Does Google Have A Project Management App

The biggest problem a project manager (PM) needs to solve is the inconsistent nature of task management within a team.

Nobody likes feeling confused—especially at work.

You're probably already using tools that can help you with this.

You're also most likely leveraging project management software to alleviate headaches in your daily workflow. And like so many people, you're already using Google platforms like Gmail, Calendar, Sheets, and so on.

But more than checking your email and appointments, Google Suite (recently rebranded as Google Workspace) provides you with a fleet of programs to help you collaborate across departments.

G Suite provides a remarkable selection of software that makes project work consistent and very easy to manage.

Once you learn how to maximize Google Suite for project management, your going to excel with every project and become the PM everyone goes to for the best results.

We love this topic and have spent countless hours working with business owners and entrepreneurs over the years on helping them be the best PMs they can be.

It's time you use our experience and expanded research to make your life easier.

It's time to integrate G Suite into your project management processes.

Why Google Suite Project Management Is Worth It

Google Suite provides convenience and ease of use and plays nice with everything else you already use in project management.

It's a simple way to supplement project and task organization.

G Suite's apps help get the best out of your remote staff. And with remote work becoming increasingly common, it makes project management with Google Suite even more worth it.

Apps specifically built for G Suite give you and your team an edge with time management and team collaboration. It also provides easy cloud-based collaboration, whether that's with Google Drive, Currents, Docs, Slides, or Sheets.

The ability to video chat on Meet, message on Chat, and screen share your presentations with a click of a button are just a few benefits users love. This level of ease is something other software providers struggle to capture the way Google Suite does.

Gmail and Drive are the two main pillars of G Suite and they allow for communication and collaboration. You don't have to chase people down to make sure they know what's going on and have access to the necessary files.

This keeps projects on track and minimizes the need to push deadlines because of missed work.

Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides are very easy to learn. Because just about everyone has ample experience with the Microsoft versions of these, there is virtually zero learning curve.

Google also includes Keep for note taking that can easily be shared, Currents as an internal social media platform that can offer quick communication and collaboration in the same vein as Slack or Basecamp, and Sites and Forms for building web pages and surveys/forms.

In fact, Google Currents helps you engage with employees in new and dynamic ways. It lets you communicate ideas, share new and interesting insights, and gather input through clear and meaningful discussions in real time. This app helps build very productive environments where everyone can communicate and stay on the same page.

If you want to untangle projects within a platform that is familiar and caters to efficient project management, G Suite is the perfect solution.

The Investment Needed to Manage Projects with Google Suite

You've made it this far, excellent. You're willing to put in the work.

But before that happens, let's talk about the investment you and your team need to make in order to collectively bend G Suite to do your bidding.

In terms of money, there are four pricing plans for businesses. All plans come with all 12 of Google's Workspace apps:

Business Starter: $6/month
Business Standard: $12/month
Business Plus: $18/month
Enterprise: custom pricing through Google

The primary difference from each plan to the next is increased Drive storage and participants allowed in Meet video meetings.

The productivity apps you use offered by Google depends on what you will need to achieve in your project. If you have a big team and have a person who only does presentations, the Slides will be the main app for them to master. But it's common that most team members will need to become proficient with multiple G Suite apps.

But, don't worry. Google is fantastic at giving you resources to walk you through how every detail works in their G Suite software.

Here at Crazy Egg, we can't predict how long it will take you to become proficient but we can say many teams get started working together quickly.

With that said, there are some essential steps needed to become proficient when using G Suite as a project management platform:

Sign up for Google Suite
Collaborate, update projects, and track work with Google Currents
Use group email lists
Manage your team and project schedules on Calendar
Hold 1-on-1 or team meetings over video on Meet
Organize team preparation for meetings
Generate documents and collaborate on them
Develop impressive presentations with Google Slides
Securely share and store digital assets

9 Steps to Managing Projects with Google Suite

Let's talk about the simple steps every project manager should know when using Google Suite. Feel free to get rid of any step you don't need, however, these are the most common.

#1 – Sign up for Google Suite

First, you need to sign up for G Suite before you start anything. This is simple and will give you access to all the apps needed to run your project.

Sign up for one of the business additions. Select one of Business Starter, Business Standard, or Business Plus.
Add your business domain. This is where you plan to use Google services.
Add your personal username. This is the name you use to sign into your Google Suite account
Add an email address that's not on your domain. This will be used if you forget how to sign into your account and Google needs to contact you.

#2 – Collaborate, Update Projects, and Track Work with Google Currents

When you are beginning a project you need a way to keep track of work and this starts with Google Currents.

This software keeps your entire team focused on what needs to be done and how things change in real time. It also lets you collaborate with people outside of your organization with private groups.

Current allows you to discuss key topics with all your team members across your company. You can build special groups for areas of your project dedicated to that team. Everything is saved, so any comments or posts can easily be referred back to for clarity.

Currents has a home stream that keeps all relevant and important content top-of-mind by ranking relevance. You can follow tags on topics and even search for specific information within your thread.

Everyone with access to the Google Suite platform can participate with Currents. It allows you to have meaningful engagement and collaborate easier than ever. Whether on desktop or mobile, there are no communication breakdowns in your project.

#3 – Use Group Email Lists

Depending on the size of the project, you may have multiple department heads and team members to collaborate with. This can become extremely tedious if you need to keep all of them up to speed on the dynamics of a project.

G Suite makes it easy to communicate with your entire team efficiently. How? By using one Gmail address that includes everyone involved with the project.

Start by signing into your Google Groups account, then in the upper left corner click on "Create group". You will need to create a group name, the group email address you want to use, and a group description for the purpose for the group.

Then, follow the last step of adding your group members, creating your group managers, and adding your welcome message, then select "Create group".

Special privacy settings and other group email options allow you to customize your email group even further. Learn more here.

#4 – Manage Your Team and Project Schedules

Now that you have your project plan set up and your group email up and running, you can move on to managing your team. This is easily done through shared calendars. The project calendars keep team members up to date while tracking deadlines and milestones.

To get started, navigate to your current Google Calendar, then click on the button that says "Create". Name your calendar, add a description, and select the time zone you want the calendar to reside in. Then, click "Create calendar", under the My Calendars tab.

The My Calendars tab is where you will share it with your team. Click on the "More" tab, then click on "Settings and sharing". Then, choose the option to share with individuals and add each team member or collaborator you want to share with.

#5 – Hold 1-on-1 or Team Meetings Over Video

This is an excellent feature to have and is one of the most important features in G Suite.

Remote team members will feel more engaged through live video conferencing. Presentations can be shared over Google Meet while offering face-to-face interaction. And meetings can be started from your desktop, Android device, iPhone, or iPad.

We will go over the desktop/laptop guidelines for starting a Google Meet video call. It's really easy to set up.

First, create an event in your Google Calendar, which we went over earlier. Once you open a new calendar event, there is a big blue button that says "Add Google Meet video conferencing".

Once you click that button a "Join with Google Meet" button appears. When your meeting is scheduled, your attendees will just click that button and they will be taken to the video call.

You can also start video calls from within Gmail and the main Google Meet page. There's even the ability to start Meet calls from your Outlook.

Another extremely effective aspect of Google Suite is the chat application. Google Chat is a great supplement for quick conversations or for sharing links and files with individuals.

#6 – Organize Your Team's Preparation for Meetings

Nothing is more aggravating as a project manager than when people come to meetings unprepared. Your time is limited as it is, so you want to do all you can to make sure your team and others involved with the project have access to everything they need to be prepared ahead of time.

Google Calendar not only helps manage schedules for collaboration but it also lets people preview files that are relevant to your upcoming meeting. It makes it easy for everyone to come prepared to offer their contributions to the project, whether that be ideas or questions they have.

When you send your meeting invite, simply attach presentations, spreadsheets, docs, or any other items you want to add for discussion.

To start, go to your calendar in G Suite, click on "+Create", then at the bottom of the modal box click on "More options".

Then click the add details or add description field after you've filled out the event name. Here, you can insert details, contact info, any instructions you might have, and links for your appointment.

After that, you'll want to add your attachments. Click on the paper clip icon just above where you wrote your description. It is the first icon in the description box. After you click that icon, find your document, image, or file and add it to your meeting invite.

#7 – Generate Documents and Collaborate on Them

When you are setting up the agenda for your meetings and working on other proposals for your project, you may need real-time collaboration on these items with others. Google Docs allows you to leave comments within the document for others to see, which allows for targeted suggestions to be made.

Edit documents in real time and even see revision history so you can tell who made what changes and when. This is extremely helpful because if you don't like the changes, you can revert back to the original document or a previously cloud-saved version and start fresh.

All you need to do is create a Google Doc file. Then, once you have completed the document, click on the big blue "Share" button in the upper right corner and then enter the email address you want to share with.

You can control what viewers can do on the document, be it view, comment, or edit the file. To notify people automatically that you shared a document with them, just check the "Notify people" box.

#8 – Develop Impressive Presentations with Google Slides

There are times when you will want to create a presentation or deck in order to make things crystal clear for team members or clients.

Google Slides is an easy-to-use, cloud-based equivalent to PowerPoint. What's also great is if you have a team that is remote, you have the ability to screen share with Google Meet so you can present a Slide to your distributed team.

All you do to get started is go to Google Docs, then click on the hamburger icon in the upper left corner. This will allow you to select Slides, bringing you to the main screen for the app. You can select a brand new blank presentation or click on the template library and use some of the general templates to get started that way.

The supersized benefit of this feature is the support you will find online about how to create slides. Google itself and the wider community of users can help you with managing and creating Google Slides.

#9 – Securely Share and Store Digital Assets

There are times when you need to store images, docs, and other files somewhere to share them with your team. Google Drive access control makes teamwork easy, simple, and protected.

What's really great about this feature is that everything is synced to your cloud server, so you only need to store your file on Drive on one device and all team members can see the updated content you add.

Store any file in Google Drive by finding the app in your G Suite account, clicking on "+New", then uploading a folder or file.

Google Drive also works from your iOS or Android device. You are always able to share and store files on your Drive, which maximizes your team's efficiency.

Next Steps

So, you may be asking yourself, "What's next? How can I go farther in project management using G Suite?" And the answer is simple:

Decide what Google Suite plan is right for you
Decide what Google apps you will need to use within your projects
Use this guide to get more familiar with the apps listed here

There are 12 apps total that come with every plan of Google Suite.

If you are struggling with any areas of project management, don't you think it's time to refine how you approach project management? G Suite will transform each area of PM and revitalize team communication, collaboration, and project efficiency virtually overnight.