Communication tools for remote teams

Hi Rami,
Some people suggested me to use BlueJeans... I must confess I didn't see great advantages comparing it to Skype.
Again, as I was talking to Sromon, I am trying to find more (and maybe new) ways to enhance the engagement, collaboration and morale between team members, so the tools may become just what they are: tools, and not a big issue.
Thank you!

Suleander, I believe you may have narrowed you problem statement down some when you say you are wanting to “enhance the engagement, collaboration and morale between team members”.
You are right, the tools are just the tools, how well they are deployed rests in the hands of the Project Leader and his/her team.
Have you tried canvassing the team members to gather their perceptions as to what’s working/not working/CIP ideas.
Something I have experienced in the past is the frustration on the part of team members when you flip-flop between tools constantly looking for the next best thing. The tools are the tools, choose one, stick with it and optimize its use among your team.

I like Zoom the best, but also use Skype for Business for most conference/video calls. I use Project Online on top of sharepoint for collaboration. I like Jira and VSO for backlog tracking and with the new integration features in Project, makes it easy to manage sprint activities in my Gantt chart PM world.

It would be best to draw up a communications strategy as to which tool is used in which situation.

On a recent agile project of mine, for example, we had the following strategy included in the charter:
- Communication on requirements, solution, planning, execution, governance to be conducted on project collaboration site;
- No attachment to be sent over email - every file to be uploaded to the collaboration site and the URL shared only if required;
- All email communication to be replicated on collaboration site within three working days;
- Scrum meetings and Weekly PMO meetings to be conducted over Skype for Business video;
- Steering Committee meetings to be conducted in person;
- All other meetings and discussions to be conducted over Skype for Business audio;
- Informal communication (birthday wishes, forwards, memes, etc.) to be conducted over a Whatsapp group created for project team members.

The point the above example tries to illustrate is that, for remote teams, it is important to set guidelines for communication. There is lesser scope for clarification (and, therefore, greater scope for misunderstanding), so all communication channels must be geared towards removing ambiguity and increasing focus on the message.

Skype works pretty well for me. We created a chat group to share mainly project information and occasionally funny stuff.

We use Skype4Business, and also we tend to use Whatsapp Group for sharing immediate information or issuing orders, sharing files ect