The best team management app for a small recreational group?
October 8, 2015 2:17 PM   Subscribe

I'm looking for the best team-management tool for my recreational a cappella group. Right now we use a mishmash of email, Facebook, Google Calendar, and texting, so tons of important information slips through the cracks and we waste time trying to get everyone on the same page. I'd really like to consolidate all of these to a single, centralized platform.

Like I said, we're a recreational group; we practice once a week, try to gig once a month, but have full-time jobs and families so it's hard for everyone to keep on top of every communication, and sometimes even harder for them to go back and FIND old information. I'm just trying to lower the barrier-to-entry to access all of our information so we can spend more time singing than rehashing logistics. I figure the best way to do that is to centralize everything, so there's just ONE place where our members know they can find everything.

Some of our specific needs (which are currently scattered across multiple forms of communication):

-Admin "announcements": A place for posts which need no discussion or responses from the group. A common example is our recap of each week's rehearsal.
-Calendar: Locations and times of each rehearsal, as well as gigs and social events for the group.
-Topical conversations/threads: Where we can easily find and discuss specific topics. IE, song selection, critiques for the group, etc.
-Informal chatter: We're all really good friends, and spend a lot of time just posting random things to the entire group.
-Private/group messages: PMs are always good, especially for leadership to discuss things before bringing them to the whole group.
-File sharing: We store all of our sheet music, audio files, etc on Google Drive, which works pretty well for data management, but again I want everything to be viewable/searchable on a single platform.

Slack seems to be the go-to, but I'm not sure if different channels will effectively organize these different types of information. Also considering Trello or Asana, but I've never used any of these. I feel like a forum/message board might be an effective (if old-school) option, but I'd like opinions from MeFites!
posted by shabaabk to Computers & Internet (4 answers total) 3 users marked this as a favorite
 
Also considering Trello

I'm actually in the process right now of getting all the Girl Scout troop leaders in my area on Trello so we can organize group activities better than the current system of facebook+text+email+bullshit. I've been playing around with it a bit the past week and like it a lot but so far people seem reluctant to play along. (Which is unsurprising, given past history with trying to organize anything with these people.)

Things I like about it so far: free on Android, free on iP-d, free in browser. Limited bells and whistles so it's pretty straightforward. Easy to use. I haven't spent enough time with it to know how robust it is on the file sharing side of things.

That said, based on the things you've said you want to do here, I don't think Trello is what you want. It doesn't appear to be set up well for things like announcements and informal chatter. It seems to be very much a "here is a single, concise project, let's plan it out together and archive it when we're done" thing.
posted by phunniemee at 2:37 PM on October 8, 2015


I like Slack for communication, and I think it would do everything except the Calendar. If you're ok holding onto a shared Gcal (and I would be, personally), I think you're set. Trello and Asana are really more about organizing communication around tasks and projects than groups.

That said, free Slack won't be a good permanent repository; archives don't last forever. I'd integrate it with Google Drive and Google Calender.
posted by supercres at 3:14 PM on October 8, 2015


When I ran a community theater, this is what we did for each show, which had a different set of personnel each time more or less:

1) FB Group for the cast + crew (so everyone who would be in the show or working on it)
2) FB Group for the Production Team (Director, Costumer, Set Designer, Tech Lead, etc)
3) Google Calendar for all events
4) We used shared google documents for almost everything that the Production Team/Board of Directors would do, but we shared documents to the cast via the Facebook group.

FB Groups allows for document storage and conversation, and have JUST NOW become more searchable by keyword, so that's helpful. Honestly, in 9 years of wrangling actors Facebook groups changed. everything. for. the. better.

Facebook works for this kind of thing because it's ubiquitous. Everyone already has the FB app on their phone, more or less, and the outliers are so, so few that it's not hard to manage ONE person via text message instead. Getting people to adopt a new system, especially if they are not project management geeks, is really hard. I tried to introduce a new system a few different times, and it never took because the Facebook based system was SO easy for everyone.
posted by Medieval Maven at 6:13 PM on October 8, 2015


Response by poster: Yeah, another part of the reason that I want one centralized space is so that I can actually convince people to get on board. If it's just one more site to log into, then no one will care and it defeats the purpose. Thanks for the responses so far, guys!
posted by shabaabk at 10:35 PM on October 8, 2015


« Older How can I work at work?   |   Packed Lunches Around the Globe Newer »
This thread is closed to new comments.