Project Management Software Needs Its Superhuman Moment

Daniel Kuney -

Basecamp launched their HEY email app in 2020 by promising to create something “unanimously different.” With an 18-point manifesto they fundamentally set out to change the core experience of email.

But Basecamp’s two decade-old project management software is starting to show signs of age. Thankfully, some updates are on the way. But it’s not just Basecamp. From Trello (and its many imitators) to ClickUp to Monday.com, project management software feels stuck.

Project management apps needs to do, at minimum, two things exceptionally well, and a few other things solidly well. The two things are team communication and task management. Many, like Todoist or Twist, do just one of those things exceptionally well.

Equally important is how users navigate the software. Superhuman popularized keyboard first navigation with their Cmd+K command palette. This was a foundation changing paradigm shift for email software. It’s time that PM software went all in on keyboard navigation as well.

Here’s my own manifesto of what I’d like to see in a Superhuman-of-project-management software:

1.Promotes calm asynchronous communication first

  • No status indicators
  • Threaded conversations
  • Send Later and Reply Later

2.Cmd+K command palette for keyboard first navigation

  • Easily backlink to other threads or tasks
  • Natural language parser

3.Docs

  • Easily embed Google Sheets, Dropbox, AirTable, Notion
  • Markdown support
  • Future: add a lightweight table & doc editor
  • Tables can be filtered and sorted

4.Client Access

5.One monthly price - not per seat

To be clear, I’m a big fan of Basecamp, Twist and Todoist. I just wish they could merge their superpowers together and throw in a dash of Superhuman. Here’s what I appreciate from each app:

Earlier this year I wrote about some other other features I’d like to see in the forthcoming Basecamp 4, which is currently in development.

What would you like to see in the Superhuman of project management? Please let me know on Twitter @danielkuney.