Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.
– Helen Keller
Team collaboration is so important in our workplaces, however, it’s never easy. Teamwork can achieve great things. If we don’t have a good workflow or collaboration tools, we achieve nothing. We believe many of you have struggled because of bad project management or rubbish work tools. To make you cringe no more from teamwork, we want to recommend 10 collaboration tools to help you build a productive team.
1. Figma: An online UI tool that helps the design process
There are so many graphics editing apps, then why does Figma stand out? First, it’s a web-based design app, so it doesn’t restrict the use of specific graphics cards. It allows you, your members or even your customers to create or check the design projects at the same time. You can use it to do all kinds of design like website wireframe, mobile app interface, prototype and more. The Figma community also offers thousands of templates, widgets, and plugins to help you fast get your projects done.
If you used to save all your design elements to drives, you can consider saving them in Figma. It will be much easier for your team members to work on the design projects. Figma is much more than what we say, we strongly recommend you to start the free plan and integrate it to your workflow.
2. Google Docs: An online docs and sheets service that allows people to write and edit together
Google Docs is a free tool and you can access your documents from anywhere with any device. Even if you only have a smartphone with you, the app allows you to easily edit the article. What’s more, it’s auto-saving. You don’t need to worry if your device runs out of power.
Google Docs is a great tool to collaborate with team members too. You can share the file with people and give them different permission to edit or view only. If you are worried that someone gets the document messed up, you can check the version history and return to the version you want. Google Docs has been an all time favorite for business people. Google regularly optimizes it and you always can find some surprises.
3. Canva: A non-designer can wow the audience with this graphic design and publishing tool
If you need to frequently create images or videos for social media posts, Canva is no doubt your best friend. It has thousands of free and ready-to-use templates you can use. As there are more and more social media, you don’t need to worry about the image size. Canva offers you premade size templates for Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn and more.
You can also work on Canva projects with your team members. The best part of Canva is that you can save your fonts, colors and images in your brand kit. With this feature, any member of your team can create designs with your business key colors. However, It will require a Canva Pro paid version. You can start free and see if it fits your workflow.
4. Zoom: A cloud-based video conferencing software that connects people
After the outbreak of Covid-19, Zoom became quite popular during the lockdown. People couldn’t go out at that time, so they gathered together on Zoom. Zoom is a powerful video conferencing software. You can easily schedule and host the online meeting up to more than 100 attendees.
It also has plans for events and webinars. From invitations to feedback tracking, you can smoothly live stream sessions and provide high quality webinars. Zoom is a good tool for internal and external collaboration.
5. Trello: An intuitive visual tool to help your team monitor, track and assign tasks
Using Trello is like you write tasks on post-it notes then categorize them on a whiteboard. When you see the interface, you know how to use it immediately. It’s not just easy for team members to check tasks and progress. Trello integrates top work tools such as Slack, Google, Miro, Microsoft Teams and so on to help people speed up the workflow.
From personal schedule to engineering projects, you can run all kinds of projects smoothly. If you are a project manager beginner, don’t worry, you can use Trello templates to manage your tasks. If you want, you are free to create and share public templates too.
6. Microsoft Teams: A robust video conferencing software and collaboration tool for hybrid work
In Microsoft Teams, you can chat, con-call and schedule meetings with your team. Teams integrates the Microsoft Suite, so If your organization uses Microsoft 365 Groups to collaborate, you can quickly share and check the files. The app is mobile friendly. You can seamlessly use it on your phone, tablet, laptop or desktop.
Hybrid working is the trend now. Microsoft Teams can help your team members to work together no matter where they are. The interface isn’t intuitive compared to other video conferencing software, but you will love it when you get used to it.
7. monday.com: A cloud-based project management platform which visualizes your projects
monday.com is a highly visual project management tool. In different companies and industries, you may need different tools to support a variety of operational requirements. In monday.com, you can choose a chart, kanban or timeline to view, analyze and organize your projects. With its clean and visual interface, every member can easily check other’s progress and what to do next.
When it comes to project management, it’s also important to review the efficiency. The reporting and analytics enable the project manager to check the project performance and budget timely. You may sign up for a free trial to see if it’s a good collaboration tool for your business.
8. GitHub: A collaboration and communication platform for developers
If you have the experience to work on projects with developers, then you may hear about GitHub. GitHub is often used in open-source projects. In the free plan, you can have unlimited public and private repositories, and you can create unlimited private repositories with unlimited collaborators. The reason why developers love GitHub is because it’s easy to do version control. You can easily track changes in your code across versions.
In addition to team collaboration, GitHub is also a good platform for developers to showcase their projects. Developers can rely on the profiles to attract recruiters.
9. Notion – An all-in-one workplace for teams
When you search “Notion” on Youtube, you can see that people use it for various projects. Some people use it to make a book list and write the reflection. Some use it for project management. Notion is no doubt a powerful tool for team collaboration. And you can make it the way you want. You can create a table, document or kanban. Because of its flexibility, it takes time to set up the platform to meet your requirements. Members also need time to get used to the structure. However, it’s worth using Notion and integrating it in your workflow.
10. ASTROS – A collaboration tool that creates a smart meeting room
ASTROS provides wireless presentation solutions that allow people to easily swap ideas in a meeting room. People don’t only rely on laptops but also tablets and smartphones to work. We have talked about many mobile friendly team collaboration software. But is our meeting room equipment mobile friendly too? If you only have an iPhone, what would you do to share your slides to TV in a meeting room? ASTROS is the answer. Its wireless presentation solutions let devices to share content and do screen mirroring. As hybrid working is here to stay, you need to make both on-site and remote environments good for your workflow.
ASTROS also offers many collaboration features like split screen, annotation, touch back and so on. ASTROS is a professional audio video product, so we highly recommend you to book a demo before purchase.
How do I choose the best collaboration tools for my business?
Even if you only have a pen and paper, you can still find a way to manage the project and collaborate with your team. The most important thing is to know your goal and create the structure to meet your requirements. The wrong structure can make the best collaboration tool the worst. And you need to test tools before you integrate them into your workflow. Keep those pieces of advice in mind, then you can easily choose the best collaboration tools for your business.
