Productivity tools help improve your team’s efficiency by streamlining collaboration and communication. But with an overwhelming amount of productivity tools now available, how are you meant to find the one that suits your team? And how do you even know it works?
We’ve taken out the guesswork for you. Excluding Grammarly, the programs and tools listed below are all CommBox tried and tested and can either be downloaded from the CommBox Store or accessed via the web browser. Let us help you kick procrastination to the curb!
Teams are part of the Microsoft Office 365 family of products, and it really is a fantastic tool not only for team meetings, but for team collaboration in general. With video conferencing, workplace chat, and file sharing and storage, it also makes for instant seamless team calls that can easily be turned into a team conference.
2. Zoom
Zoom is a video conferencing platform, which allows individuals and companies to hold both video and audio calls. It’s available on desktop, Android and iOS, and allows screen sharing, meeting recording, and webinars. The basic membership is free, but does come with a meeting time limit of 40 minutes per session.
3. Miro
An online whiteboarding platform, Miro enables teams to collaborate effectively, and efficiently. You can start from a range of useful templates, from SWOT analysis, mind maps, and retrospectives to product roadmaps and other more complex agile workflows. Miro can be used on your CommBox Interactive Touchscreen and is a true asset to the hybrid workplace, making it easy for teams to brainstorm and collaborate from the office or from home.
4. Jira
Originally designed as a bug and issue tracker, Jira has evolved to become an agile project management software designed to help teams manage work. Jira can be used to leverage many kinds of project management skills, from project road mapping, and software development to content management. It is a particularly good option if you are looking for a kanban workflow style, and allows for detailed reporting of agile metrics and formats.
5. 15Five
15Five is a performance management platform that aims to increase employee engagement and communication within teams. The platform can be used for 1-on-1s, engagement surveys and OKR’s. However, its namesake is the tried and true simple technique of a 15-5. At the end of each week, every team member spends no more than 15 minutes reflecting on the week before, submitting feedback, and giving high fives to other team members. The software is aligned to positive psychology research and aims to empower managers to lead effective and happy teams.
6. Grammarly
You will have no doubt come across a Grammarly advert by now, the online writing assistant that not only monitors spelling and grammar but also uses AI to improve the clarity and even delivery of written content. While you still need to review its suggestions (Grammarly doesn’t always understand the context of what you are writing), it does help sharpen sentences and enhance vocabulary to make for punchier written content, saving your team time on hunting for synonyms on Google!
7. JasperAI
Formerly JarvisAI, JasperAI is a copywriting tool that can be used to generate different types of copy – from article headlines to product descriptions, it also has sentence expanders and an ‘explain it to a child’ function. While it doesn’t always come up with ideal (or sensical!) content, it is still a useful productivity tool to help break writers’ block or get inspiration. The Content Improver is a particularly helpful timesaver, particularly when it comes to making content more exciting and engaging.
We would love to hear what your favourite tools are.