PMBOK-5th test - Project Management 5th Edition Updated: 2023

Project management certifications claim a place in every top IT certification list because project managers are essential to IT operations. Whether you’re interested in becoming an IT project manager or want to add project management to your skills list, the following certifications will help you boost your skills and increase your value.

Construction project management software is useful for small and large construction teams, as it helps them better manage tasks and deliverables, as well as communicate with suppliers and consumers.

The correct construction project management (PM) solution can be the difference between a team that is unorganized and frequently misses deadlines and one where goals and progress are clearly communicated at regular intervals. It also allows for budget and scope to be taken into consideration in all important decisions.

We took a closer look at the top software for managing construction projects currently on the market to find the best one. Our choices have been assessed on a variety of factors, including cost, pros and cons, as well as individual features.

Read on to find out more about the best construction PM solution for your company.

The Best Software for Construction Project Management

Below is a quick look at our choices for the best software for construction project management, with Monday leading the charge. Later on, we’ll take a closer look at each tool, reviewing the key features, any unique offerings, pricing, and much more to determine why it’s earned its place on our list:

1. Monday – The best construction project management software thanks to its turnkey construction templates and project management capabilities
2. ClickUp – The best free tool available as it allows up to 20 users and access to core features like budget estimates and time-tracking
3. Wrike – A reliable tool for construction project management with excellent billing and invoicing for on-site workers
4. Smartsheet – The leading spreadsheet-style PM construction tool with useful equipment management features
5. Teamwork – Low-cost PM construction tool with some of the top collaboration tools, such as shared docs, real-time annotations, and mentions
6. Zoho Projects – Reliable construction project management software that integrates with the rest of the Zoho ecosystem
7. Resource Guru – Useful tool with strong analytical and reporting features, ideal for project managers
8. ProCore – A specialist tool with excellent financial and resource management features like payroll and invoicing functions
9. Contractor Foreman – Intuitive software with good features for improving team output, including workflow automation and collaborative docs
10. Houzz Pro  – A good PM construction tool that excels in lead generation and management

Why Do I Need a Construction Project Management Tool?

In the right hands, software for construction management streamlines procedures and enhances project performance.

Adopting a CMS can Boost cooperation thanks to useful collaborative tools like shared docs, and you can reduce the potential for errors like missing equipment on site thanks to effective resource management.

Below are the headline key benefits.

Communication & Collaboration

Assuring excellent communication and collaboration at every project site is arguably one of the most important duties of any construction manager.

It can be challenging to manage projects as they develop and change, but it can be even more challenging for businesses with team members spread out throughout the city or even the country.

Every team member has access to a centralized point of communication when a good management system is in place, regardless of where they are working or what device they are using. This helps to ensure real-time communication and collaboration between clients, consultants, contractors, and project managers.

Managing Documents

It should come as no surprise that there is a lot of demand to store and handle crucial documentation in construction organizations in a secure manner.

The days of paperwork being jammed into file cabinets are long gone, as businesses can now easily manage their documents from their choice of construction management software.

Having a safe and simple approach to managing documents is essential for businesses that want to stay organized.

Project Management

It’s simpler for managers to adopt a productive, organized approach to project management if they use the right software, as the two go hand-in-hand. This allows managers to oversee all the vital information about staff, performance, equipment, and much more from one app.

Managers can easily track the project budget, locate critical information quickly, and prepare all the required documents, including information requests, business letters, change requests, and more.

Getting Organized

Although sometimes disregarded, one of the most important advantages of construction management software is its capacity to swiftly and efficiently arrange operations throughout the construction organization.

A streamlined organizational system allows team members across the business to readily access the information they need when they need it, from information storage and easy access to tracking expenses, contracts, and budgets.

Resource Management

All the resources and tools used in construction are coordinated across project deadlines with the use of construction management software. Managers can more effectively optimize the tools and resources to match their initial project bids and estimates by reviewing resource data.

A CMS can also support contractors in managing and organizing the daily distribution of personnel, resources, and materials, tracking their usage in real time. This will allow construction managers to organize resources in a much more effective and efficient manner.

Key Features to Look for in Construction Project Management Software

With the construction project management market being a crowded space, there are bound to be many appealing-looking tools that promise so much – but knowing who to trust or what to look out for can be a little overwhelming.

To help you, we’ve compiled a list of what we believe to be the fundamental features of good CMS software, including unique features, pricing, compatibility, and more:

The Best Construction Project Management Apps Reviewed

In this section, we take an in-depth look at our top 10 construction project management apps, comparing their key features, pricing, device compatibility, and much more – starting with Monday, our top pick.

1. Monday – Overall, the Best Construction Project Management Tool in 2023

Monday is one of the best and most popular project management tools that can be used across various industries, including construction. Particularly for construction use cases, Monday provides a selection of project templates specific to the industry, such as construction roadmaps and budget forecasting, as well as RFI and document management.

What makes Monday so reliable is its ability to adapt and flourish in pretty much any industry you put it in – and construction is no different. For example, Monday offers construction-specific templates. These include general contractor solutions, construction roadmap, and construction project tracking templates.

This means you can save a ton of time and effort you’d have spent designing your own templates, instead, just fill out the premade ones and customize them to your liking. Then, you can take advantage of the collaboration features and work on these templates and documents with your teammates, using features like mentions, shared docs, and in-app chat.

We love Monday’s mobile apps, as they offer a powerful pocket-based solution for workers.

The apps even include an offline mode that lets you view timelines, documents, and more without internet access. This is especially useful for project managers who get site-specific information on the go and often travel to remote worksites.

To find out more, read our detailed review of Monday, which dives into all the nitty-gritty project management features it has on offer.

Pricing

There’s an excellent free plan on offer from Monday, but, for the construction industry, it’s not really suitable given the limited number of users and restrictions.

Thankfully, there is a good range of well-priced plans on offer for teams of all sizes, with prices starting from just $8/month.

2. ClickUp – One of the Top Free Construction PM Tools

ClickUp is another top construction project management tool, and it works seamlessly with small, medium, or large enterprises looking to streamline their work processes. From pre-sales through concept to delivery, ClickUp makes it simple to plan, organize, and track construction projects.

Straight off the bat, ClickUp offers a huge range of construction-ready templates, like budget estimates, daily reports, and emergency actions, that can be finely tuned or customized to a project manager’s liking.

Once you’ve got to grips with the excellent templates, ClickUp will then assist you in working with your colleagues on them with its wide range of tools aimed at improving team collaboration.

Your team will be instantly updated on any changes that are made to your project, whether they’re made through comments or live editing.

Alongside this, you can keep tabs on every part of the construction process, for example, you can track employee time, monitor goals, create estimates, and so much more with your ClickUp subscription. This provides managers with a centralized location where they can oversee projects, staff, and much more.

You can even send contractors and designers customized forms for RFIs (requests for information) and approvals, saving a ton of time and hassle.

We really like that you can annotate and leave comments and mentions directly on the documents you’re working on so team members can track updates in real-time. The benefit of this is to have all comments and work in one place, eliminating the risk of something being missed.

There’s even a built-in messaging platform which eliminates the hassle of maintaining multiple channels, devices, or messaging apps, where things can often get messy or overlooked. This can also be used for those who work at the sites, as ClickUp offers virtually the same platform on mobile devices.

Pricing

There’s a lot for project managers to love about ClickUp, including its generous free plan that small teams or individuals can use to stay on track.

However, for the construction industry, we’d recommend opting for the Business or Business Plus plan, as they include custom templates tailored to construction use, as well as extra storage and time-tracking features.

3. Wrike – Great Software with Useful Billing and Invoicing Features

Wrike being one of the best tools for construction project management is no shocker, as the platform is known for being incredibly adaptable. With it, you get useful task management tools like custom request forms and support for a wide range of construction-related apps, such as Buildxact.

There are tools for boosting productivity, like time-tracking and task management, which allows you to easily assign tasks and manage your staffs workloads.

With the time management features, you can create individual timesheets to record data and ensure that billing and invoicing are accurate. It also provides workers with an easy way to upload timesheets and create invoices off of the data.

Wrike’s interactive project timelines are spot on, as they provide a clear and instructive overview of the key components of each project. This can be done in the Gantt chart mode, and the drag-and-drop builder makes customizing these timelines easier than ever. In fact, Wrike is one of the top Gantt chart solutions out there.

The data from Wrike’s charts can then be easily analyzed by project managers through the detailed reporting features.

Reports are easy to create and distribute, and the information they include is easy to understand thanks to appealing visuals like pie charts, bar graphs, and others.

Pricing

Wrike offers a strong free plan for users to get started and familiar with the software, but it’s unlikely to be enough for a small or mid-sized construction firm.

Instead, you’d be better off choosing either the Team or Business plan, which offer more features like interactive Gantt charts, time tracking, and the ability to add as many users as you want.

4. Smartsheet – The Leading Spreadsheet-style PM Construction Software

Smartsheet is another leading project management solution trusted by businesses of all sizes, and it truly excels for construction management. With pre-built solutions and templates for the industry, like roadmaps and budget forecasting, Smartsheet is a highly adaptable tool.

With Smartsheet, you can automate routine tasks to save time and stress, a feature of many of the top tools on this list. Custom workflows, in particular, are very useful in the construction industry, as they can be used to send out updates to stakeholders on the development of a site.

Also, like the other top construction project management tools on this list, Smartsheet offers a wide range of prebuilt templates that are specific to the construction industry. These include job site check-in and safety management – both of which work offline and can be used to ensure the correct tools and staff are on-site at each time.

Aside from this, there are some advanced financial management features. For example, there are templates and tools for budgeting, forecasting, and estimates that can help keep a project aligned. It can even integrate with financial services like Xero, QuickBooks, and PayPal to further streamline your processes.

You save a ton of time by not creating your project from scratch. Fill out the template and distribute it to teams on-site, where they can be accessed via the excellent mobile apps for iOS and Android, so nothing will be missed.

Although some people will find the familiar spreadsheet-style layout useful, others won’t be so keen. It can be a steep learning curve if you’re not comfortable with Excel, and some of the features are quite technical, so it’s not an ideal choice for beginners.

Pricing

Smartsheet offers a good free plan that helps you learn the basics of the platform, with a restriction on the number of users and features on offer – for example, no custom construction templates on the free plan.

Instead, it’s wise to opt for the Business plan, which gives you up to 1TB of file storage and access to all the budgeting, estimate, and time-tracking features.

5. Teamwork – Budget-friendly App with Strong Collaboration Features

Teamwork’s leading project management software was designed with client work in mind, making it ideal for construction use, even if it isn’t industry specific. With it, you can deliver work on time and within budget, get rid of client confusion, and grasp profits in one platform.

Teamwork isn’t exactly built with construction in mind, but a lot of the features make it a perfect choice for construction teams of any size.

For example, there are excellent billing, time-tracking, and invoicing tools that make it easy for a project manager to view the billable hours and expenses of workers on site.

Coupled with the fact that it integrates with HR platforms and tools like QuickBooks, Teamwork offers an all-in-one solution for maintaining employee data. You can even access this offline with useful mobile apps, and workers on-site are able to upload timesheets and access key data from even the most remote worksites.

The gist is that you won’t find any dedicated construction templates here, as you would with Monday or ClickUp.

Instead, there’s a library of other prebuilt templates that can be turned into what you need, whether it’s equipment inventory trackers or construction road maps. They may not offer the exact same functionality, but the potential is there.

We did like the ease with which collaboration is accessible, with Teamwork offering some of the best tools for teams to come together and work on files (hence the name, Teamwork.) For example, there’s an included messaging service to take over the usual emails, texts, and apps like Slack.

Pricing

Teamwork offers a good range of well-priced plans for construction businesses of all scales and sizes – this includes a decent free plan aimed at 1-3 users.

For the premium features like Gantt charts, and integrations with apps like QuickBooks and Google Suite, we’d recommend opting for the Grow plan.

6. Zoho Projects – One of the Most Popular PM Tools

Zoho is a well-known company with a fleet of useful apps, including a powerful project management tool, excellent CRM, and much more. It offers a good range of construction-specific tools that make it excel in a crowded marketplace, including equipment management, budget estimates, and so on.

We really like that Zoho is able to offer an all-in-one platform, especially when you connect it to the powerful CRM on offer from the provider. This makes it easy for managers to collect client data and store it safely, leading to a better relationship in the future.

It’s got excellent budget management tools for invoicing, forecasting, and earned value management – all essential for the smooth running of any construction project. These provide a key overview of each stage of the construction process, and this information is readily accessible.

The equipment managing facilities are great, as they enable you to mark resources and categorize them as equipment, machinery, or materials. This helps with ensuring the right equipment is available on a job site and reduces the risk of forgetting to maintain or bring the right tools for the job.

You get a wealth of tools aimed at improving employee collaboration, with features like forums, shared docs, and an in-app chat, all aimed at improving the overall output of your team.

Forums, in particular, offer a place for teams to share thoughts, updates, and more on the delivery of a construction project, providing managers with a clear insight and overview of employee work and behavior.

Pricing

Zoho offers some of the most affordable paid plans out there alongside their strong free offering. The plan structure is simple, with a free plan accompanying the Premium and Enterprise solutions for larger teams.

7. ResourceGuru – Great Analytical and Reporting Features

ResourceGuru is another well-known name in construction project management, and it offers some excellent features to back this up. For example, it offers a robust project schedule that enables you to plan resources using real-time data, helping you manage workers and deadlines with ease.

Furthermore, there’s a useful resource directory where you can manage any equipment that’s needed on each site, reducing the risk of workers not having the right tools and causing delays to work. You can even schedule a tool for maintenance, and automated reminders will be sent to ensure this is met.

You have access to powerful reporting tools that ensure everyone has something to do. This helps to maintain productivity levels and allows project managers to assign relevant tasks to the relevant people, meaning everyone is busy, focused, and working seamlessly.

It’s backed up by Clash Management software, perhaps our favorite feature of the bunch, as it’s a simple but effective tool that makes sure no one or no equipment is double booked and helps workloads stay realistic.

Realistic workloads and no double booked equipment allows you to hit your targets without any hiccups along the way.

There are a few other construction-specific features that stand out, most notably safety standards, which allow you to track who is using high-risk equipment and assign approvers to control access. This is a huge yes for construction workers, as health and safety plays a fundamental role in everyday life.

Pricing

There’s no free plan on offer from ResourceGuru, which is a little disappointing. However, as the 3 plans on offer are so affordable, you can easily look past this.

The Blackbelt plan offers the best value for money if you’re happy to skip SSO and phone support, if not, the Master plan costs just $10/month per user.

8. Procore – Specialist Software with Excellent Resource Management Functions

Procore is a leading construction project management tool that offers a few unique features like RFI and submittal management, as well as basic project management tools, like time-tracking and task management.

Procore is more specialized for construction use than other providers on this list and cuts a few corners on project management-related features. As you might have guessed, that does come at a cost – more on that later.

What you do get is a complete tool that offers multiple construction-specific features, such as timecard management for tracking hours worked, and RFI and submittal management for creating and sending RFIs within the platform.

By linking RFIs and submittals to relevant project documents or drawings, the system ensures that all information is readily available and provides context to third-parties who may view them. This ensures that nothing is missed, and for the person receiving the RFI, everything will be crystal clear.

Project teams can manage expenditures with the help of Procore’s construction financials tools, which also allow executives access to real-time information about the state of their business. Plus, with simple integrations with the likes of Xero and QuickBooks, invoicing and billing are a breeze.

Procore offers bulk time entry for individuals or a crew, real-time worker productivity tracking, and an approval process for streamlined payroll – all fundamental for the construction industry.

Believe me, your finance department will thank you for every bit of payroll automation you can implement.

The platform itself offers a simple interface that requires no customization on your side, and all of these features are incredibly user-friendly, so even beginners can get to grips with things pretty quickly.

Pricing

Procore is a more specialist construction management tool, so to get an idea of how much it costs, you need to fill out some details to get a custom quote.

It would be nice to have some transparency, but this does help find the right plan for your business needs.

9. Contractor Foreman – Top Tool for Collaborating within a Team

Contractor Foreman is a cloud-based tool that assists in managing resources, records, and payments for construction projects. Notable features include project scheduling, billing and invoicing, document sharing, and time tracking for employees.

With this software, users are able to manage multiple projects at the same time and easily dispatch teams based on their availability and proximity, as the software features a useful GPS tracker – which helps keeps track of hours spent on site.

Plus, with the daily logs, to-do lists, and project planning templates, like equipment inventory, you can easily streamline the project lifecycle, and each of these can be customized to your requirements.

Contractors can quickly develop accurate estimates using the software’s custom estimation module, which has easy selections and is fully customizable. This helps to ensure that a project doesn’t go over budget and helps allocate resources to the right areas.

Its useful mobile apps make it simple to take pictures, measurements, and other crucial project documents while on the road.

Team members can handle all the documents involved in a building project in one location thanks to the document management module.

Furthermore, it’s possible to integrate Contractor Foreman with other applications like QuickBooks, WePay, Outlook 365, Google Calendar, and much more. Additional software integrations can be unlocked by using a paid Zapier account.

Pricing

Contractor Foreman lets you test any of its plans out for free for 30 days, which should supply you enough time to figure out if it’s the right choice for your business.

You can opt to pay on an annual or quarterly basis, with the former offering the best value for money. Each plan increased the number of users, but all have limitations besides the Unlimited plan, where an infinite number of users can be added.

10. Houzz Pro – Great Lead Management Solution

Houzz Pro is a hybrid project management tool for the building industry. Its primary goal is to generate leads for small contractors or subcontractors, as well as offering useful project management features like time sheets.

However, it comes with fundamental construction project management features like time-tracking, custom templates for safety on-site, roadmaps, and inventory monitoring – making it an all-around solid tool.

But it’s the elements that help with lead generation that may be the most beneficial to your business, as you can create a profile on Houzz Pro to highlight previous work, acquire lists of Checked leads, and get in touch with leads directly to submit a quote on a project.

The cloud-based tool also enables you to interact with your staff and clients from a central hub, with a built-in chat and shared docs for collaborative working – ensuring no one misses out on a vital update.

You can even organize meetings, manage follow-ups, and convert leads into projects so that prospects become projects.

With the assistance of material and cost libraries, they can produce precise estimates and bids in a matter of minutes, which perfect for use within the construction industry.

Moving on from the marketing-based features, you can create construction proposals from the turnkey templates that come with the software, each of which can be customized and tailored to the correct usage.

Thankfully, as this is a specialized tool for the industry, there are dozens of useful templates, from preplanning documents right through to detailed roadmaps, financial planners, and much more.

Pricing

Each plan offers a 30-day free trial, which is a great way to test the product before signing up for one of their paid plans – this is somewhat a replacement for the lack of a free plan.

Comparison of the Top Construction Software for Project Management

Now you’ve had the chance to read about each of our top providers, we’ve compiled a useful table below that gives you an easy way to view the cheapest plans, best usage, and more.

How to Choose the Best Project Management Software for Your Construction Business

It’s important to know your needs and the obstacles you confront in order to choose the best construction management solution. After all, the construction management software you choose should support your objectives.

No matter if you work as a builder, contractor, subcontractor, or project manager, the right construction management software will help you do more. It’s up to you to decide which is best for your construction company.

Here are some of the most crucial and common aspects to take into account when selecting your building project management software.

User-Friendly

In order for your employees to execute tasks quickly and effectively, they must have instant access to the information they require. Instead of creating access obstacles, technology ought to make it easier to get the right data. User interface software is crucial since it can have a significant impact on a construction project’s overall success.

Even people with the most advanced technological skills might become frustrated with solutions with a steep learning curve. Quick and effective communication between the many teams and stakeholders engaged in a project is made possible by an intuitive, user-friendly design. By ensuring that everyone is on the same page, this helps to minimize delays and cut down on errors.

Communication & Collaboration

Any construction project’s success depends on teamwork and communication.

All project parties, including head contractors, subcontractors, engineers, architects, and developers, must work well together to ensure a successful project.

You need a point of contact, the ability to inform everyone of developments, and the capacity to go over any potential problems or modifications. When the right construction management software is used, teamwork improves, communication is simpler, and all parties can accomplish their objectives and meet deadlines.

Integrations

Collaboration and communication can be streamlined by integrating construction project software with other tools, which makes it simpler for all parties to work together successfully and maintain the project’s schedule.

Construction teams can collaborate easily by linking several software packages, such as design tools, accounting programs, document management, and scheduling platforms. Integrations make it simpler for all teams to share documents and other crucial data, which helps everyone engaged to stay on the same page.

Project Complexity

A construction project’s complexity and scope can have a big impact in terms of price, schedule, quality, and resource allocation.

A project that is excessively complex could be challenging to manage and finish on time. Similarly, if a project’s scope is too broad, there might not be enough resources to meet deadlines and stick to the agreed-upon budget.

It’s crucial to choose a platform for managing construction projects that can handle both complexity and scope. Some software solutions, for instance, might only be able to handle small-scale projects with few tasks and resources, whilst others might be able to handle large-scale projects with many stakeholders and complex tasks.

Features

You want your chosen tool to have everything you need to succeed – think time management, budget forecasting for estimating project costs, automation for routine tasks, and much more. It basically needs to be an all-in-one project management solution, but this doesn’t mean it can’t have some bonus points for construction-tailored work.

Many of the providers on our list offer core project management solutions, like CRM, lead generation, and collaborative docs, but some go that step further and include templates for construction, like road maps and budget forecasting.

The ideal combination is to have a good range of both.

Pricing

Last but not least is pricing, and this can be a tricky one to navigate. Sure, getting a good deal is what we all want, but choosing based only on the price is sure to lead you down a dark road. That doesn’t mean that the more expensive a tool is, the better it will be, not by a long shot – what you want is a good range of features for an affordable price.

Most charge you per user, while the more project management-based solutions have plans from as little as $4/month, some even offer free plans, but they won’t suit construction use. Others will supply you a custom quote based on some basic information you provide, and these are usually more specialist tools – but these will cost significantly more.

Should I Use Free Construction Project Management Software?

Free construction project management tools may sound appealing, but they’re very unlikely to be a long-term solution for your business needs, as they’re often restricting features and the number of users you can add.

What they are useful for is testing a service that may not offer a free trial or money-back guarantee, as it’s hard to know which will suit your enterprise needs best.

However, we recommend that you opt for a premium plan without any restrictions, regardless if your company size and potential to scale. This way, you get access to all of the extra features like Gantt charts, construction-specific templates like roadmaps, time and budget management features for invoicing and billing, plus being able to add as many users as you want.

Providers like Monday, our top pick for the best construction project management software, offer affordable plans and all of the features, users, and storage you require.

What’s the Best Project Management Software for Construction Businesses in 2023

The best construction management tools enable projects to work seamlessly and overall reduce the chance of errors, risks, and delays – all of which are essential in the construction industry.

All of the top providers on our list have features that make life easier, such as premade templates for each stage of the construction process, as well as useful add-ons like time management, budget estimates, and constriction road maps.

If you’re looking for the best project management software for the construction industry, we suggest trying Monday, an all-in-one project management solution with affordable plans that start from just $8/month per user.

FAQ

A new toxic trend, PMI, is set to take over the world of dating next year. Here’s how to spot it and stop it in its tracks before it ruins your next fling. 

The early days of a new fling are filled with almost every emotional peak and trough in the book. From the longwinded anticipation of each text to the silent panic that sets in when you realize you’re sitting across the table from a cat person (instant dealbreaker), the dating scene can be one whirlwind of an emotional rollercoaster.

While there are plenty of valid reasons why a fresh romance won’t survive the harsh dating landscape, self-sabotage (whether intentional or not) has got to be one of the most unfortunate. Now, there’s a new trendy iteration of dating drama casting a shadow on new couples everywhere. Premature intimacy, or PMI, speaks to the urge to share too much too soon with a new partner, often leaving people feeling exposed or regretful.

Certified sex and relationship practitioner, Georgia Grace, shares with Body+Soul why healthy boundaries and a strong line of communication are so important to nurture at the start of any relationship, and why it’s crucial to look out for signs of PMI.

What exactly is PMI?

While yet another trending abbreviation might have you cursing the ever-changing Gen Z language, this one is especially important. A quick scan of the English language will tell you the word ‘premature’ is scarcely used to describe anything good, with its current dating association only reinforcing the stereotype. 

PMI is the romance equivalent of TMI (too much information), incorporating whispers of love bombing and trauma dumping. In essence, the term refers to the oversharing of mind, body and soul. Imagine you’re sitting across from your date at dinner, swapping facts about yourselves and critiquing the restaurant’s playlist. Suddenly, before you’ve even had time to digest the entrees, your casual first date begins talking about your detailed future plans or reaches over to plant a kiss on your lips. Pretty jarring image right? 

While intimacy is no doubt an important building block for any blossoming relationship, overstepping too early on is a surefire way to supply someone the ‘ick’. PMI can manifest in more ways than simply oversharing your thoughts on a date, such as overt displays of physical affection and deep dives into your personal information.

“[PMI] is a really hard thing to measure,” says Grace, noting every relationship travels on its own unique timeline. “Yes, it’s exciting when you start a new relationship, but it’s also important to have platonic love and friendships, to see your family and to make sure you’re going to work and moving your body in the way that you like to move it so that you still have a sense of self and it doesn’t get wrapped up or lost in this new relationship energy.”

According to relationship expert Jessica Alderson, unleashing intimacy too early on in the relationship has become increasingly more common in the modern dating landscape. PMI can be caused by a myriad of reasons, such as a deep-rooted need for validation or an inability to accurately understand social cues. 

“Some people have a fear of rejection or abandonment and believe that by opening up quickly they can create a strong bond,” she shares with Stylist. “They may believe that by being vulnerable and sharing personal information in the early stages of dating, their date will see them as more desirable or trustworthy.”

What are the consequences of PMI?

Now, maintaining the right level of intimacy can be a challenge for any couple, regardless of whether you’re celebrating two weeks or 20 years of blissful harmony. Intimacy ebbs and flows throughout different stages of any relationship, but it’s important to establish healthy boundaries and expectations early on.

‘Being all in’ has no doubt been romanticized across pop culture, leaving many fresh couples feeling the pressure to imitate every smiling couple on social media, apparent products of ‘love at first sight’. 

“They’re selling the dream, they’re selling romance,” Grace says of couples across the media landscape. “We cannot and should not turn to TV or social media to teach us about relationships, because often they are designed to reflect a relationship that is entertaining, that is exciting, that makes us feel. But they’re often not real.”

Exposing your new partnership to intense bursts of intimacy before it’s ready will only create cracks in the relationship, often causing irreversible damage. 

There are some immediate consequences for PMI, with the most common ones being the risk of overwhelming your partner or having them misinterpret your behavior. Too much PMI early on may also lay the foundation for other issues down the track.  

One of the best parts of any new relationship is gradually learning about each other’s lives, slowly uncovering the interesting facets of your partner’s personality, “A gradual unfolding of personal details can contribute to the anticipation and enjoyment of discovering more about each other over time”, says Alderson. Too much intimacy in the early days fast-tracks this process, removing the sense of intrigue that fuels attraction. 

“Oversharing early on can leave little room for growth and discovery as a couple. This can hinder the development of a strong, lasting bond,” adds Alderson. 

“No two relationships are the same,” explains Grace, adding that any stage of a partnership can see couples misaligned in their expectations and goals. “I would never put a time frame on anything because it’s such an individual thing.”

In a new relationship, intimacy is important for growth and connection, just ensure you’re employing self-awareness and sharing something with the right intention in mind.

“I would never suggest or recommend not opening up on a first date, but you can have a choice around how much you share and what you share,” says Grace. “And you can also set a boundary if someone is trauma dumping on you because that’s not fun and it’s not sexy and it’s kind of overwhelming.”

Global growth stalled at the start of the fourth quarter as the contraction of developed market deepened while emerging market growth further decelerated to the slowest in the year-to-date, according to the latest PMI indications. The expansions of both manufacturing and service sectors softened in the emerging market, though staying relatively resilient when compared to developed economies where conditions across both sectors deteriorated in October.

That said, price pressures showed signs of stickiness in the emerging market space with selling price inflation staying unchanged from September. In contrast, the easing of demand and output conditions in the developed world helped lower selling price inflation for a third straight month in October, even though it remained relatively elevated when compared with the emerging market print.

Forward looking indicators meanwhile point to still-expanding new business for emerging markets, but it was their developed counterparts that held a more positive view with regards to output in the 12 months ahead.

Growth momentum in emerging market weakest in 10 months

October's PMI data revealed a tenth consecutive month of emerging market growth, measured across both manufacturing and services, albeit at the slowest pace in the current sequence. This contrasted with developed markets which saw a third straight month of contraction and at a sharper pace compared to September.

Excluding mainland China, growth have likewise slowed to the joint-weakest since January. That said, the rate of expansion remained well above the series average to signal still-solid improvements in economic conditions in emerging market ex-China economies. This was as the expansion in mainland China stalled after nine consecutive months of expansion, outlining the dissipation of the post-pandemic boon.

New business growth further decelerate across emerging markets

Underpinning the easing of growth performance in the emerging market had been the softening of new business growth in October. Incoming new orders rose at the slowest rate since January and was only mild. Both manufacturing new work intakes and services new business continued to grow, but at slower rates among emerging market firms, thus signaling the softening of demand conditions.

Although developed economies saw incoming new orders fall for a fourth straight month, which should not come as a surprise given the tighter financial condition settings among developed world central banks, the rate of decline was unchanged from September's nine-month low. A slower contraction of goods new orders helped to offset a sharper downturn in services new business, keeping overall new work intake in moderate contraction.

That said, the average level of backlogged work marginally increased in emerging markets but had continued to deplete for a sixth straight month among developed market firms. The renewed rise in backlogs, alongside sustained growth in new work intakes for emerging markets, highlight the expectation for growth to sustain in the coming months. The same may not be said for developed markets as both incoming and existing orders contracted in October, pointing to still-pressured output conditions ahead.

Drilling slightly deeper into the causes of softening demand conditions, deterioration of trade conditions had been a common theme across both the emerging and developed world. It had, however, been heartening to see conditions broadly stabilize in the emerging market space, indicating that the downturn recorded in the previous quarter has been phased out. The uptick was helped by a faster services export business growth and an easing of the goods trade downturn.

Sticky prices

Despite softening demand conditions in emerging markets, price pressures have remained somewhat sticky. Selling price inflation across emerging markets remained unchanged from September's 14-month high. In comparison, it was developed economies that led the softening of price pressures globally with the lowest selling price inflation print since December 2020. This was despite both regions showing easing cost pressures at the start of the fourth quarter.

To some extent, easing inflationary pressures supported resilience in business confidence among developed markets with the Future Output Index, the only sentiment-based PMI sub-index, staying unchanged for developed markets in October but pared to a 19-month low in the emerging market space.

India continues to lead, despite losing steam

Finally, examining the output conditions across the four major emerging economies, India continued to outperform the remaining three for the sixteenth consecutive month in October. This was backed by solid expansions of both manufacturing output and services activity in India. The pace of expansion pared in the latest month to the slowest since January, however, and was accompanied by waning confidence surround private sector output according to the latest S&P Global India Business Outlook. Concerns have risen around output, profitability and capital expenditure plans, though more positively, inflation expectations have improved with firms seeing a more stable price environment ahead.

Russia followed with solid growth recorded at the start of the fourth quarter, though likewise softening to the slowest in three months. Further increase in new work and backlogs highlight the expectations for the expansion to sustain.

Brazil exhibited resilience in October, returning to growth in October, though only marginally. Better service sector performance helped to offset a sharper downturn in the goods producing sector. Furthermore, falling interest rates and forecasts of a stable inflation environment were found to have boosted optimism among Brazilian companies according to insights from business outlook surveys.

The expansion in mainland China meanwhile stalled in October after nine straight months of growth post the easing of pandemic restrictions. Faster services activity expansion contrasted with a renewed fall in manufacturing output, albeit only fractionally in both cases. The business mood across mainland China have also softened in the latest S&P Global Business Outlook survey, accompanied by concerns over rising costs.

© 2023, S&P Global. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited.

Purchasing Managers' Index™ (PMI^®) data are compiled by S&P Global for more than 40 economies worldwide. The monthly data are derived from surveys of senior executives at private sector companies, and are available only via subscription. The PMI dataset features a headline number, which indicates the overall health of an economy, and sub-indices, which provide insights into other key economic drivers such as GDP, inflation, exports, capacity utilization, employment and inventories. The PMI data are used by financial and corporate professionals to better understand where economies and markets are headed, and to uncover opportunities.

Original Post

Editor's Note: The summary bullets for this article were chosen by Seeking Alpha editors.

At Forbes Advisor, we compared more than a dozen of the top-rated programs for contractors and hundreds of data points to finalize our list of the best project management software for construction companies. Some software are ideal for large general contractors that need to manage subcontractors, clients and multiple projects at once, while others are suitable for small businesses that offer specialized construction services.

We homed in on the criteria most important to all contractors, such as ease of use, monthly or annual cost and construction-specific features. All of the software we included offer mobile apps, so you can manage projects and teams from the field or office, financial tools for bids and proposals and/or integrations with software you already use for finances and invoicing.

Here are some of the points of data we compared to rank the software.

Pricing

For pricing, we considered the starting plan cost of the software and whether a service offers a free trial. Companies that offer upfront pricing received higher ratings here than those that require filling out a lead capture form or making a call to a sales department. This accounted for 20% of our weighted scoring.

Features

While our reviews mention a variety of features attractive to small businesses, we maintained consistency in our ratings by looking for these general features for each provider: proposal management, timelines, software integrations, dependencies, proposal management and customer access to a mobile app.

Additionally, we looked for unique features from each provider, such as costs tools, safety management, bid management, building information modeling support and client communication tools.  We weighted features at 40% of our total score.

Third-party Reviews

We considered what real users of the software thought about their experiences using them was also important, so considered what customers wrote about their experiences with project management software on sites that included Capterra and Trustpilot. We gave higher scores to providers who had reviews left on these sites that scored well (at least 3.5 out of 5). These accounted for 20% of the total score.

Expert Analysis

Using all of the information mentioned above, our reviewers created a scoring metric based on additional criteria from customer reviews, such as ease of use, any stand-out features, popularity and value for the money. This final section made up 20% of the total score.

How To Choose the Best Construction Project Management Software

Keep in mind that the most important features of any project management software for contractors include access, document control and ease of use. Consider these three features first when trying to choose the software that will fit your business best.

Secondary to those factors, you should know whether you need project management tools only, or if you’re going to want to manage the financial aspects of your business in one software. Sticking strictly to project management features may reduce your monthly or annual costs but do this only if you already have a system in place for bids, proposals and invoicing.

Integrations can help connect software you already use with your construction project management software, which can streamline your processes and save you time. The most important integrations would be with accounting software, email and calendars.

Marketing and lead generation features are kind of like bonuses. You may not need these if you work for a general contractor with a department that handles outreach and presales. Smaller operations might want to consider construction project management software that includes some of these tools.