Are you constantly grappling with the relentless pain of managing a team? The challenges seem never-ending. Setting and tracking the right KPIs can take hours. Not to mention the mountain of important messages that slip through the cracks. Or the management of tasks and projects in a remote setup. It's a lot of plates to keep in the air.
Even worse, cobbling together the technologies to manage the plates is exhausting and eats away at your time.
Maybe it's time to turn to team software, a.k.a. team management software or team project management software.
In this article, we'll go over team management software, what it can do for you, and how it can save your (and your team's) sanity.
Why do you need team management software?
Business and project teams often face similar challenges.
Many project and team managers struggle to set and track the right Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). This can result in unclear expectations and uneven contributions, leading to lower productivity.
For remote teams, communication between teams sometimes gets lost in the digital shuffle. This gets in the way of collaboration and decision-making.
A lack of transparent task allocation and tracking can cause delays and confusion. This makes it hard to maintain consistent productivity and can lead to burnout.
Business teams sometimes have a hard time implementing new processes. As the business implements the new process, it's normal to have output inefficiencies or some resistance from the team.
Businesses can run into bottlenecks without the right team management software and processes. This leads to missed deadlines, incomplete tasks, and unhappy customers.
What is team management software?
These team management tools are like the Swiss Army knife of software.
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At its core, team management software is a digital platform or application made to help businesses and project teams manage aspects of their workflows more efficiently.
Popular team management apps usually include instant messaging, video conferencing, and file-sharing features. This enables collaboration and acts somewhat like your team's virtual water cooler, where they can chat, share ideas, and brainstorm in real-time.
Many of these popular team management apps also have reporting features that track billable hours, KPIs, time off, capacity, and much more.
Some of the most comprehensive team tools come in the form of task managers or team project management software. They offer features like task lists, project boards, and shared calendars to help you organize your team's work.
Some team management software solutions can sync with your email, document-sharing platforms (like Google Drive), and stand-alone project management systems. This way, you can create a seamless workflow where you don't have to switch between apps to stay in the loop.
Here are some ways that these comprehensive solutions are already helping businesses and projects win at their games (and making clients happy):
- Businesses use them to manage teams, coordinate campaigns, and streamline internal communication.
- Startups use them for project planning, execution, and monitoring.
- Non-profit organizations use them to coordinate volunteers, manage fundraisers, and keep everyone in the loop.
- Educational institutions use them to collaborate on projects, share resources, and communicate outside the classroom.
Types of team software for collaboration and management
Many teams use a combination of the tools listed below. Comprehensive team project management software typically combines some or all of the features.
Team communication tools
Think of these as your team's digital chat room and virtual meeting space. They often have features like instant messaging, video conferencing, and audio calls. Communication tools eliminate the need for long email chains and help teams have quick, efficient discussions.
File sharing and document management solutions
where team members can work together on documents, spreadsheets, and files. This eliminates the need to send attachments back and forth or worry about version control issues.
Task and to-do list apps
To-do lists help people organize their days. To-do lists and task manager apps take that concept to the team or business level.
Analytics and reporting tools
These tools often have KPI or task-tracking templates and dashboards that can be used out of the box.
Project management software
Project management apps are designed to help teams plan, execute, and track projects with precision.
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They offer features such as task assignments, collaboration, and progress tracking. Some also have reporting features to keep track of team performance, capacity, and more.
What is smart team software?
Smart team software combines various team-based software functions into one cohesive package. These tools use AI to deliver more advanced functionality and help automate workflows.
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Efficient task management
Smart team software takes the hassle out of task management. It's like a virtual project manager who can automate this process (and make sure work is allocated efficiently).
Smart allocation also reduces bottlenecks and keeps productivity humming along.
For example, if you have a design task, the software will assign it to your in-house designer. If that team member is already swamped with work, the software can recognize this and redistribute tasks accordingly.
Improved communication
Smart team software takes real-time communication to the next level with chatbots or virtual assistants. These digital helpers help to improve collaboration internally and with external clients.
Let's say a team member needs information about a project status. Instead of hunting through endless emails or messaging colleagues, they can simply ask the virtual assistant to find it.
These virtual assistants can even schedule meetings efficiently. They check everyone's availability, find suitable time slots, and send meeting invitations.
The tools can also send updates, status reports, and project notifications automatically to the entire team and all stakeholders.
Enhanced decision-making
Let's say you need to find out how efficiently team members work during a project. Smart team software can help you track this data and quickly summarize key points.
This means you're equipped with valuable (accurate) insights on which to base your decisions (not guesswork.) And you can get your hands on this data quickly. This leads to more efficient operations and better project outcomes.
Time and cost savings
Automation saves time and money.
Consider tasks like data entry, report generation, and repetitive administrative work. These are necessary but often tedious (and time-consuming) work.
Automation also reduces the risk of human errors like those pesky typos and miscalculations.
Personalized workflows
No two people are the same. Each has their style of work, their preferences, and their strengths. Smart team software learns from each person's past actions and then adapts to each work style.
It does this by tracking how you organize tasks, what type of projects you excel at, and when you're most productive. As you work, the software customizes your task list accordingly. It assigns tasks that align with your skills and how you like to work.
For example, the apps might prioritize the most critical tasks for your "golden hours," whether you're a morning person or you hit your stride after lunch.
Remote-friendly
With remote work, face-to-face meetings aren't always possible, but smart team software helps bridge that gap. Most of the tools come with built-in virtual meeting functionality, including video conferencing and screen sharing.
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Remote teams also need to work on documents together. Instead of a back-and-forth email chain of files, smart team software provides for that inside the app.
Additionally, smart team software has real-time project tracking., allowing remote team members to see current project timelines, task statuses, and deadlines.
Scalability
As your team and projects grow, you need software to keep up. AI team software can quickly adapt to accommodate increased workloads and additional team members.
Use Motion—the AI-backed team software solution
Motion is an AI-powered team software solution like no other.
It has four AI-backed key features that work separately and together to help with team management and collaboration.
Motion’s AI task manager
Motion's AI Task Manager helps you make the most of your team's skills and time to get work tasks done effectively.
This functionality can automatically allocate tasks to team members. You simply create the project, tasks, priorities, and deadlines, and Motion takes care of the rest. If priorities shift or unforeseen circumstances arise, Motion can easily reschedule tasks.
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Motion's AI will continuously analyze your team's workflows and make adjustments. If it identifies bottlenecks, it'll let you know so you can make adjustments early on.
For example, say you've got a team working on a critical project with many tasks. Instead of spending valuable time figuring out who should do what, Motion's AI Task Manager does it for you. You save time, and you get the peace of mind of knowing your entire team is working optimally.
Motion’s AI meeting assistant
Motion's AI Meeting Assistant streamlines the entire meeting scheduling process.
Here's how it works:
- Motion analyzes the calendars of all participants and identifies overlapping free slots.
- Once a suitable time slot is found, Motion automatically sends meeting invitations.
- On meeting day, Motion sends reminders to all participants.
- If something comes up and a participant can't make it, Motion adjusts the schedule automatically.
Let's say you need to book a last-minute team meeting and coordinate the schedules of multiple team members, each with their own busy agendas. Motion can handle everything, saving you several back-and-forth emails.
Motion’s AI project manager
Motion can effortlessly integrate project work into team calendars instead of isolating work in separate calendar platforms.
Motion also tracks how much your team can (realistically) get done by considering workloads, skills, and availability. This makes sure that no one is overwhelmed.
Motion goes a step further and creates personal schedules for each team member. It learns each person's preferences and strengths and then creates prioritized task lists that align with goals and capacity.
With Motion, you'll find yourself planning less and doing more. It removes the need for extensive manual planning and ensures your team stays on track without tedious maintenance.
In our example project, let's say your entire team works with tight deadlines and different time zones. Instead of extensive manual shuffling, you can simply assign roles and let Motion help guide your team and projects.
Motion’s AI calendar app to boost your team productivity
Motion's AI Calendar brings your team's calendars, tasks, and meetings into one view. This unified view makes sure they never miss an important meeting or task.
The interactive calendar view lets you easily adjust tasks or meetings with drag-and-drop functionality. If you adjust a calendar manually, Motion will work its magic behind the scenes and reschedule things accordingly.
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With Motion's AI Calendar tool, your team can achieve unparalleled productivity. It plans their day with perfectly balanced meetings, focused work time, and personal tasks.
Motion syncs up all the calendars from your team so that you can see what's going on. You can easily see when your team members are available for meetings or collaborative work.
The most significant benefit for everyone is the time saved. Motion saves team members up to 2 hours as it can efficiently organize calendars and schedules for them.
Take charge of your team management and collaboration with Motion
Motion is the all-in-one solution to your communication and coordination worries.
With Motion by your side, you can easily handle team management, scheduling, and collaboration. (and get on with the actual work.)
Sign up for your 7-day free trial.
