Online Meetings, Workshops & Virtual Presentations
Zoom
Zoom is a video conferencing tool that can be used to effectively communicate with your teams virtually. This easy-to-use software means that you can still schedule and attend meetings or workshops from anywhere, with access on all of your devices. They have great collaboration tools like breakout rooms and whiteboarding that can make your meetings more engaging and interactive. Zoom was by far the most popular tool for online meetings. It is also what we prefer to use for important meetings and even large group workshops.
Skype (and Microsoft Teams)
Skype, a Microsoft product, is another great conferencing tool for teams. Offering both chat and video/voice call features, this tool can be used to connect with members of your team virtually. You can also easily share your screen with participants on the call to further collaborate and communicate together. Connected to Skype, people also frequently mentioned Microsoft Teams as a powerful tool to help them work and collaborate remotely.
Online Whiteboarding, Ideation, & Collaborative Visualization
Mural
MURAL brands itself as a “digital workspace for visual collaboration.” This incredibly useful design thinking software and innovation tool can help you and your team think and collaborate visually. Create diagrams, brainstorm topics and ideas, and facilitate more impactful meetings and workshops. This is a popular tool for those running design sprints online.
Miro
Miro looks and feels like an online whiteboard. It used to be called RealtimeBoard. This tool can again be used to facilitate brainstorming, mapping, and diagramming with your team or workshop participants. It’s easy to use and again allows every member of your team or program to be actively involved and collaborating together. We synthesized the 30 insights we found in the social networks with a Miro whiteboard.
Surveys and Eliciting Feedback
SurveyMonkey
SurveyMonkey is one of the leading survey tools available. This software program is designed to easily measure and understand feedback from participants. You can use it to conduct surveys at the start of your program, to explore how many participants understand a topic throughout, or at the end as an exit survey to receive powerful feedback to improve as a facilitator.
TypeForm
TypeForm is an alternative survey option that provides quite a bit of customization when designing and setting up your survey. You can use this tool for similar activities that you would SurveyMonkey.
Calendars & Scheduling Meetings
Calendly
If you need help scheduling meetings and don’t want to resort to the same-old emails back and forth, Calendly might be the tool for you. This free online scheduler makes it easier to find the best time to meet with everyone on your team, or to schedule a one-on-one meeting in an open spot in your calendar that could be changing rapidly.
Rally
Since scheduling meetings can often become a chore, Rally is designed to make this process a bit easier by allowing each team member to pick which slots of time they are available. Then, the meeting can be scheduled based on when everyone can be included. The simple voting system is easy to understand and takes out much of the work involved with tracking down everyone’s schedules.
Communication & Messaging
Slack
Slack originally started as a messaging tool for internal teams that would essentially replace emails. With a similar appearance and feel of most messaging apps, Slack allows you to create custom channels to discuss certain topics or ideas. It’s great to keep your messages organized in one place, and so that you can only include the right people on any given conversation channel (rather than a mass email chain that often cluttered inboxes!).
WhatsApp is a relatively new player on the field and offers reliable messaging and communication services to people who use the app on their phone or computer. Their group chats allow you to share messages, photos, and videos with up to 256 people at once. Its simple design and straightforward features make it easy to connect with the people you need to and keep the conversation flowing.
Storage & File Collaboration
Google Drive
If your team, program, class, or workshop requires collaborating on documents or spreadsheets, you may want a cloud-based storage software that can not only keep your documents safe, but also allow you to collaborate together in real-time. Google Drive is a full-suite of these kinds of products, with Google Docs, Google Slides, Google Sheets, and Google Forms.
Dropbox
This alternative cloud-based storage system also allows for the collaboration of documents and file sharing. You can download Dropbox to your computer and it will sync between the cloud and your device. Any changes are made in real-time, so all members or participants can access the latest version when they need to.
Managing Projects
Trello
Trello looks and feels similar to the social media platform Pinterest. This collaboration tool allows you to create “Boards” where you can generate ideas, edit, and save important information in one place. Work with your team and move tasks over as they are completed or as you decide on an idea to prototype and run with. This tool can really be customized into whatever you want it to be, from an ideation/inspiration board to a task manager or class resources tool.
Asana
Asana is another popular work management tool that will help you and your team to manage projects. It helps people in organizations to more easily organize and plan workflows and projects so a team’s work can be on schedule. This is a popular software for project managers and those that are practicing agile in their organizations.”