I need to do 3 main things in every project:

1. communicate in real time with more than 2 people
2. create tasks and planning roadmaps
3. collaborate on documents

My other requirements for this setup are:

– native apps for the most common platforms (win, mac, mobile, tablet)

– tools already familiar to most people

– multi-account support in every tool

– tools that are as cheap as possible. In this case:  FREE

1. Realtime communication: standard email + SLACK

Slack is pretty similar to IRC with the ability to integrate with other tools. It has mobile apps on every platform. After introducing Slack, some companies have abandoned standard email communication or intranet. With Slack, you can brainstorm, discuss, comment, chat for fun or read news. It’s also very useful as a notification tool.

It has all you need to begin your project. You can create and asses tasks and roadmaps, check up on backlog,  discuss items and set deadlines. It’s based on my favourite agile principle with paper boards but in digital form. It’s minimalistic and easy to use. It’s very useful not only for developers but also marketing departments, startups or even non-profit organisations.

The main reason for choosing this tool is that everyone is pretty familiar with Google suite. It has also apps for every platform. It’s easy and intuitive.

You can  achieve efficiencies by integrating all these tools together. You can see data from one tool in another. As a manager, I mostly use Slack for this purpose. I assume that Slack is working on their own project management and document collaboration tool. But I’m fond of specific tools for specific solutions and  integrating them with other tools.

I’m able to manage 99% of my work with these 3 tools in multiple activities and companies. We use them in the following companies:

– Websupport.sk

– Nicereply.com

– Inhiro.com

– Slovensko.digital

– Neseda.com 

What are your suggestions? Which tools do you use or recommend?