Top best practices and tools for team collaboration in the time of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic Kate Harris Follow Mar 17 · 5 min read

Slack, Buj, Asana, Skype, MS Teams for team collaboration in the time of COVID-19

COVID-19 coronavirus cases are increasing every day. Unfortunately the numbers are predicted to get worse before they flatten out. Increasing government restrictions and requirements of social distancing are leading to more and more people, around the world and in different industries, to start working remotely.

Once enterprises understand the advantages to remotely working teams it is likely that many of them will continue this practice post-COVID-19 pandemic.

Here are some best practices and tips for both enterprises and people about how to deal with transitioning from onsite to remote teams.

Enterprises

At the core, how your team members communicate, work, and maintain relationships with each other should be your first priority. Regardless of the role no one should feel isolated. The morale of your teams is just as important as the work that needs to continue to happen. The transition is happening because of a pandemic crisis, and your strategy needs to reflect that.

Using the right collaboration software is imperative. It can make the difference between remote teams increasing productivity or being a disaster due to distracting communications. When remote teams collaborate well they can actually gain an advantage over co-located teams. It is important that the tool not only facilitates work but also team socializing to maintain morale and team spirit. I’ve put together a list of some of my favorite tools which will help keep your remote team productive:

Slack

Slack is a popular collaboration tool, with a large user base. It lets users send direct messages (DMs) to a single person or a group, and it has the feature to create different channels as well. The app also supports video calling. While this isn’t a replacement for cloud storage services, you are able to drag, drop and share files with your colleagues directly within Slack.

Pros: Simple, easy to use, broad integrations with other applications, team socializing

Cons: Can be very distracting, work is spread across multiple channels and DMs, channel and DM sprawl can get confusing, can take time to scan for relevant comms

Buj

Buj has a natural collaboration model. Users can create posts and then have multiple conversations about it, share files, have audio/video calls, or screen sharing sessions, across teams and individuals. This model is similar to how people work when co-located. The AI functions helps ensure that users focus on what’s important rather than be distracted by numerous channels and DMs.

Pros: Easy to use, focused communications, good for work and team socializing

Cons: New to market, no native MacOS app; just web and mobile, have to sign up for free access

Asana

Asana’s been designed to track the work of employees easily. Using the platform, users can make todo lists for ongoing projects, set reminders for upcoming deadlines, and send requests to colleagues. Users can organize all their projects in a list or board format, and there’s a search function so users can locate past work quickly. In short, Asana provides you a way to stay super-organized, and facilitate conversations for updates on how work is moving forward.

Pros: Easy to use, more structured, easy to track work

Cons: More rigid, not good for non-task related convos, might need another tool for team socializing

Skype

Skype is a very popular communication application, which is liked by many users. Users can chat with Skype, use it for voice or video calls, and file sharing. It is one of the oldest communication applications.

Pros: Well known, tried and tested

Cons: Not widely integrated with apps, the age is starting to show

MS Teams

MS Teams, is a team communication tool designed for enterprises. MS Teams offers you chat which is thread focused. It integrates with Skype for Business and other Microsoft Office 365 tools. You can also share files with the platform.

Pros: Thread focus chat helps organize chats, integration with other Microsoft tools is useful if you are already using MS Office 365.

Cons: MS Teams has some performance problems since the COVID-19 pandemic, many teams and DMs can get confusing

People (and Enterprises)

Regardless of which tool you select here are some best practices you should follow:

Don’t confuse brief communications with clear communications: When trying to be efficient there can be a tendency to be terse. But such brevity can be confusing for the rest of the team leading them to waste time trying to figure out you mean. (And then often get them wrong.) Don’t presume that everyone in the team knows what your cues and shorthand mean. Invest the effort to communicate with the goal of being super clear, regardless of the tool. The fact is that you can never be too clear, but it is so easy to be unclear without knowing it.

Don’t spam your team with messages: Do you follow up on asks by messaging, email and phone? Are you one of the people who ask if someone got your previous message? Abusing your access to team members can be distracting and borders on a form of harassment. The tool you choose can help mitigate this situation to some extent. But using any of them for the same message again and again is counterproductive; and can be annoying.

Establish chat patterns: Remote teams need to create new patterns that establish clarity in remote communication like “No Need to Respond (NNTR)” etc. that bring efficiency and clarity to remote conversations. Individual teams can also establish their own patterns — e.g., to use or not use Slack, Buj, or Google Docs.

Often human predictability is perceived as a defect, it’s like gold at work, especially in remote collaboration scenarios. People are unique, but our consistent behaviors help others communicate with us more effectively — and we all benefit.

Take advantage of written communications: Some people find it challenging talking in a group setting. But once behind a screen they can find their voice and contribute to the team even more than they would in person. Written communications reduces the necessity of interpersonal skills and physical appearance, providing a way to share power and decision-making — resulting in more effective work.

Body language is not actually lost during remote collaboration, but depending on the tool used, it is replaced by other virtual cues. A great deal of meta-communication and virtual leakage happens in digital environments, and it only takes paying attention to read between the lines. The use of exclamation marks or a particular emoji can communicate emotion just as well as making a face or adopting other body language.

Conclusion

While the COVID-19 pandemic is a horrible human crisis causing the move to remote teams as people and enterprises we can make it work for us. We might even improve productivity and the team members’ quality of life. Let’s look at this moment as an opportunity to improve ourselves and our organizations. Pick the right tool and follow the best practices above and I believe you’ll be well on your way to success.