Design your way

If you’re leading a relatively small web design or development team, then the most common ways to organize and share information are meetings, e-mails, and spreadsheets. These methods are faulty, for a number of reasons. For instance, e-mails don’t always manage to deliver the intended message on time, meetings are notoriously unpredictable and time-consuming, not to mention that spreadsheets tend to pile up as you take on more and more projects.

Web based solutions for project management upend this norm. Some of these give creative start-ups the perfect environment to control their projects. Check below for 15 suggestions of top-class collaboration apps.

Paymo

If we’re going to start talking about online project management tools for designers and developers, then Paymo is first on the list. As far as task management and time tracking software goes, this one exceeds expectations. Users have a prioritized view of their projects and clients on their dashboard, along with a timesheet. Nevertheless, it’s down to each user to decide on the nature of the information that greets them in overview.

Overall, Paymo comes in handy when your team has many projects on the line, and wish to see them through whether you’re in front of your desktop (PaymoPlus and Paymo widgets for Mac and Windows), or on the move (with apps for iOS and Android devices). Since it’s available in 16 languages, anyone in the world can make use of Paymo. You can use templates for your projects, and for the e-mails you send: expense estimations, invoices, and one to three payment reminders.

Creately Diagramming

We all make diagrams at one point or another, whether to illustrate how the budget assigned to one of our projects should be spent, or for other reasons. The good news is that some online tools make easy work of your task, be it to diagram for a sitemap, a database, UML or UI mockup. You may be interested to know more about Creately Diagramming.

Here’s what I’m sure will make a difference in the way your work gets done. First of all, it’s no longer necessary to start from zero every single time, as Creately lets you choose a template that you can then modify in a single click – thus, you save time. Even further, smart shapes let you cut down diagrams and convert text to graphics. Call real time whiteboard sessions, and easily strike up diagrams with your colleagues and customers.

TeamGantt

I mentioned earlier that working on many spreadsheets is a potential risk for your workflow. Imagine that, as you get started on more and more spreadsheets, you happen to close an older one. It’s not completed yet, but that detail slips your mind. So, you have to get back to it, incur necessary updates, and inform your team members, plus the client(s). That is probably a familiar memory, for most of you reading this article. Yet, it’s also one that you can get rid of, for good.

With TeamGantt, you can seamlessly handle all of your projects, and create task dependencies, project baselines, as well as integrate ongoing projects with your desktop calendar. Heads-up: an unlimited number of users can work with TeamGantt for free for up to 30 days!

Notism

The unanimous desire is to end up with a great end result that everyone is happy with. Feedback plays an important role in that process, so it makes sense to employ auxiliary software, which changes how we share incomplete designs meant for web or mobile, and discuss them. Whether you’re waiting for clients to sign a deliverable, or want to get things straight with your coworkers, Notism can give your static design the rendition of a high-definition prototype, and invites whomever is concerned to provide genuine feedback.

Crowdbase

It goes without saying that, if you really want to run a successful business, you have to know everything there is to know about your competitors, and about the industry in general. Thus, a good source of information is vital. Crowdbase offers online team collaboration with a twist. You can rely on it to gather and share the valuable information that you need, on top of establishing user groups, sharing files among each other, and seeing activity stats and reports.

Wrike

Absolute transparency every step of the way while working on a project can only accelerate your team’s productivity. You can ensure transparency with Wrike, which is compatible with Android and iOS, and has a unique formula that combines the best features related to project management and team collaboration. In short, Wrike users are constantly in the loop with activity streams, newsfeed updates, and a Notification Center. Furthermore, documents and task descriptions can be altered by one or more users at a time.

Casual

Solutions that offer the possibility of proper planning remain to this day unbeknownst to some digital professionals. It often happens that we schedule projects in our minds, and maybe transfer that vague idea of a schedule on a piece of paper. Web designers are notoriously receptive to visual elements, and several project management platforms take that into consideration. Casual is definitely one of them, since it basically lets users draw plan like flowcharts, create visual product roadmaps, save their projects, and use templates.

Teamfocus

The vast majority of experienced creatives have adopted certain working habits. The idea is to settle on some patterns that are both comfortable and efficient on a personal level. None of that changes when you are part of team, except that more people fall in a certain work routine. A web based project management tool should support your established patterns, and not upend them. Teamfocus is a great collaborative environment, which you can also use to receive customer support notifications and track bugs.

Mural.ly

We are thrilled with working on UX design, but we rarely muster the same enthusiasm to enlist formal platforms for collaboration – possibly because we deem them unnecessary or too much of a bother. Mural.ly, however, can give your team a canvas to express their ideas crystal clear, and work towards common goals. In terms of content, it’s possible to drop any type of file from personal folders, or scooped from somewhere on the internet.

Join.me

Ever thought of using specialized software to hold online meetings with your staff? Most solutions on the market actually end up complicating things. Join.me from LogMeIn doesn’t leave you hanging anytime you want to hold a meeting in order to pitch a client – or deliver a presentation.

Yammer

Can you imagine how easy it would be to collaborate with your team mates in conditions that mimic social networking? Your colleagues can synchronize with Yammer, a web based collaboration tool which helps them work together towards achieving goals. If you’re not a fan of organizational charts and specific job descriptions, this tool is for you.

Hall

Why not turn your attention to a free resource? Believe it or not, this team solution has been used by VH1 and Amazon, which makes it good enough for your start-up. With Hall, you can rest assured knowing that your data is safely encrypted, and so share files with your team over desktop or mobile devices.

ViewFlux

The best collaboration products that you can possibly go for as a web designer, respect your need to work with visual tools. A proper example would be ViewFlux, where users are not just able to store the source files for their designs, but they can also present high-fidelity prototypes, for coworkers and customers or shareholders to discuss.

Twoodo

To simplify your work even further, here is one tool that does away with the necessity to deal with forms and templates while working on a client project. Twoodo is exceptionally easy to use, and does not make you go to great lengths to understand what it’s all about.

Trello

Trello comes in last, but it’s the definition of simplicity. You can use this tool to organize tasks and to-do lists using visual cards, starting from basic concept and going all the way to completion. You can also see what task each of your team members are engaged in, if you look at the activity updates on the leftmost side of your screen.

Ending thoughts

It’s amazing how many online solutions you find, when you know what you’re looking for. In the present context, nothing is more vital for the well-being of your start-up business than advanced tools that help you organize and defeat your competition. What do you reckon would be a fine choice of project management tools from this list, or do you already have a preferential solution? We’re eager to hear you out, so please leave us your comment.