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I would like to know your thoughts about Slack.
I have a small outsourcing team and I have heard good things about this software. Just now I am using Gmail, Google Drive, Dropbox, Skype and Private messages in forums so it is a complete mess.
I don't know if this is the appropriate software for me.
My team is formed like this:
Are there any other softwares similar to this one out there?
There are a few alternatives (like the Atlassian products that Dexterity pointed out, or have a look at this list from alternativeto.net) - but I've found Slack to be mega useful for small teams. We still use some Atlassian products (like JIRA, Bitbucket and Confluence) in conjunction with Slack - but Slack's not designed to replace the Atlassian products.
So the major benefit of Slack, for us, is that it's free and puts everything into one place. There's a fee if you want infinite integrations and to store your message history forever, whereas the free version limits these. You can also split your workstreams into separate #channels, which we have ~20 of to keep tasks separate between PM's, BA's, Design, Dev, and QA.
It already integrates with Dropbox and Google Drive, and has its own functionality for private messages. For now, you'd still have to use Skype and Gmail separately - though Slack's recently bought out Screenhero, so that'll negate the need for Skype as well soon. Though just out of interest, why are you using Dropbox and Google Drive? For collaboration purposes, I'm assuming?
Anyway, I guess this is more personal experience rather than an answer... but you can't really go wrong with Slack. It's removed the need for constant emails, and has really improved communication for us.
Maybe check out the Slack Tour quickly and sign-up if it sounds like it'd fit your requirements? I don't work for Slack but can't recommend it enough. Plus, with it being free, you've got nothing to lose by trying it out at least.
Hope this helps!
I use Trello to manage my team and it works well as everything can be controlled and its easy to learn.
Yes and No.
I've used slack and ms teams in small and huge companies. My experience is that slack is better and companies only use MS Teams because Microsoft gives it for free as part of a marketing campaign.
Can't say for other software, I've used those two for extended periods of time as a simple user, admin, integrator, and power user.
Slack is vastly superior to MS Teams, even in the free version. But slack is just the communication part of your management process, you need to incorporate other tools to help you manage your team and that's a beast by itself.
Here's what I've seen work very very well as part of the management stack:
no software will really help you with that, decide how each team/member works best and keep a delivery list either on trello, or calendar, or anything that will help you track global progress.
You and the PM are the only ones that are really interested in this, writers want to write, coders want to code. Don't burden the other members of the team with meta work, agile bullshit or rituals that accomplish nothing.
Keep a list of tasks to be delivered with actual dates, if those dates exist.
No points, no grooming, no recurring calls.
In the best companies I've worked for, the technical team owned the project. In the worst companies I've worked for, the technical team was always struggling to get around the manager that, in order to justify his pay, would always insist on silly rituals, meaningless projections, and worthless metrics.
Let your workers work, give them simple tools and remove bureaucracy.
Summary: Here's my stack of choice:
