Dashboard Project Management?

We operate an alt-news company and power our website with wordpress. It would be handy if there was a way to have a “project manager” or “assignments” section on the WP dashboard. In this way, editors, contributors and admin could view current projects (posts), toss ideas around for new posts, and assign specific post topics to specific users. This is totally hidden from the front end of the site.

Does this exist? is there some plugin that accomplishes this or something like it?