Software & Online Tools for Virtual Team Collaboration

click to enlarge

Creating a team environment where everyone is on the same page doesn't necessarily require a great deal of effort - if you have the right software. When it's implemented and used correctly, project management software can alleviate many issues. Software alone cannot save a project, but it can increase team trust, communication, and cooperation.

With an interactive and shareable calendar, Wrike can assist is planning team meetings. Wrike is a project management software tool that uses collective intelligence, and allows project team to contribute to management process. Users can create tasks, share them, keep track of the tasks’ progress and control their completion. Wrike also enables users to organize their tasks in projects and activities, then discuss and work on them together^.. The main advantage to using Wrike is that it allows managers to decentralize updating and control of overall plans and permit online access to plans that is equal for all selected participants.

Read Ronda Robert's review of Wrike for more detailed information.

Microsoft OneNote is a comprehensive system intended to reduce information overload, and save time. Office OneNote can help your project management team be more productive, by keeping the information it needs at its fingertips. Accessibility to key information helps to reduce the time teams spend searching for information across e-mail messages, paper notebooks, file folders, and printouts.

A useful feature in OneNote is the ability to take meeting notes. Teams can create a living repository of group decisions and brainstorming sessions that adds continuity and context to subsequent meetings.

In Microsoft One Note - Review, written by Nacie, the benefits and challenges of this powerful tool are detailed.

Two great ways to increase team communication without the headaches that accompany email, are discussion forums and blogs. Both are great tools because they are as simple as email to use, but the conversations remain within the project and won't get lost in your inbox.

Deskaway incorporates both a team blog and discussion forum. DeskAway allows all your team members to share all the great stuff that goes on within your team - news, announcements, links, articles and ideas etc. This application is a solid one-stop for all your team's communication tools.

DeskAway has too many features and benefits to list in this article, read more about DeskAway in Deanna's review.

Every great project management team can be made better by the use of project management software. This article outlined several options from which you can choose. Visit the Bright Hub Project Management Channel for information on many more.