The main types of collaboration tools (and how to choose)

The main business collaboration tools include:

Understanding what tools you’ll need comes down to one thing: listening! What are the recurring complaints or challenges in your business? How do your people like to work?

As well as finding secure and easy access tools, consider how they'll use them. Real-time communication lets users chat and collaborate instantly; asynchronous collaboration software allows workers to team up at different times, and collocated collaboration lets users work together in the same place. This type of work usually comes under the relatively new term knowledge worker (and if you’re wondering, “what is a knowledge worker?”, we've got you covered.

Project management collaboration tools allow teams to collaborate on specific projects and see what’s required at a glance in the style of Kanban boards, GANTT charts or a calendar/ list view. Project management collaboration tools typically appeal to users involved in multiple workstreams by simplifying how they see tasks assigned to them and view project deadlines and milestones. In most project management collaboration tools, it’s possible to attach documents, images or links.

There is considerable crossover between Project management tools and Workflow automation tools (which streamline and automate processes) and task Management Software (which are dedicated to organising and tracking tasks, assignments, and deadlines.) In order to offer a more valuable, well-rounded tool, most software covers all of the above in various depths.

Are emails falling through the cracks of your businesses? Do tasks and actions from meetings need to be actioned or assigned ownership? If communication on tasks or overall business happening isn’t as slick as it should be, you need Communication Collaboration Tools.

Software focusing on workplace communication helps people connect outside their immediate work circles and collaborate without needing long-winded meetings. It’s popular to use collaboration tools alongside chat applications and create a structured process or stream to enable quick and direct communication that stays organised among team members.

Do you want to get more innovation from your teams? Perhaps you need to plan projects, strategise a potential business change or consider improvements and enhancements. If so, collaborative editing and visualisation tools make it possible. These can be lists and charts that make a logical flow of ideas, virtual whiteboards for brainstorming, visual collaboration, or videos that help team members explain big ideas without needing to type them all out.

With cloud-based software to help enhance collaboration, it’s easy to get all your stakeholders involved with one virtual document and leave the session with firm ideas and actions to make the dreams a reality.


The most popular types of editing and visualisation software include:

Do you find in your business that you often hear that work has been duplicated, that out-of-date documents have been sent out, or that items have been recreated because no one knew an asset was already excited? If so, you need file sharing and storage tools; these allow collaborative content to be produced whilst also ensuring that the documents are able to be accessed by all who need them.

Most typically, file-sharing tools offer version control, multiple collaborators, and feedback and review tools for annotations and editing by multiple parties.