Working remote and be part of a team is definitely a challenge. Here are some tools that might help you and your organization make it work.
This is a must for any organization who needs to start working remotely. Communication between team members is often the Achilles’ heel, so you need to be able to engage one or several team members at the same time, share thoughts and tasks and have everyone on the same page and knowing their tasks. You might use chat tools like Skype or Google Meet or the more complex Slack, which also allows rooms and threads. For project management you will need tools to help you define tasks and follow-up on them, such as Asana or Jira. For legal professionals you can use tools such as KeyVision PRO, which integrates tools for clients and projects management.
Most of us work with documents – from contracts to business presentations or other company documents and remote work will require creating, sharing and editing document tools. Also, you might also need co-authoring (several people working on the same document in the same time). Google Drive / Docs / Sheets offers all of these out of the box, or you can use Microsoft’s One Drive / Sharepoint and Office 365. For document automation use, a very SMART idea is Koala Docs, a Microsoft Add-in which will help you create versions for all the important documents from your company. You can even combine them. If you just need file sharing, Dropbox is also a very good tool. In case you need a knowledge management tool, M-Files is recommended by hundreds of thousands of clients from all over the world.
For casual voice only meetings, Skype or WhatsApp works best. On Skype you can even share your screen so you can better discuss tasks and important details. For a more advanced solution, you can use Google Hangouts or Microsoft Teams. Our favorite though is Google Hangouts, which allows a quick meeting setup without any fuss or technical knowledge from your partner.
Working remotely might also imply a need to keep track of what people are doing, so a web-based timesheet solution is required. Some of the project management tools have also time management tools, but for legal professionals online-based timesheet tools are available.
In case you need scanning, I personally use a phone app, TinyScanner (iOS & Android), with very good results.
You can also forward the fixed phone to your mobile and your incoming faxes to your inbox so that nothing ties you physically to your desk.
Last, but not least, you need a laptop & internet connection 🙂
KeyVision is the work management platform legal teams use to run an efficient and profitable business
