It’s fair to say that we are currently operating in a different world, with the UK now in lockdown things have changed significantly over the past two weeks.
We’re turning to technology to keep us connected. Businesses and individuals are having to adapt faster than we ever thought possible and experiment with new ways of working.
The Innovation and Design team at Bromford have been working remotely and collaboratively for years (albeit not with childcare at the same time!) and we thought we’d share our current tools with you.
Google Suite (Teamwork and Productivity)
Before Bromford had an Office365 license the team had been using Google’s suite of tools. They are free and quite frankly amazing. Essentially they are an alternative to the Microsoft applications the majority of people have been using for decades. We've never really bottomed out security concerns with our ICT team (Hey, it's password protected, just like your laptops…) so we have a no sensitive or customer data rule and tend to use G Suite for planning, presentations and evaluations.
Let’s take a look at the core offering.
Google Drive - Put simply this is a cloud based filing system like OneDrive. Accessible from desktop, tablet and phone any changes made to files are automatically synced across all devices. You can share any document and have the ability to allow them to edit, view or comment. (more on that in a bit)
Google Docs - This one is a Microsoft Word alternative. If you want basic word processing and online collaboration look no further. Like all of the G suite products the best feature (in my opinion) is the ability to edit and comment in real time. In terms of remote collaboration I’ve not used anything that rivals google in this area. If you feel like guilt ridden because you are cheating on Word you can still download your file to .docx
Google Slides - Here’s PowerPoint rival. Again the core features you need to create a slide show are here, images, animations, transitions etc. I particularly like the funky templates you can source from the web to make the slide deck interesting.
Google Sheets - If you work in finance you’ll be agasp. How dare you suggest anything other than Excel I hear you shout. Well, don’t worry, nothing for you guys to see here. Move on. Everyone else who likes to keep things simple and has basic Excel skills Google Sheets does the job admirably. Basic formulas, pivots, graphs all here and ready for you to use.
The apps are available from a browser here (Chrome recommended) and available as ios and android apps.
Trello (Teamwork, Productivity and Task Management)
A team favourite. Trello is great for managing projects or workloads. Based on a Kaban board (read here for more information) you can collaborate with your team visually using columns and cards so that everyone has visibility of what is being worked on.
Columns are buckets of work like a project name or something like ‘todo’ and ‘completed’. The cards (tasks) are moveable and customisable for example you can add due dates, links, checklists, comments, visuals.
Trello is available online here and has ios and android apps too!
Alternatively, if you are a Microsoft devotee take a look at Microsoft planner here
WhatsApp (Communication)
Stating the obvious here as this is the go-to communication app. The team have used this for years too. Why? It's easy to set up, allows group chats, has a low learning curve and available on smartphones. If you want it on desktop head over to whatsapp web, scan the QR code with your phone camera and away you go.
MS Teams (Communication and Collaboration)
This is one I’ve been asked about loads. Teams is another communication/teamwork tool that's not that dissimilar to Whatsapp if you keep it simple.
At its core is a real time message board with added features. Its best feature is what I like to call threaded conversations or as Microsoft likes to call them channels. So instead of say having a conversation in one place about multiple projects (which gets messy and confusing very quickly) you can create a channel for a specific channel and keep the conversation focused.
You can also store O365 documents and collaborate and pin websites and applications to channels so everything is in one place for all to access.
Lastly, you can also whiz over to the chat functionality where Microsoft has built in the same functionality as Skype.
Whereby (Video Conferencing)
I had never heard of Whereby before I joined the team in September 2019 and what we use for our virtual team meetings. Whereby is browser-based and has the usual features you’d expect but it does have a subscription fee if you want more than one room and 4 participants.
Here’s the team in action.
Go here to view Whereby. They also offer ios and android apps too.
Alternatively use Skype or Teams if you have an O365 account!
Another fan favourite appears to be zoom video conferencing but we’ve never used it before. Have you?
Miro/Mural (Collaborative whiteboarding and Workshops)
Miro and Mural are visual online collaborative whiteboards allowing real-time collaborative brainstorming sessions, wire-framing, customer journey maps etc.
We are going to test these out ASAP and will let you know our thoughts soon. I’m most excited about these apps as they could be the answer to online facilitation workshops.
Help us out
This isn’t an exhaustive list. There are 1000’s of online tools out there! Are you using any tools we’ve not mentioned here? If so we’d love to hear about your successes and challenges.