I am a big fan of learning about and experimenting with new management tools, styles and techniques. I have found that one of the toughest issues I deal with at work is communication. It’s hard enough to get your team to communicate with each other, and when you add in partner agencies and clients it gets even more challenging!
I have collated a list of the tools I would recommend to boost effective communication within your organisation. These range from the digital realm to the physical realm. Enjoy!
Slack
Without a doubt, Slack is the best tool I’ve found for team communication. Combining the best features of email and WhatsApp (my secondary methods of communication), Slack allows you to communicate with various team members inside and outside the organisation, regardless of where they are located.
Its channel feature is a great feature to keep track of various projects without the confusion of mail trails. It also allows you to keep all your thoughts and collateral in a centralised location. Slack makes it easy to brainstorm remotely, get approval from team members, partner agencies and clients, and broadcast info to larger teams. When they get their voice and video calling working well, I don’t see any reason to use any other platform.
- Link: https://slack.com
- Price: Freemium
- Platforms: All – the web, desktop app, mobile apps
Physical Colocation
In terms of creating that extra spark in a project, nothing beats face-to-face communication. Colocation allows a project- or client-centric mindset with easy osmosis of ideas. Valve talked about the great idea of desks with wheels in their employee handbook, allowing team members to physically co-locate when working on a particular project. At NATIVE VML, we employ similar methods.
Our client teams are co-located around the brand they work on to ensure the team chats to each other. We also create project areas dedicated to specific projects for the team to work together for the duration of the project. These are not new ideas by any means, but they work well in limiting the silo effect.
Google Docs
Google Docs has changed the way our teams work. Put simply, Google Docs is a free Microsoft Office replacement on steroids. Google Docs replaces Word, Google Sheets replaces Excel, and Google Slides replaces PowerPoint. Whilst there is a host of features and benefits to using Google Docs, the main bonus is the ability to collaboratively edit a document.
This makes collaboration a breeze. At NATIVE VML, we use this to collate campaign data from multiple agencies simultaneously, without the hassle of email trails and versioning. From here, we link the sheet to templatised slides that we have created, which will automatically show your results in graph format. This removes a ton of hassle from the reporting task and also allows you to create easy real- time dashboards for clients to track campaign progress. Definitely the most powerful tool in this pack.
- Link: https://docs.google.com
- Price: Free
- Platforms: All – the web, desktop app, mobile apps
Town Halls
Town Halls have been around for centuries, but tech start-ups have embraced them in recent years as a great way of getting everyone up to speed on company developments, as well as allowing a forum for team members to voice concerns.
Additionally, they are great for culture development, as they allow a space for rituals to develop in the company. Trello runs their town halls via video chat to ensure that the entire distributed team can be involved. They also use the space to celebrate their wins and the people in their team.
At NATIVE VML we use the time to update the team on the business performance, showcase campaigns going live, and celebrate team member’s achievements both in and out of the workplace. When done right, town halls can be viewed as a fun event rather than a hindrance to getting on with work.
InVision
InVision is a great tool for prototyping, as well as to simplify feedback and approvals on design work. It allows designers to easily share mock-ups with the team and client, where they can provide inline feedback directly on the design. This keeps all feedback and approvals on a centralised system (once again removing email trails and versioning issues).
The app also ensures your work is presented in as beautiful a manner as possible. If you are doing a lot of app prototyping or design work, InVision is a no-brainer. Check out more features here and here.
- Link: https://www.invisionapp.com
- Price: Freemium
- Platforms: All – the web, mobile apps
Wins Boards
At NATIVE VML, we use a physical wins board in our office to have an always-visible proof of success for the team. It’s a great way to show progress and ensure we keep focused on the positive. We have a designated slot in our town halls to celebrate our wins by putting printed copies of congrats from clients up on our wins board (probably the only time I ever use printed paper!). Highly recommended, and easy to setup.
Trello
Last, but not least, is Trello. Trello is all about visibility and accountability. It is based on the Kanban system, which allows you to easily organise and visualise progress on projects. It also shows who is accountable, and how they are progressing with their tasks. The Kanban method can be used physically on any wall with a few post-its, but as I am paper-averse, I prefer using the online method. Enter Trello.
At NATIVE VML, we use Trello to run our always on Social media work, as well as our campaigns. As an internal system, it allows our project managers to keep track of a large quantity of work with ease. Combining the Trello system with morning stand-up scrums allows us to easily see where the bottlenecks in the work are, and how we can fix those to focus on getting work done fast.
- Link: https://trello.com
- Price: Freemium
- Platforms: All – the web, mobile apps
Those are my top seven tools for communication! I hope they help you out. If you have any comments, questions or suggestions – find me on Twitter @levonrivers.