How To Maximize Your Team’s Productivity With Good Tips And Great Tools

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Whatever the level of talent on your design team may be, you still need the right tools to put it to full advantage. There are plenty of good web app solutions on the market, but why not look for the best?

It will pay dividends to do so. Select one or more top-of-the-line apps from our list, and give each one a test drive. Once you find the one that suits your needs best, take advantage of the productivity tips outlined below to improve your team’s productivity even more. You will benefit, your team will benefit, and your clients will soon be begging for more.

Maximize Team Productivity with these Tips

There are many and varied ways to increase team productivity. Some processes can be streamlined. Avoiding errors or redundant processes can also help, and awareness of what is happening from a project’s start, through to its conclusion is also important.

• Start With the Most Difficult Tasks –There is a caveat to this tip. Workflow needs to be identified first, since the ability to perform some tasks will often depend upon the completion of others. That said, don’t procrastinate by leaving the most difficult tasks until the end. If you do, they can become even more difficult to complete. Attack!
• Make the Most of Your Time – Working smarter yields better results than working harder. Keeping busy and being productive are not one and the same. Plan your work, do it, review what you have done, and learn from what you have done.
• Observe and Improve – One of the best goals a team or an individual can work towards is continual improvement. Make it a habit to keep tabs on project status once a day. See what is working and what isn’t. Fix what isn’t working, and apply and improve on what does work on your next project.

Following these three recommendations can noticeably improve the quality of your work and your productivity. Adding one of the following web apps to your team’s toolkit could exponentially improve productivity.

Pidoco

Pidoco may well be the web design solution you’ve been looking for. Its features range from an easy sketch capability and custom templates, to an outstanding selection of interactive elements.

This web app provides instant previews of how a web page will appear on a PC, a tablet, or a handheld device. Its Smart Teamwork feature enables team members to communicate with one another instantaneously and edit mockups in real time.

Pidoco makes it possible to quickly create prototypes that have the look and feel of the real thing.

While you or your team are involved in rapid prototyping, and exchanging information and feedback in real time, you never have to worry about losing control of the project. Pidoco has built-in issue tracking and versioning features that allow you to instantly return to an earlier point in the design process should the need arise. Items for review can be read only or full access. If you check out the demos on the website, you’ll discover how easily the design processes can be performed.

Proto.io

If you would like to discover the ways in which you will benefit from using this powerful prototyping tool, visit the proto.io website, check out the demos, and take their tour.

Once you’ve done that, sign up for a free trial and see for yourself why this web app may be exactly what you and your team have been looking for. Successful apps take full advantage of interactions and animations.

You can apply mouse or multiple touch events to any UI element to achieve the realism you want your prototypes to feature. After all, real apps rarely feature static information only. Why should a prototype be any different?

Sharing prototypes and collaborating with team members, with clients, and for user testing, and receiving instant feedback, can be accomplished with a single link. With proto.io in your toolbox, the pesky communications gaps that so often plague a project will be avoided.

Azendoo

Maybe it’s time to stop working harder, and start working smarter. That is the underlying theme of this presentation, and that is why Azendoo has been included in our listing of best web apps. It enables you to do just that.

Let this tool work your project design supporting tasks while you focus on creativity, and on the design itself. This useful web app not only makes a valuable addition to design team toolkits, but marketing departments and marketing agencies will profit from using it as well.

Collaboration between team members, organizations, and clients is well supported. Design teams often consider meetings to be time-wasters, which all too often is true. Let Azendoo handle the project management functions and you will see an immediate improvement in meeting efficiency. In fact, its instant collaboration features keeps the need for holding meetings to a minimum. Sign up for a free trial.

Creately

Creately features a web-based drag and drop interface that enables teams to put web and UI mockups together rapidly. There are hundreds of neatly categorized shapes and thousands of templates to choose from. It also features intutive android and iOS design controls to sketch out app ideas. This web app supports real-time collaboration among team members. Share a design for editing, or simply ask for comments. If you wish, you can focus on one segment of your design and open a discussion thread on that segment.

Creately’s default templates are professionally tuned to give out beautiful looking designs with little effort. You do not need to register to conduct a trial run. The trial (Public) version is free, and the Personal and Team Plans are quite affordable.

Paymo

Paymo takes care of your project management functions for you, and enables you or your team to concentrate on design. This valuable web app supports team collaboration, it has time tracking capability which includes a robust, real-time timesheet reporting system.

Settings allow you to customize your reports to include projects, task lists, time entries, and much more, and you can view or input project information on your mobile device while on the go. Check it out. Don’t let project management be your projects’ weak link or a time waster.

Notism Collaboration

Notism is an all-inclusive, real-time design and video collaboration tool. It has all the task management features your projects require, including a potentially game-changing real time video collaboration capability. This web app is not a design tool in the strictest sense of the word, although you can use it to turn static screens into interactive prototypes.

What it does best however, is to fully support design reviews and collaborative efforts, track changes, manage signoffs, and organize tasks and to-dos. You can sign up for Notism for free.

MeisterTask

MeisterTask will support your project management needs from initiation to completion. A glance at this versatile and intuitive web app’s dashboard is an excellent way to get started on a productive day.

All the information you need, from status of tasks in work to open tasks is on full display, so you can decide what to focus on during the work day. MeisterTask integrates with MindMeister, a real-time mind mapping tool that makes team brainstorming sessions fun and productive. This web app is an ideal project management tool for the individual worker as well as for large team efforts.

As you have no doubt noticed, our best web apps listing includes those that support both the design and project management functions, and those that primarily focus on project management. If you already have a design tool you are comfortable with, Notism, MeisterTask, and Paymo are definitely worth a look. If you are also in need of an excellent design tool, any of the other four apps should serve you well. View the demos, try them out, and don’t forget to apply the productivity tips as you go along. Any one of these tools will help you save time, and make the most of it.