With social distancing becoming the norm, the number of remote workers has increased tremendously. However, because of this, project managers need to handle their team members virtually. In the absence of a common platform, it's impossible for these managers to manage their teams effectively.
Fortunately, there are countless useful tools that facilitate remote collaboration for project managers. These tools assist in team productivity, project management, cloud storage, real-time communication, and most importantly in collaborative work and design. In this article, we will discuss top X collaboration tools every project manager needs to know about.
Zoom
Zoom is a highly scalable cloud-based web and video conferencing software. It allows users to carry out online meetings, webinars, group messaging, and file sharing. The platform is ideal for most companies company regardless of their size.
Zoom combines high-quality audio and video to give users an immersive screen-sharing experience. Not only does this software combine cloud-based video conferencing, group messaging, and meetings online, but it also allows people to share content wirelessly through a single application. Using Zoom, your project team can connect to more than a single conference room and add additional remote attendees through a single mouse click.
Key Features
· Zoom Meetings Rooms
· Integrated Scheduling
· Video Webinar
· Premium Audio
· Group Collaboration
· Cloud and Local Recording
Shortcomings
· Expensive
· Too many plan options
Slack
Slack is a robust collaboration hub that combines productivity and communication and provides many excellent features. You can create separate channels for any given project, topic, or team.
Slack’s complete set of task management, project management, and document management features makes it one of the best collaboration tools for project managers in the market. In total, Slack can integrate with over 2000 other tools.
Key Features
· Activity/News Feed
· Alerts/Notifications
· Audio Calls
· Discussion Threads
· File Sharing
· Mobile Access
· Real-time Chat
· Third-Party Integration
· Video Conferencing
· Document Management
· Project Management
· Task Management
· Video Conferencing
Shortcomings
· Hard to search
· Messy
Trello
Trello is an excellent option for project teams looking to make most of the Kanban paradigm in project management. It contains projects that are represented with separate boards. Each one of these boards has lists and cards that users can easily drag and drop easily. This way project managers can monitor and track the progress of each task individually and reflect the flow of each task from idea to execution.
Users also have the option to assigned cards containing projects or tasks to specific teams. Furthermore, these cards can hold a number of items including attachments, pending due dates, comments, and checklists. Lastly, you can sync each of these things with your calendar easily.
Key Features
· Visual progress of impending tasks
· Simple access
· Horizontal design
· Task calendar
· Seamless integration
Shortcomings
· Can become cluttered if you add too many cards
· Lacks time tracking
· Lacks estimate functionality
· Doesn’t provide an overall overview
Asana
Asana is a web-based software tool optimized for efficient task management. It enables easy collaboration among project management teams. At the same time, it allows team members to manage projects and tasks online without using their emails.
Asana gives each team a workspace along with specific tasks for that particular workspace. The tool associates each task with teams and users. Therefore, whenever there is a change or update in that particular task, all followers associated with that task are updated automatically.
It provides significant features for task tracking. The easy-to-use interface allows you to add, delete, and modify tasks effortlessly. Furthermore, features such as recurring tasks and calendar sync enable project managers to automate reminders for routine tasks.
Key Features
· Limits the need for emails
· Calendar sync
· Extremely customizable
· Set recurring tasks
Shortcomings
· Lacks multi-person Tasks
· User-interface can slow down when there several tasks and documents open
· Entirely text-based interface
· No feature for time tracking and providing estimates
Doodle
Doodle is an online scheduling tool for carrying out meetings, regardless of whether they are in person or remote. The tool extensively uses visualization to create a snapshot of your availability and schedule meetings instantaneously.
The software fills up meetings and appointments on a first-come, first-served, and shows an open block for appointments. Guests on the same network as you can respond to your changing availability. Since the tool is easily integrated Microsoft Teams, Zapier, Slack, as well as others.
Key Features
· Alerts/Notifications
· Appointment Scheduling
· Automated Scheduling
· Employee Scheduling
· Group Scheduling
· Room Booking Management
Shortcomings
· Unclear time-zone options
Todoist
Todoist is a kind of advanced to-do list app designed for delegating tasks and projects. In terms of remote project management, Todoist can be the perfect solution for team task management. With the help of Todoist, you can easily project and assign responsibilities, share files, and discuss details with your team in greater detail.
Many users regard Todoist as a freemium to-do app that is compatible with a variety of platforms and devices, such as Android, Apple iOS, Mac, and Windows, as well as all major web browsers.
The tool also offers an extremely user-friendly interface that includes integrated productivity charts (as long as you have a premium account). It focuses on ensuring easy collaboration between project managers and team members while also providing a set of different classification tools. All these things improve output and increase productivity within the process.
Key Features
· Powerful Recurring Dates
· Real-Time Data Synchronization
· Productivity Visualization
· Multiple Priorities
· Archive Search
· File sharing
· Automatic backups
· Centralized team billing
Shortcomings
· A few important features not available to free users
Collaborating on multiple projects is already challenging in itself. However, with the help of these advanced collaborative tools, you can make most of your time and deliver projects within deadlines despite working remotely.