So far, I’ve found a few tools to be indispensable when working with distributed teams. Here’s a short summary of my favorites so far: IM, Skype, Google Docs and Dropbox.

IM – I find IM to be very useful when I need immediate answers. Use Trillian to access MSN Messenger and Yahoo IM. Also, the log can come in handy when trying to recall points made during a chat. Drawbacks include interruptions that can disrupt creative flow. Project related IM can end up taking too much priority over the work if not careful.

Skype – both the voice chat and the desktop sharing in Skype are super useful. You can get through a lot of material quickly verbally and if you are working with art, it’s really good to be able to interact with it or have it explained on a shared view of the screen. Drawbacks- it doesn’t work for everybody. Voice chat can be cumbersome for people who don’t have a relatively quiet environment.

Google Docs- we did project planning on a small project with a distributed team using the spreadsheet app in Google Docs. It was great being able to edit the doc at the same time. Whenever we have any meetings about that project, they usually take place in the project spreadsheet. Drawbacks – it’s a web app, so it’s just a little clunky. Maybe that will change with HTML5? Also, a functional issue with the IM that is built into google docs is that it can sometimes be hard to notice when someone types, so we tend to use external IM instead or IM within the doc itself.

Google Wave – we tried to use this once with a team of three, but it was hard to get everyone to check it frequently enough to know if it would have been worth using.

Dropbox – file sharing. Dropbox maintains the files in a local directory for each client with access to the dropbox. It’s super useful and much easier than emailing files around, So far, it has worked really well and supports a variety of platforms. Drawback- the subscription can be a little pricey in that if you use a large amount of space, each team member needs to subscribe at the same level. I haven’t checked the pricing model lately, but this was the only drawback I found. Oh and when we used it, the shared filenames were not encrypted, but the files were.