TL;DR
While Monday.com is great for small teams managing simple tasks, PMOs quickly outgrow its limits. Prism PPM offers the governance, analytics, and resource management needed for portfolio visibility, capacity planning, and strategic alignment, all in one purpose-built platform for project management maturity.
Introduction to Monday.com
When it comes to choosing the best project management software for a PMO, it helps to understand what the differences are between a Collaborative Work Management (CWM) tool like Monday.com versus a Project Portfolio Management (PPM) tool like Prism PPM.
Effective PMOs are ones where delivery is increasingly predictable, staff and resources are utilized effectively, and the value of the work is understood as projects are delivered to specification. A solution built for running and optimizing PMO performance must support all three of these areas.
In this guide, we break down Monday.com and Prism PPM across critical factors like delivery consistency, resource utilization, and benefits realization so you can make the right decision for your organization.
What are the advantages of using Monday.com?
Monday.com is a solid starting point for small, cross-functional teams. Teams can manage their workflows in one place from an approachable, colorful, spreadsheet-like interface. The platform’s main functionalities enable:
- Simple project and task management for fast delivery of projects
- Collaboration features like customizable workflows, templates, and alerts
- Flexible view options for visualizing work across different formats (e.g. timeline, kanban board, etc.)
What are the disadvantages of using Monday.com?
Although users appreciate Monday.com for task management and simple project management, for PMOs, finding an alternative to Monday.com for project portfolio management use cases is often required.
Chief among the disadvantages of Monday.com is the lack of professional project management tools. As an example, the timeline feature Monday.com offers is lightweight and user friendly for beginners to project management but does not incorporate dependency management so fails to match the power of a true Gantt. Some other Monday.com drawbacks include:
- Lack of portfolio management like what-if scenario analysis or resource leveling
- Inability to manage critical paths or detailed project schedules
- Poor view of project interdependencies and downstream impacts
- Inadequate resource management and capacity planning, leading to third-party integrations or clunky workarounds
- Unsuitable for Strategic Project Management (SPM) due to a lack of reporting and analytics that measure performance and productivity metrics for executive consumption
- While entry-level pricing is quite affordable, for even basic PPM capabilities, you’ll need to upgrade to a higher tier and/or spend on professional services to get key integrations; all this drives the cost beyond out-of-the-box PPM solutions
In contrast, Prism PPM is ideal for project teams that need to level up in terms of dependency management, scenario planning, budget and fiscal control, investment decision-making, and resource allocation.
What are users saying?
“The dashboards and automations are super helpful. The UI is intuitive. The mirror function is a game-changer. There are a few limitations which are overcome by additional subscriptions—it’s great that these products exist, but I fear it might disincentivize Monday to provide solutions to the problems that the purchased apps solve. The result here is sprawling cost to gain the functionality that you need. Enterprise is one solution here, but the cost difference is far too significant to justify.” (G2)
Prism PPM vs. Monday.com: Who is Monday.com best for and when to choose it?
Monday.com is best suited for organizations that lack a PMO, Project Center of Excellence, or Transformation Office. It is best for small to mid-sized matrixed teams and informal project managers in need of a collaborative, easy-to-use workflow automation tool.
Choose Prism PPM for your project portfolio management software if you are a PMO or project leader managing a program or portfolio of projects that require detailed plans, project governance and resource management. It’s the better pick for developing PMOs that have outgrown spreadsheets and are looking to level up in maturity.
Key Takeaway: Managing project delivery and resource utilization without losing sight of project impact is easier in Prism PPM because it was built to support these three pillars of PMO success.
The Verdict
Choose Prism PPM vs Monday.com if you need a purpose-built PPM platform with the governance, analytics, and scalability required by PMOs and transformation teams. Prism is easier to adopt than enterprise-heavy platforms but far more comprehensive than CWM tools. It provides robust portfolio analytics, resource/capacity management, and executive-ready reporting.