Organization

Our team meetings are extremely organized for efficiency. When we all arrive, we all go around and discuss what each person has done so far as well as what needs to be done, and I (Amritha) take detailed notes for that particular meeting. All the notes from every meeting go into our digital dropbox folder labeled "Meeting Notes," so group members can access the minutes from any meeting we've had in the past. For every meeting we make sure to book a meeting room so we can take advantage of whiteboards so we can map out remaining tasks and clarify requirements.

Document Collaboration: Putting it all together

Once we had the right process established, compiling phase reports was a breeze. Our first step would be to use a good old fashioned whiteboard during our meetings to divvy up tasks and illustrate our concepts. Amritha would then document the tasklist and upload it to Dropbox. From there, each member checked his/her assigned tasks and would create a separate word document in the phase folder. When two or more of us needed to work on a small task simultaneously, we used Google docs to create the document and would then upload it to the dropbox folder.

As each task was completed and uploaded, I proofread, formatted and complied all the mini tasks into a single consistent document. So when the deadline came around, all that was left was a few final bits of formatting, a couple of proof readings and the report was ready to be turned in.

Document Collaboration: Dropbox vs. Google Docs

Dropbox is simply the greatest thing that's happened to team collaboration. Ever. Dropbox lets you keep a single folder synchronized with a web server, allows you to have 2 GB of content, has a web interface for accessing data from a browser and even a client that makes managing dropbox folders a breeze. But it doesn't stop there - Dropbox also lets you share folders with friends and set permissions, keeps the files synchronized across all devices and has a public folder that can be shared with people who dont use dropbox via a simple HTTP link.

However, there were a few situations where we needed 'live' document collaboration and thats when Google Docs came into the picture. With a Google account you simply create a new document and invite friends to collaborate on the document. The application supports live editing of the file by multiple users (I've seen upto 40 on one document) and uses micro-version control to ensure that users never overwrite each others content.