Ask HN: For remote company, what tools do you use to manage teams and projects?

16 points by sr3d 7 years ago | 12 comments

jperras 7 years ago |

  * IM: we use IRC. Yes, we know it's old. But we can and do run our own IRC server.
  * Video: Zoom
  * Source control: Github + github issues/pull requests
  * Project management: Github
  * Email: they're all kind of the same, as long as you can manage an org (all *@example.com addresses), it's good.
  * Time tracking: custom OS X menubar application
  * Fun stuff: some native apps/bots/etc. for sharing jokes/memes/screenshots/reaction gifs that we wrote to help build more a sense of camaraderie since we all live so far apart and in vastly different timezones.

We've been doing this for ~7 years now, so we're probably doing a few things right :)

[Edit: formatting]

slipwalker 7 years ago | |

i would love to know more about this "custom OS X menubar application". Is it on github ?

jperras 7 years ago | | |

It is not - we develop a lot of our own internal tools that better suit our workflows and varied tasks, since we don't fit a traditional mold of "agency" or "startup".

In reality it's just a little window that pops up at a time you can set and has some smart defaults, and makes the resulting compiled data available at another internal web application for further analysis.

dorfuss 7 years ago |

At a Fortune500 company, I work for the Global IT departament, developing tools, providing top tier IT support, reporting, access management, change control and management, network management, contacting with vendors, doing market research etc. - we have a simple setup:

For daily work - Everything Google - Hangouts/Meet for instant chat and calling, Callendar for coordinating meeting times, Google Drive for sharing files and working together on documents. It's really not optimal, I know, I know, but we still use Spreadsheets for tracking issues (yes, we are not idiots, but we are not integrated with our vendors and we keep spreadsheets to keep track of open tickets, and projects for our little team of <10people), and GMail.

For internal tickets and problem management - ServiceNow.

For intranet - Jive.

There are two problems with these tools: e-mail is the most counterproductive tool ever. I get 100 emails daily, and they are not relevant. I would love to work on "action items" rather than mail + chat for instant messaging, and I would really like to opt out from conversation threads that I don't need to be on. With spreadsheets - of course you'd rather want to keep track of issues and messages without having to manually copy information (!), but yes, we still do it, and it's not going to change any time soon.

* I went to the office 3 times last year, and I live far away from my office desk (hundreds of miles away). From what I see most people I work with work remotely (also partners form other firms), and I cannot, I simply cannot imaginge going back. It is simply a wonderful, cost-optimal and eco-friendly solution for the 21st century. Not to mention we are much more productive as we spend virtually no time on idle chatter.

* I would be afraid of employing remotely freshmen with no previous experience, but maybe I'm wrong. I believe that 2 years in the office teaches you self discipline - getting up every morning, finishing before sunset etc. The tasks we have are measurable and simply put - if I don't do my work, it will be noticed right away by my manager. It's a perfect self-balancing mechanism.

irickt 7 years ago |

Saw this catalog of tools somewhere on HN just yesterday: https://remotehabits.com/tools/

SnootyMonkey 7 years ago |

Shameless plug: Carrot was built to help leaders in remote teams keep everyone on the same page. https://carrot.io/

TekiL 7 years ago |

We use Asana, Slack, Harvest and Wiki, with this four and some key principles of work we got it all covered.

sr3d 7 years ago | |

Can you share your key principles? Any book recommendation would be great too.

TekiL 7 years ago | | |

Sure, soon we will publish are internal company handbook for the public too so I will share it here! :)

jpincheira 7 years ago |

We're using:

* Trello for project management

* Notion for note taking and for internal documentation

* Standups.io for daily async video standups (we're a distributed team and use our own product for this)

* Google Drive for shared docs

* Github for source control

* Slack for team communication

PeOe 7 years ago |

Zenkit with some of its integrations works well for us.

maverick143 7 years ago |

Slack, jira

* IM: we use IRC. Yes, we know it's old. But we can and do run our own IRC server. * Video: Zoom * Source control: Github + github issues/pull requests * Project management: Github * Email: they're all kind of the same, as long as you can manage an org (all *@example.com addresses), it's good. * Time tracking: custom OS X menubar application * Fun stuff: some native apps/bots/etc. for sharing jokes/memes/screenshots/reaction gifs that we wrote to help build more a sense of camaraderie since we all live so far apart and in vastly different timezones.