It might almost be disconcerting that we haven’t discussed tools till this point. As a tool-junkie myself, I’m aware that working remotely, in an asynchronous fashion needs us to use tools effectively. The good news for all of us is that most of our employers have some version of these tools already in place. Even the companies that were originally slow to adopt collaborative tools, had to make these investments during the pandemic. 

So let’s look at the categories of collaborative tools most software development teams will need. Many of these will seem familiar to you already, and that’s a good thing. You just need to use the tools effectively. Not all companies can have all the tools you see here. So I’ve broken down the list into three categories.

1. Must haves - the essential set.

2. Good to haves - these are productivity boosters.

3. Optional extras - unique, useful, but they could be more useful to some teams than others.

The must haves

The good to haves

Optional extras

There you go! That’s the tools question done and dusted. Now that we’ve got that out of the way, we can discuss how we use these tools. Before I let you go, I want you to let me know if I’ve missed any tool categories that I should have included. Is there a tool category I’ve included that you don’t recognise? What’s your favourite collaboration tool and how do you use it? Let me know in the comments below.