The Practice of Architecture helps individuals and firms identify opportunities for leadership & growth, building careers & practices that prosper in today’s changing world.
REMOTE Toolset
Figuring out what remote resources work best for you as an individual or your firm is dependent upon many different factors. It’s not dissimilar from any design project you’ve approached. What works for one client doesn’t always work for the next, and you will ultimately find that your needs will change over time as you move through your career, your firm grows, or new advancements in technology changes the way you work. We continuously evaluate our toolset to make sure that what we’ve put in place is supportive of the team and the culture we’ve built that we’ve built. We encourage you to do the same, remaining agile and open to changes that can potentially boost productivity, enhance the client experience, and increase collaboration.
How This page is organized:
There are a lot of different tools available for individuals and firms to navigate, whether or not you are trying to build your brand, or looking for better project management. For each group, we always highlight the tools we are currently using first and then give additional recommendations based on what we here others are using. Inevitably, there is some duplication of functions offered across tools. We’ve selected our tools and choose to use them for the primary purpose they were developed because that’s what they are inevitably best at being used for.
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Independent of project tools, having one place where a team can communicate, becomes increasingly essential. This enables collaboration and agility in business especially as (1) companies get more distributed & remote (2) the make-up of teams is more cross-functional and complex & (3) firms find themselves working on asynchronous schedules so individuals can get things done with it is most productive for them.
For any tool you use for team communication, make sure you create a space that holds your company culture including but not limited to, employee resource groups,
What we use:
The founder of Practice of Architecture, Evelyn Lee, happens to be an employee at Slack where she works is a Senior Experience Designer, so we are a little biased for this tool.
One thing that really sets Slack apart – apart from its user interface – is its growing number of integrations from the developer community that allows you to access your other software platforms all within your project channels.
Slack is where work happens, whether you have an office or are entirely remote. This great video shows how Slack teamwork more agile and simple to access and understand what is going on in all projects, operations, and processes across the firm.
Most frequently used by other businesses we work with:
We have virtually eliminated the need to remote into a desktop or server at a single office location by moving everything to the cloud. It makes it easy to move from one computer to the next or even access presentation files on the go via tablet or phone. Never be without a document ever again (as long as you have an internet connection – and some cases even if you don’t if you sync your files locally).
Please note that the best way to collaborate using software as a service tools like AutoDesk’s BIM 360 is to use their storage, however if you have small project teams it is manageable (with proper processes in place) to use these cloud platforms for your drawings.
What we use:
DropBox is one of the most popular cloud storage systems available. The user interface is super intuitive, and they were one of the first to create seamless desktop sync that allowed for drag and drop access to folders.
We are also a fan of how easy it is to share files with others. Their admin tools make it pretty easy to audit how data is shared with individuals inside and outside of the company (if you are really particular about these types of things).
We also pay a little extra per year to have unlimited version history back-up.
Most frequently used by other businesses we work with:
Even though all of the team communications platforms listed above have video conferencing options, those are really meant to be used when your chats are going sideways, and its easier to jump on a 1:1 or small group conference to sort things out.
For really productive video conference meetings and webinars, you really need to have a more robust platform that is singularly built for doing just that. This is especially true if you have a larger company and are looking to host virtual all-hands and use webinar features as a way to onboard new employees or attract new clients.
What we use:
If you haven’t noticed, a really excellent user interface pretty much wins us over. Zoom is no exception here. As of 2020, we’ve made this our video conferencing and webinar application.
Whether you are hosting a team meeting Brady Brunch style, sharing your screen for a presentation, or walking your team through an idea in their whiteboard space, it’s pretty straight forward and super easy to switch who is the presenter.
Other great attributes of Zoom is the ability to pick your own backdrop, so it looks like you’re calling in from your favorite project rather than your home desk, and the ability to break-up larger groups into individual rooms for smaller interactions.
Most frequently used by other businesses we work with:
Our entire workforce is remote, but we also run innovation sprints with firms and organizations across the country. That means we need a tool that enables remote design collaboration at a variety of different scales. This tool is easily one of the harder tools to find for firms, and working in it will inevitably take some time to get everyone accustomed to the platform. Be prepared to experiment, understand how different people express their designs, and test a few of these before settling on the right one.
What we use:
Mural has a lot of options for us and our client partners to collaborate in a virtual space. You can work altogether at the same time or have a project board that allows you to design through all phases of the project over time.
If you do not like sketching on the computer, it’s easy to contribute your hand drawings to the project. Mural also has functional integration with other software packages that we use, including DropBox, Slack, and Microsoft products, and more.
We love the built-in templates, the ability to play with as many post-its as we want, and color code to our heart’s desire.
Most frequently used by other businesses we work with:
Want a phone system you can take with you and without giving out your cell number to your clients? Consider a Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) system. The best of them will work with a handheld phone system in the office, let you take calls on the go from your laptop or tablet, and seamlessly transfer to your phone as well.
What we use:
DialPad has a rich feature set that really attracted us to their platform. It’s easy to assign people numbers, you can create ring groups that ring everyone on a project, and also accepts SMS, MMS, and Group Chats.
Its Voice Intelligence feature automatically captures call notes, calling out what is said and by who. DialPad integrates with a wide variety of phone handsets if you prefer to take your calls that way. There is also a spam blocker that blocks calls across your whole system.
We are a small business but, but DialPad is being implemented at the enterprise (large company) level.
Most frequently used by other businesses we work with:
