Tools for teamwork

Sprinting

We use Linear to track our work. See Ticket statuses for the statuses a ticket moves through.

For some projects it may be necessary to merge PRs to main before they have been accepted by the product owner (E.g. if the product owner is not regularly reviewing progress during the sprint).

Sharing passwords / secrets

Share credentials in the business 1Password vault. Do not use any communication tool. Encourage our clients to do the same.

If clients must share a credential with you via a communication tool, encourage phone calls, in person, or (as a last resort) WhatsApp.

If a client shares a password with you via email, politely encourage them to change it.

Storing files

Use Google Drive for documents (e.g. spreadsheets, word documents, presentations).

It’s really painful managing anything other than documents in Google Drive. E.g. assets, large files such as videos. It’s also painful managing anything that Google Drive can’t open such as Figma or Sketch files. So, in these situations, use Dropbox. Encourage clients to use Dropbox to share these kinds of files. Set up a shared Dropbox folder for them if necessary.

Tracking time

Use Harvest to track your time. We track our time so we know we are balancing our client projects correctly. Use Forecast to see what projects you are booked on in the coming days and weeks. This allows you to effectively manage your time between projects.

Communicating

We use Slack for day-to-day communication and Front for emails. Front is a key part of how we support our clients, as it enables us to efficiently handle support queries via a shared inbox. See our guide on Support processes.

Video and voice calls

We’re big believers in avoiding email ping-pong, and instant messaging via Slack is great but it can be a big distraction. So much communication nuance (e.g. speech inflection, body language) is lost in text communication. So we don’t hesitate to jump on a call with each other, clients, or partners.

Generally speaking we use two tools for two different types of calls:

• Google Meet is our default for calls, such as team meetings and conversations with clients and partners.

• We use Slack Huddles for quick, informal discussions amongst ourselves e.g. helping with a problem or getting clarity on something.

An IRL comparison is as follows: Use Google Meet for anything you’d book a meeting room for, Slack Huddles for a conversation you’d have at someone’s desk, or if you were taking a walk together.

We also use Google Meet for pair programming.