Team Collaboration Tools on the Internet
Tags: Team Collaboration, Productivity, Work From Home, Internet, Organization

Work Collaboration

Team Collaboration Tools on the Internet

Photo by Van Tay Media on Unsplash

In the world of remote working these days, the tools on the internet becoming even more crucial than ever, not just for software developers but also for all nature of collaboration works.

There are many which are already commonly known such as

Github — code repository and sharing (or Gitlab). Various Google Products —Docs, Sheet, Slides, Form. (a similar to Microsoft Office, Word, Excel, PowerPoint) Zoom — Videoconferencing tool (40 minutes free talk for more than 2 participants)

However, there are some which are of a lesser-known to some degree (while still relatively popular already). Check out to see in case some might be handy for you.

Trello — Cards creation and project management

Image from https://trello.com/guide/create-a-board

If you are managing a project, and like to track works done, Trello will be helpful. The way of work is based on the agile methodology where one can create a card representing a work, and move from phase to phase (column to column) indicating the progress of the work.

Slack — Internal communication and messaging

Image from https://slack.com/intl/en-au/features

Working from home, how do we communicate? Online to communicate? Using Whatsapp, Facebook? Yes, while that is possible, how nice if you have an internal messaging tool for your group, where you can

Message directly to a person

Create channels of specific topics and messages within.

Create message thread within messages

The free tier of Slack allows you to message up to 10,000 messages.

What I love most is the ability to plugin various feature work API (e.g. allow Trello to message it), and also add fun stuff (GIF by Giphy), that cheers up the messaging.

Draw.io — Technical drawing tool

Image from https://desk.draw.io/support/solutions/articles/16000103852-customise-the-draw-io-interface

Strictly saying, this is not a collaborating tool, as it only allows a person to access the working document. However after one has done it, you could save it as a draw.io file for future edits or references.

A drawing illustrates a lot of things much more easily than just using words.

Fun Retro.io — Retrospective (post mortem) management

Image from https://easyretro.io/blog/funretro-update-3/

This is another agile thing. Continuous improvement is in the spirit of working agilely, where after each cycler of work, we look into what we do good, and what can we improve.

What I like is the template boards that have tens of templates for you to choose from to make retrospectives fun.

There are more here https://blog.teammood.com/retrospective-tools for reference.

Miro — Brainstorming and mind mapping tool

Image from https://twitter.com/mirohq/status/1241150280743432194

Imagine back in office, for brainstorming, everyone is given a stack of small papers. Then each will write their idea and paste it on a wall. One can also do mind mapping, or carding, etc.

The MIRO tool virtualize it, and we can create cards and place them anywhere on the virtual wall as you like. It’s good for mind mapping and brainstorming.

I have a team member who uses it for online presentation, where he zooms into the detail when sharing on a specific topic, and zoom out and move to the next section. Interestingly used.

Kudosboard — Greeting online tool

Picture from https://www.kudoboard.com/blog/6-great-ideas-for-teacher-appreciation-week-and-beyond/

Back in office, when a new team member joins the group or a person is leaving… or having a baby etc, we’ll write a big card to congratulate or wish the person well.

Virtually, the Kudosboard will provide such as well. The nicer part of it is, other than just a picture, one can also embed a video GIF, making well wishes more interesting.

LastPass — Password Management Tool

Image from https://www.lastpass.com/solutions/business-password-manager

There are so many tools, each require a credential by itself, so how should one manage it with the team. LastPass is a great tool for this, and help automatic login as well.

One deficiency of the LastPass is, its item doesn’t have the ability to be referred to in documentation (e.g. can’t be linked as an ID). Perhaps that is for some security reason. Still then overall it’s a great Password organization and sharing tool.