Remote team: 10 services for those who work from a distance

How effective can a remote team be? On the one hand, it depends on the personal responsibility of each individual employee. But how to organize the work of a group of people with different biorhythms and time zones? We found 10 services that reduce distances and optimize processes in a distributed team.

How did we come to use someone else's software

Did you have a remote team in those years when no one had time to develop convenient tools to optimize the interaction of such a team? We had. And it was inconvenient. Just like reading the first long sentence of this text. In the early 2000s, we ourselves began to develop tools to make our work processes easier, but we were overtaken by the whales. That's why we didn't reinvent the wheel. And they began to look for other niches where the whales do not look. We developed landing page templates when no one knew what it was. But that is also in the past.

Today we make gaming software to order. But the article is not about that. And about what allows us to do this software quickly and without unnecessary hassle. Go!

What do we have in common

So, we have assembled a team, right from all over the world. All that unites us is the presence of the Internet and the project we are working on. Being engaged in a project, we must understand who is doing what, at what stage these processes are, and how to agree on new tasks or discuss current ones.

To do this, there are three services that have proven themselves to be understandable and accessible:

Google Calendar

Helps organize personal time. In addition, it allows you to share your schedule with other users. This way, of course, you become transparent to colleagues, but at the same time, there is no need to hire an assistant or a secretary who makes appointments. It is easy to understand who and when is free to arrange a rally.

Rescuetime 

It also helps to optimize working time. Only unlike Google Calendar, the service compiles task statistics for you. So, without extra effort, you understand how much time it takes for certain processes.

With so many distractions and opportunities in the digital life, it's easy to get confused. Find the perfect work-life balance with RescueTime. The product will help you prioritize a series of daily habits so that you can focus and be more productive.

Trello

The simplest project management software. The interface is very simple: there are cards with notes on the board. Move them around as needed and see how the project develops.

Remember: None of the services will be useful for your team if the team management does not take these innovations seriously or if the project manager does not convey to the entire team the need to implement optimization programs. Therefore, first discuss with colleagues what you lack and what you would like to improve, then refer to the management with final conclusions. Otherwise, if the implementation of optimization services is interesting only to you, only you will use these programs. There are many more tools for optimizing personal effectiveness. 

In order for everyone to understand everyone correctly, it is necessary to discuss both independent work and team work, as well as how it will look when the pieces of the puzzle are combined into a single project.

How do we communicate

In order not to lose feedback, we communicate in chats and call up via video conferences. We do this in three programs, because we have not yet figured out which one is better:

Skype

Classic tool, but buggy. We try to use it, because it is available to everyone and installed as if in the 20th century. But when the technical side fails, then we “change" it with two other services.

Hangouts

Google baby. Very simple. Create a meeting, send a link to it and you can start the rally. Everything is simple, as with Google Docs.

Slack

Very popular in the corporate environment. Mainly due to the fact that it is possible to create several channels and set different topics for them. If you have a big team, you understand what we mean. When developers, managers and clients sit in the same feed, confusion is created and we are a lot nervous. That's why we love Slack.

How we work with each other's files

We point out mistakes, redo tasks or supplement them with four services that are perfect for this:

Google Drive

There is a lot of everything here: you can create text documents, make tables with data, prepare presentations and store files. You can also use a link or access to work on one file at the same time all together. Very comfortably.

Monosnap

We make screenshots with each other's mistakes. Fast and easy. Especially when there are a lot of mistakes, and they need to be corrected urgently. 

Dropbox

Cloud data storage that is synchronized with different devices when the Internet is available.

This is how we learned how to optimize the work of our team. What do you want!

Good luck!