Guest post by Rachel McPherson
Most designers and people who work in creative industries work remotely. Since both team members and clients come from different parts of the world, establishing and maintaining successful communication can sometimes be a challenge. What’s more, if communication between all team members and clients is not successful, the productivity and project may fall flat.
This is where tools enter the game. To be able to create a thriving working atmosphere, deliver on time and within budget, your team has to have a regular communication flow and the easiest and the most efficient way to do this is to invest in the set of right productivity tools that will work for your business. Since there are hundreds of tools that can help your team become more efficient, choosing the ones that will work for your business may be overwhelming.
Yammer
Yammer is an excellent social network for a business that helps your team boost their productivity. It allows your team to communicate and collaborate with ease. Employees can use the platform via the web, desktop or mobile, chat openly and share documents at a real time.
With Yammer you can have productive and spontaneous conversations and generally spend less time crafting the perfect message. Also, Yammer enables you to create groups relevant to your work and interests and keep docs by adding them to conversations. Yammer is now owned by Microsoft and can be easily integrated with SharePoint.
ActiveCollab
ActiveCollab is a powerful project management tool that helps your team stay organized and keep track of every single step of project development. It combines task management, team collaboration and billing in one single app. With ActiveCollab you can comment directly on the task, upload and share documents and track time of all your tasks.
On top of that, ActiveCollab allows you to involve your clients in the project and let them have a clear overview of all the roles and responsibilities across the team. Your clients can comment on tasks, upload necessary documents and track all the important changes to the document. However, if you have some sensitive data you want to hide from your client, you can limit their access. To find out more about ActiveCollab, make the best project management tools comparison, and see whether it will work for your business.
Slack
Slack is one of the most popular communication tools that help your team communicate instantly and discussing certain issues with ease. It allows your team to create communication channels and discuss particular issues. Also, it enables your team to upload and share documents and files and notify any person you want.
Slack is a perfect tool for keeping everyone on the same page especially when working with clients or remote teams. With Slack, you can build a searchable archive of your team’s conversations, decisions, and work. The best thing about Slack is that it helps your team stay transparent where everyone can see what everyone is working on at any given time.
That’s why we’ve done some research and rounded up a few tools that could upscale your team’s productivity.
Mural
Mural is a powerful, flexible, web-based solution that encourages creativity and collaboration within your team. It allows you to create your own digital workspace which all the members of your team can access anytime, from any device, in person or online. With Mural, you can use sticky notes to jot down your ideas and organize your thoughts with minimum effort. Also, you can use images, videos and links to support your ideas when managing digital projects. Finally, collaborate in real time by inviting your teammates with just a click of a button.
Red Pen
RedPen is a perfect tool for visual teams who want to upscale their communication. It allows you to get the feedback on your designs in no time. It lets you upload a file and share it with your clients and team members who should then provide you with a constructive feedback. Everyone on the team can see the comments live when they happen.
You are free to get everyone involved and create a network of people and keep them updated about comments, additions and new versions of a certain design. On top of that, Red Pen allows you to make all the necessary iterations and keep track of all the versions without much hassle.
Google Keep
Google Keep is a note-taking app that almost any design team should have in their toolkit. It simplifies your workflow as it helps you organize your documents and files in a few easy steps. The organization in Google Keep comes down to only two simple things: labels and colors. These allow you to brainstorm your ideas more easily and focus on the work that matters.
Also, with Google Keep you can easily create various types of notes, add images and scribbles. Apart from that, you can create a new note by using your phone camera or a voice recording, which is then transformed into a text with a native speech-to-text tool.
Rachel is currently working as the vice president of communications at ActiveCollab. After finishing her master’s degree in Communications she pursued a career in the digital industry, most notably in marketing and public relations.
