How to Collaborate with Remote Team – Tut for Designers

Do you own a small creative business focused on building website designs? Or probably you create illustrations or make footage for ads and promotional campaigns? If you work like that, you obviously have got a team of experts working together on the common goal.

It’s great if you work in an office and able to discuss all business issues personally, but sometimes the team members are located in different countries and cities worldwide, so in this case one should resolve the tasks on how to easily:

• communicate with each other;
• track the time;
• share files;
• build team relations.

Every task is possible to fulfill with the help of modern tools which allow to bring the team together as well as make every team member work more efficiently. Let’s see how to make this real.

1. Communication

There is no team work possible without communication. Members of the small team are surely going to easily remember each other’s names and birthdays, find some common interests, create understanding and friendly ambience while discussing anything online.

The big team is likely going to be divided into departments where it’s also important to encourage folks be friendly and well-disposed with each other because the efficiency of team work depends both on expertise of every member and the relations in the crew.

There are multiple types of remote communication today including email, phone calls, common chats with or without video, and messengers.

The most popular apps for online communication are such as:

Telegram

Viber

Facebook Messenger

Skype

WhatsApp

2. Time Tracking

Time tracking allows to count and consider time you spent for fulfilling any certain task. If you work with a remote team, it would be great to allow every team member control themselves and create their own schedule using the time tracking tool.

By the way, you can control yourself to find out your weak points and learn what you should change to improve yourself. The great tools for time tracking are as follows:

Zoho People

ActiTime

Jibble

Toggl

TimeCamp

3. File Sharing

Designers and developers often work in a way which requires sharing a big amount of files like PSDs, HTML pages, some pieces of code for feedback and approval, etc. Small files are possible to send in email attachments, but the ability to store lots of files as well as access them at any time and by every member of a team is possible thanks to more convenient tools like the following ones:

Dropbox

Google Drive

SugarSync

WeTransfer

Hightail

4. Team Building

Effective team building is based on many aspects, and there are virtual collaboration and project management tools helpful in this case. Some team building programs combine game with work, so this playful mood brings the team together and makes working process more efficient.

If you work remotely, it would be great to create a general chat room for all team members where they can discuss their personal questions, exchange funny images, etc. Please see the useful tools for team work and team building purposes:

Trello

Basecamp

Slack

Teambonding

InVision

Hope we’ve managed to help you find the right tool for your remote team work.