1 – Have a team collaboration platform (not email)
Slack – is definitively a great tool to keep everyone informed about what is happening in your company. At Mechasys, we use it as our main channel for internal communication.
Mattermost – also is another great communication platform and it is open source.
2 – Have a video-conferencing system
Google Meet – is a platform that allows you to meet people as if they were at the office. We use Google Meet regularly, both for internal and international meetings.
Zoom – is also a platform that offers different features, such as the gallery view.
3 – Use a digital calendar throughout your company
Google Calendar – is just one of our favorite tools. It makes it so easy to schedule meetings, access video conferences, book rooms, etc. This is one of our primary tools at Mechasys.
Outlook Calendar – For Microsoft lovers, is also essential, but feels is less collaborative than Google.
4 – Be on the cloud, and keep track of everything
Google Drive – Having access to a drive is crucial for being able to work remotely. If you have a physical server, it may be a difficult decision to switch to a cloud server, but we strongly recommend it.
Confluence – is better if you go deeper into file documentation. It is a great tool to improve collaboration between your teams and projects.
5 – Have an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software in place
Jira – is what we use at Mechasys in order to develop our product at lightning speed and to make sure everyone respects our SCRUM structure. Jira may be a bit complex to implement at the beginning though. This is why we strongly recommend Trello.
Trello – is one of the greatest tools for managing projects. Both construction and IT implementation projects. It is simple, fast and effective. We strongly recommend to every contractor to use Trello in their day-to-day.
6 – Maintain your company culture
Discord – because even while being at home, it is important to keep your company culture and chat with others just as you would over the coffee machine. We use Discord for this purpose; one of the simplest tools for verbal communication.