our purposes, I can’t recommend Asana enough. It takes a few days to get accustomed to its functionality and flexibility, but it’s all uphill after that. If I had to reinvent our project, setting up an Asana workspace would have been the very first thing I did…even before starting on the funding application. Give it a try with a personal project first and use it religiously for a few days.  

I hope that helps everyone!

Best,

Patrick

www.asana.com

It might interest you that currently we're carrying out a worldwide survey to find out what research workflows people are using. We will post preliminary results, though the survey runs through Feb 2016. More information is here:

https://101innovations.wordpress.com/

We also shared our database of 475+ research workflow tools here:

http://bit.ly/innoscholcomm-list

I too have foubd Asana to be exellent to work with for teams.

Though my current projects and team have shrunk considerably at this time, whe have shifted to Trello (http://trello.com) for the time being. I have certainly found Asana to be the better of the two, my team has just appreciatrd the ease of use on mobile devices with Trello.

I personally would recommend Asana first for larger projects that need the tracking metrics however.

what does it mean in Asana that your project will be public to your institution? Do you have to pay for it to be closed to only your team members? 

Any ideas on this?