10 Tips on Choosing the Right Team Collaboration Software
Collaboration is working together in complete unison, but it might be easier said than actually done. Teams need to stay in touch, share the same information, and they need to achieve more than what they could achieve individually. And this is not a very easy task, as it involves several people. Effective collaboration is becoming a real challenge, especially now as most businesses are working remotely. And to make the working together process much easier, software developers are offering a lot of options in the form of online team collaboration software. Let’s dive in.
What is team collaboration software?
Collaboration software is an application used by people in different workplaces to share and organize the work they do. These tools help people complete any project that requires more than one person by allowing them to have an online workspace where they can communicate over documents, share files and notes, and work together on projects.
It is the best way to keep track of teamwork. And it is very important to choose the right tool based on your organization’s needs and budget. Shared file systems, tasks list views, brainstorming sessions, file sharing, time tracking, and many more features are available with team collaboration software. The right software can help you to get more projects done using less time.
There are many factors that you can consider to make this choice. And this article will discuss some of these aspects and approaches to find the right software for your organization.
10 Tips on Choosing the Right Team Collaboration Software:
1. Team Communication As A Must
The first tip is pretty obvious – communication is a must. We all know that your team won’t be able to collaborate if they can’t properly communicate. Communication is an essential part of any team, especially if there is a number of people who are working on a single project. A strong team can have amazing results and one weak link in this chain may result in the failure of this project. Therefore, it’s extremely important to have the proper communication between team members to ensure successful cooperation.
Having a tool that helps team members to communicate with each other is vital. Especially if you have a remote team, your collaboration tool has to offer this feature. No matter if it’s a private chat or an all-team message group, all team members need to have an opportunity to communicate and collaborate effectively. So the first thing to search for in collaboration software in my personal opinion is the ability to easily reach each other whenever it’s needed.
2. Better Control Over Your Projects
The second thing that you should pay attention to is how effective it is in creating a plan of projects and tasks. If you’re looking to manage a large number of complex projects, it’s crucial that you choose an effective software solution. The project management feature will help you and your team leaders in organizing their teams working on multiple projects. It will allow all the team members to work together, share ideas, solve problems and make strategic decisions about the project.
The right collaboration tool with a project management feature should help your company to easily manage projects, allocate tasks to the team members, resolve conflicts between team members and get updates about project status in real-time. So make sure you are choosing the best option with this feature for your team.
3. Check Out The Security Features
Sure, you want your team to be as involved as possible, but that doesn’t mean you want everything they do to be out in the open. Just make sure you look at privacy options before you choose a service. Everyone has access to the internet, which means they will likely be able to connect with your business in some way. That threat becomes a reality of devastating proportions when someone compromises your security measures through a hack. Even for businesses that don’t handle enormous amounts of sensitive data, hacks can result in enormous losses of money and time spent fixing damages.
You might need specific security features in addition to standard ones. It is vital that you pick one that fulfils all the security requirements of your company. Encryption is especially crucial these days if you want your customers to share confidential data with you. This is why you should always check out the security features while looking for the best software on the market.
4. Go With The User Choice
If you want your team to be more productive while working together, it’s smart to use the tools they love. By putting them in a position where they are comfortable and familiar with the technology they use, you can reach their full potential. If a team member is excited about using a tool, then they are more likely to increase their productivity and become even more excited about the tools they use. When someone becomes passionate about a tool they use regularly, then that team member will likely have an impact on the other team members’ mindsets.
5. Find The Suitable Price
Yes, collaboration software can be an investment in your company’s success. But what about the pricing? Some team software developers add features and benefits that you may not need in your business model. Extensive integrations are great if you have the resources to use them, but unnecessary if they’re not applicable to you. The cost of team software is something that remains an important issue for small businesses. It’s more affordable than ever, but it’s certainly one of the areas that team leaders need to consider. Sometimes, it’s worth paying a little more for the extra functionality – especially if it helps you to be more efficient in the long run.
6. Choose Multiple Features
When considering your team collaboration software, consider how diverse the features are. It can be very frustrating to use a tool that is only focused on one part of the collaboration. Teams may end up spending more time changing around software than working on actual projects.
There are various features available when it comes to collaboration software, such as task boards, timeline planning, list viewing, file sharing, and notifications. So sometimes it’s much better to pay extra and get multiple features in one software.
7. Are There Any Custom Roles?
Roles and responsibilities are considered important in most organizations because of the need to strengthen the level of control over certain levels of workflow. It becomes increasingly important when there are different levels of expertise that you need to keep in mind while getting a project done. For example, if you don’t need your team members to edit projects and tasks, just don’t give them edit rights. You should be able to do this in the collaboration tool and this may save you from keeping track of access levels in other ways.
8. Look For Ease Of Use
This is one of the most important criteria when choosing the right tool for the team. When you start using new software, it’s vital to consider how easy it is going to be for everyone to get used to it. You can request a demo and make sure it’s not complicated software that only tech-savvy employees will be able to use. Look for an intuitive and user-friendly interface, so all team members should be able to pick up very quickly.
9. How Many People Can Use It?
There will come a time you need more support and this is when it becomes critical that you have implemented something like collaboration software. The key point is that you should think about the options available to you if you need to work with a larger number of people at any one time. If you don’t have this requirement now then you need to think about your plans for expansion over the next few years.
10. Online Document Storage
Finally, it is vital that your team can review these documents together easily and collaborate on them if needed. You want to absolutely be able to guarantee that the files you have all your teammates are sharing can be accessed exactly how they were designed to be simple. And collaboration software that you choose should be able to store these files effortlessly, and without taking up too much space.
Conclusion
Work together. Think together. Create together. Collaboration plays a vital role in maintaining corporate productivity. That’s why having the perfect tool will help your team achieve more. And as you see, there are many different functionalities and features in collaboration software. Make sure you pick the one that fits your team the best and extract the most value out of it.