Five ways my team avoids email – Project Collaboration Software

This is the fourth in a series of posts on how I lead my team in avoiding email.

Another way we try and stay out of living in our inboxes in through the use of project collaboration software.  This has many advantages.

1. There is no need to send emails wondering about the status of projects.  All team members can just look at the tools and find out how things are progressing.

2. All tasks are specified such that everyone knows what they are supposed to do.  No rummaging through your inbox trying to find the meeting minutes or that email thread of touchups todo.  It’s all in the tools.

3. Accountability.  There’s no hiding on how things are doing.

4. All information about a project is centralized.  The communication, the dates, the milestones, the tasks, the documents.  It’s all in one place.  This avoids needing to get information from someone’s inbox who’s not available, a lost hard drive or files from a terminated team member.

5. It allows for people to quickly jump into a project.  All I need to do is invite someone to the project collaboration tool and they have access and context for everything in the project.  No painfully treading through your inbox and hard drive trying to get everyone the project documents and communication.

6. It provides threaded communication.  Email is not by default threaded unless you use a client like Gmail.  It’s very handy to have a clear view of the thread of a conversation.

7. It’s web-based.  Everything is accessible wherever there is an internet connection.  I don’t need to have my computer with me to get at documents or communication I might need.

My team uses two main tools.
A. ClockingIT for the software development arm of my team but it has a wide variety of application.  (If you are CCC staff I can invite you to an internal version).
B. GCX Project for leadership and general team collaboration.

What ways does your team use project collaboration software to avoid email?