5 Best Web Development Tools for Developers to Work More Effectively
Image source: Pixabay
What does having an effective web development team means?
Most of the time it means that you will have your project done properly and on time. But how do you achieve that effectiveness? Well, the answer is rather simple: by establishing clear rules, encouraging collaboration and providing some value to their work (most of the time, we are talking about money here).
Therefore, making an effective and collaborative web development is beneficial in many ways:
- Team solutions – there will be more diverse solutions to a certain problem;
- Clear responsibilities – if everyone knows what their job is, there is no doubt that things will get done;
- Balanced workload – there is no chance that one team member will be overloaded while four others are slacking off. They will swoop in to help their colleague without hesitation.
- Constant feedback – work of one will be commented by many and for the sole purpose of improving the overall product. There is no greater input than the input of fellow peers.
- Shorter completion time – finally, job will be done on time and properly…
However, achieving high efficiency of your web development team is easier said than done, which is why you will probably need some help – or some tools, to be exact.
Tools to Increase Effectiveness
GitHub is a web-based Git repository hosting service and the largest and most popular code repository in the world. It’s intuitive interface, and no-nonsense code collaboration is my software development teams love GitHub.
Amongst many features it offers, this app has social networking features such as feeds, followers and the network graph so you can keep track how developers work on their versions of a repository.
However, this app heavily encourages an open source mindset by making all code projects public by default. All projects also come with a built-in wiki, task manager, and bug tracker, and it is extremely easy to fork projects with one click of the button.
Image source: Pixabay
Your web development team will need to know what has to be accomplished, which tasks should be done and by what time. Each member will want to know what are his duties, what are his deadlines and what do his peers, boss, as well as clients, think of his work.
This is imperative since web developer’s time should be managed differently than, let’s say, managers.
Active Collab is powerful yet simple web development project management software, which will make your life a lot easier with features such as task management, team and client collaboration, time and cost tracking and invoicing.
You can create tasks, attach files, set due dates, add reminders, leave comments and much much more. The entire team will have an insight into project progress and can react if any bottlenecks occur, thus providing smooth sailing until the very end. Transparency is important not only for you but your project manager and your team as well.
When it comes solely to team collaboration, Slack is the way to go. Used by many digital teams (web developers, the web, and graphic designers, as well as marketing teams) this application has become one of the most popular collaboration tools on the market.
It is easy to use, highly functional and is a product is of great quality, which is why many digital agencies chose this app to base their collaboration on.
Slack allows you to track conversations, projects and remote team communication by creating channels and it integrates with apps such as Google Drive, Runscope, Dropbox and many others.
Zeplin is used for creating style guides for projects, including guidelines for colors and fonts, and is meant for designer – developer collaboration.
This app integrates with Slack, even though includes basic communication capabilities. You can collaborate with your team, generate assets, and keep up to date specs for each project. Zeplin is a great option for flexible teams who want an abundance of automatically generated specs.
However, if you are in charge of a “rigid” team, its complexity may prove to be a challenge.
The Squad is a web-based collaborative code editor that allows you to edit and share code in real time. Space, where you can share the information, is called a “Squad workspace,” and accessible from every location with internet access.
It benefits noobs as well as pros: New developers will have most use of this tools, as it provides a great way to get feedback and real-time help with your work; on the other hand experienced developers can perform code reviews, training, and pair programming.
Finally, Squad isn’t intrusive as some other similar apps: To access your files and collaborate in Squad, you can open (and then save) a local file, access your remote hosts via FTP/SFTP, or grab your file from Dropbox.
Final Words
An effective team is a productive team – there is no question about it. However, to make any team, the effective team takes time, effort, and usage of proper tools.
Hopefully, this list will provide you with potential solutions to your problem, and enable you to have excellent products each time, every time.
