Software That Helps Remote Teams Stay Organized

The emerging tendency to convert the business model of companies based in the USA to the decentralized and distributed approach can never be stopped or even reversed. Indeed, it has revolutionized the entire engineering process of the corporate team collaboration. Once the organization opts to stop using the classic framework and go remote in terms of its operations, it shifts the responsibility of ensuring appropriate alignment, proper velocity and efficient communication to digital tools and software.

The proximity bias together with the notion of the office visibility mask many inefficiencies inside the organization. Being distributed means revealing each and every inefficiency that exists. In case the technical workflows of the project are not structured properly, the organization risks facing inefficient processes: losing valuable information due to unstructured chats, reporting becoming a sort of “presence theater” and switching between applications causing overload. To build a streamlined team, the organization has to switch to the digital world from emails.

1. Unified Project Management Hubs (The Single Source of Truth)

The major pain point of any distributed organization is information chaos. Allowing the project team to use local files, note-taking platforms and pinned chats leads to the so-called information retrieval lag. Solving the issue can be done by building the Single Source of Truth.

Asana: An industry-standard platform for managing project workflows. Using Asana, you will be able to allocate tasks and dependencies to design a project visual timeline.

Jira: A collaborative platform aimed to manage agile software engineering projects. It helps to configure sprints and handle project deployment via Kanban boards.

Monday.com: A versatile no-code digital workspace to manage corporate tasks and processes. Monday allows building customized project flows, automatically tracking project velocity and creating integrated cross-departmental dashboards.

Building a centralized platform for handling projects is going to help you achieve great success. There is no need to have the project update meetings as everyone will be able to check everything with just a couple of clicks.

2. Shared Digital Workspaces and Knowledge Management (The Corporate Memory)

As your distributed business continues to grow by recruiting additional employees, you will have to organize your company’s memory. Otherwise, working only via chats and personal meetings reduces efficiency greatly. The most recommended method in this situation is creating the internal wiki page.

Notion for Teams: The most flexible digital environment to manage internal knowledge. Teams can utilize Notion to store SOP documents, product roadmap, marketing collateral, branding, etc.

Confluence: A comprehensive solution for knowledge management inside enterprises. Confluence allows collaborating and managing information within a single source of truth.

Basecamp: A first-generation digital workspace platform. Basecamp allows managing different aspects of projects: message boards, task lists, chat channels, etc.

3. Real-Time Collaboration and Communication Frameworks (The Virtual Office)

Another important aspect of working remotely is collaboration and communication framework. Though asynchronous communication channels and documentations are really useful, sometimes it’s required to hold live calls to resolve the issues.

Slack: The most powerful channel for remote collaboration. By using it, you will be able to structure your communications by projects or clients.

Microsoft Teams: An outstanding solution for remote team communication if your company uses MS solutions. Useful for organizing video meetings, instant messages and cloud storage.

Miro: A unique online virtual whiteboard for brainstorming and sharing ideas in real-time. Miro allows drawing sticky notes to share ideas with designers and engineers.

4. Document Management and Cloud Asset Infrastructure (The Vault)

The next pain point of your distributed business management is document versioning. Back and forth emails with various document versions result in decreasing efficiency of your project. Rather than doing so, introduce cloud asset management infrastructure.

Google Workspace (Drive): The industry-standard software suite that allows managing documents. Using Google Drive, you will be able to edit documents simultaneously.

Box: A cloud-based file sharing platform aimed for industries with strict compliance requirements (banks, hospitals, etc.). A very secure solution protecting against any possible data leakage.

SharePoint: The Microsoft tool for document management with custom workflows. It allows building corporate portals both public and private.

5. Scheduling Automation and Asynchronous Alignment (The Time Engineers)

Yet another important challenge to be faced in terms of managing distributed teams is the problem with time. Organizing live meetings with people from various regions and time zones is not easy. Moreover, having live meetings on a regular basis hampers team productivity. To avoid the issue, introduce the automated scheduling.

Calendly for Teams: A powerful software suite for automating the process of arranging live meetings with clients and team members. Integrating it with the calendar helps to arrange live sessions fast.

Loom: One of the best live session alternatives for saving time. Instead of arranging video calls, it’s much easier to make a video demonstration and provide a link.

Clockwise: Advanced AI-driven calendar software that optimizes your schedule. This application is going to analyze the schedule and adjust it.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

1. How to avoid app fatigue when communicating asynchronously?

To avoid additional friction in managing the apps, integrate all the tools into the project management hub. For example, Asana allows connecting such tools as Slack and Google Drive. That’s how you will receive notifications from all these tools right in Asana.

2. Is it possible to monitor performance of the team without any micro-management?

Certainly, you may shift to tracking productivity of your employees. Using the software for project management, it’s easy to identify such parameters as completed tasks in a timely manner with high quality, so there is no reason to worry.

3. How to maintain secure environment for your distributed company?

To minimize any possible data loss in cloud software, you will have to implement special tools. The ones include identity management, multi-factor authentication and others. Also, all cloud solutions should be compliant with industry standards and provide access to corporate VPN.

4. Which asynchronous tools allow collaborating in time zones?

Introducing asynchronous communication tools allows collaborating in time zones. Today, one developer records some code using Loom and shares it in Asana. Meanwhile, the QA specialist sitting in Tokyo will open the project dashboard in Asana and test the code, documenting the bugs in Notion.