Is This Visual Work OS the Right Choice for Your Team?
In the ever-expanding landscape of project management tools, Monday.com has emerged as one of the most talked-about platforms in recent years. Branded as a “Work OS,” it promises to give teams a visual, flexible, and scalable environment for managing everything from marketing campaigns and sales pipelines to product development and complex projects.
But how well does it actually serve professional project managers?
In this review, we’ll explore Monday.com’s capabilities through the lens of a project manager—highlighting what works, where it falls short, and when it makes sense to use it (or not). Whether you’re managing traditional waterfall projects, Agile teams, or hybrid environments, this article will help you evaluate Monday.com as a serious contender in your project management toolkit.
What Is Monday.com?
At its core, Monday.com is a cloud-based work management platform that allows teams to plan, track, and collaborate on tasks and projects using customizable boards. Think of it as a visual operating system for teamwork—colorful, modular, and highly adaptable.
It started as a task and workflow management tool but has evolved into a full-featured platform that competes with Asana, Trello, Wrike, and even more structured tools like MS Project or Smartsheet.
What Project Managers Like About Monday.com
1. Intuitive, Visual Interface
One of Monday.com’s strongest points is its user interface. Everything revolves around boards, which display tasks in a spreadsheet-style grid, kanban board, Gantt chart, calendar, or timeline view. You can quickly customize columns for status, priority, deadlines, owners, tags, and more—with no coding required.
For visual thinkers, this simplicity is a huge advantage. Project managers can easily create clear workflows that stakeholders and team members understand at a glance.
2. Custom Workflows Without the Headache
Monday.com lets you build workflows using automation recipes (think: “When status changes to Done, notify the project owner”). This eliminates the need for manual reminders or complex scripting, making it easy to automate repetitive processes like task assignments, approvals, and updates.
This is especially useful for small teams without a dedicated PMO or developers to build custom scripts.
3. Flexible for Different Methodologies
While not as deep as Jira for Agile or MS Project for Waterfall, Monday.com supports both approaches well enough for many teams. You can create sprints using boards and columns, manage backlogs with kanban views, or track milestones and dependencies via the Gantt view.
Hybrid teams—where some work is time-bound and other work is continuous—especially benefit from Monday’s flexibility.
4. Strong Collaboration Features
Team members can comment on tasks, tag each other, attach documents, and integrate with tools like Slack, Zoom, Google Drive, and Outlook. Unlike older tools that feel like a manager-only space, Monday.com is genuinely team-friendly. Everyone can contribute updates, ask questions, or adjust their own tasks without breaking the project.
The result? Better communication, fewer status meetings, and more ownership.
5. Templates for Fast Setup
New to PM or building a new process? Monday.com offers dozens of templates for:
- Project plans
- Sprint backlogs
- Product roadmaps
- Marketing calendars
- Event planning
Templates save time and provide structure, especially helpful for project managers supporting multiple teams.
6. Transparency and Accountability
Monday.com boards are highly visible, and everything is time-stamped and tracked. This creates natural accountability. You can see who updated a task, when it was changed, and what the next steps are. Dashboards also let you roll up key project metrics into visual summaries for leadership or team retrospectives.
What to Watch Out For
While Monday.com is highly versatile and well-loved by many, it’s not perfect for every scenario. Here are some potential limitations to consider:
1. Not Ideal for Complex Project Schedules
If your project involves hundreds of interdependent tasks, multiple baselines, or critical path analysis, Monday.com might struggle to keep up. The Gantt functionality is solid for visual planning, but lacks the depth of MS Project or Primavera when it comes to schedule optimization.
Alternative:
Use Smartsheet, Microsoft Project, or Primavera for heavy-duty project scheduling, especially in engineering, construction, or enterprise environments.
2. Limited Resource Management
Monday.com allows basic workload tracking and task assignments, but lacks advanced resource leveling, availability calendars, and cost management tools. You can see who is overloaded, but deeper resource optimization requires additional tools or add-ons.
Alternative:
For full resource planning, consider pairing Monday with Resource Guru, Float, or using Wrike Resource module.
3. Pricing Can Get Expensive
While Monday.com offers great value, pricing is tiered per seat, and features like timeline views, Gantt charts, and automations are only available on higher plans. For large teams or enterprise deployments, the cost can rise quickly.
Alternative:
Smaller teams with tight budgets might explore ClickUp, Notion, or Asana (which offer generous free plans or lower entry points).
4. Information Overload
Monday.com boards can become cluttered as projects grow. Without careful column naming, tagging, and filtering, users may feel overwhelmed. There’s a learning curve to setting up boards that remain clean and scalable.
Solution:
Project managers should establish board design guidelines, use clear naming conventions, and train team members on updating items properly.
When Monday.com Is a Great Fit
- Creative or cross-functional teams that value visual workflows and collaboration
- Marketing, sales, HR, and product teams managing fast-paced, deliverable-based work
- Startups and SMBs that need flexibility without enterprise-level PMO complexity
- Remote-first teams that need transparency and shared visibility
- PMs who want to build structured workflows without coding or complex systems
When You May Need Something Else
- Enterprise PMOs requiring deep project controls, cost tracking, or risk registers
- Agile software teams needing sprint reporting, release planning, and dev tool integrations (e.g., Git, Jenkins)
- Construction, manufacturing, or oil & gas projects with heavy scheduling needs
- Teams managing large-scale portfolios that need robust portfolio management views
Summary Table: Monday.com for Project Managers
| Feature | Rating | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Usability | ★★★★★ | Clean, visual, fast onboarding |
| Scheduling | ★★★☆☆ | Basic Gantt; lacks critical path or baselines |
| Collaboration | ★★★★★ | Great for team updates and transparency |
| Agile Support | ★★★★☆ | Good for light Agile, not for enterprise Scrum |
| Resource Management | ★★☆☆☆ | Basic task loads, no cost/time forecasting |
| Reporting & Dashboards | ★★★★☆ | Strong dashboards, custom widgets |
| Pricing | ★★★☆☆ | Scales by user count and features |
Final Thoughts
Monday.com is one of the most user-friendly and adaptable project management platforms available today. Its visual nature, flexible structure, and strong collaboration features make it especially attractive for modern, fast-moving teams.
While it may not replace enterprise-grade scheduling or resource planning tools, it fills an important gap: helping teams of all sizes manage work in a clear, engaging, and effective way.
For project managers looking to strike a balance between structure and flexibility—especially in creative, digital, or cross-functional environments—Monday.com is well worth a look.
