Not too long ago, we revealed The Forrester Wave™: Collaborative Work Administration Instruments, Q2 2025, showcasing how collaborative work administration (CWM) platforms are quickly evolving to satisfy the wants of contemporary enterprises. Over the previous couple of months, we researched the highest CWM distributors available in the market to realize a greater understanding of present vendor choices and establish the perfect product match for our purchasers.
This Forrester Wave evaluated 11 distributors: Adobe, Airtable, Asana, Atlassian, ClickUp, monday.com, Quickbase, ServiceNow, Smartsheet, Wrike, and Zoho. Every vendor was evaluated on three inputs: a questionnaire for the distributors to finish, government technique briefings and demos, and interviews of as much as three reference clients. The Wave included scores for 15 current-offering standards and eight technique standards. Learn the complete report right here.
Forrester defines collaboration work administration (CWM) instruments as:
Software program instruments that help the confluence of venture and course of work by permitting customers to create private and workforce workspaces; invite different customers, inner and exterior to the group, to collaborate on digital artifacts; establish workload necessities and capability; and allocate actions to different customers to ship on work gadgets after which monitor progress.
What Ought to You Look For?
With expanded performance and the continued rise of AI-driven capabilities, these instruments are not nearly venture or process planning — they empower customers to behave, drive outcomes, and carry out work extra proactively. These adjustments are resulting in quite a few impacts. Organizations are beginning to implement these instruments as a system of report for work. Consequently, purchasers ought to think about these key insights when making a purchase order resolution:
- Integration is essential. The CWM market continues its fast-paced progress with expanded capabilities. It’s important to think about not solely the core capabilities of the platform but additionally how effectively it integrates with the remainder of your tech ecosystem. Look past surface-level integrations and assess the depth, flexibility, and scalability of every vendor’s capability to help your integration wants.
- AI is dependent upon knowledge high quality. AI could be a highly effective accelerator for productiveness, however its worth is barely as sturdy as the info it depends on. Earlier than you leverage AI, you will need to first perceive the present state of your knowledge. Clear, well-structured, and accessible knowledge is crucial for producing dependable outputs and constructing belief in AI-driven suggestions.
- Challenge portfolio administration continues to be important. CWM options are versatile and permit for proactive work, however they aren’t but full replacements for conventional PPM methods. Portfolio administration, particularly for organizations which are scaling enterprise planning, requires extra sturdy knowledge fashions, governance, and scalability — capabilities which are nonetheless maturing in lots of CWM platforms.
For a deeper look into the market, Forrester purchasers can learn the complete report, The Forrester Wave™: Collaborative Work Administration Instruments, Q2 2025. Take a look at the outcomes for all 11 distributors, together with the precise standards that differentiated them and why.
You probably have any questions in regards to the adjustments taking place within the collaborative work administration market, ebook an inquiry or steering session with me.
This weblog was written with Melissa Chhay, Senior Analysis Affiliate.
