Writing On The Wall
The best CMS I have ever used is a thick black sharpie and a wall.
"When I walk in here, I don't have to ask how it's going".
Our tech lead can walk in, scan the room, and see in seconds that we're slightly ahead of schedule, that the performance data is good but needs checking, and that we won't be deploying today until 4pm.
And because it's easy, and it's interesting, he does. "Write on the walls" is immune to the "ghost town" effect that afflicts most corporate intranets. Everyone likes drawing, and a bright red "WALL OF SPEED" is a much more fun way of communicating benchmark results than an Excel spreadsheet buried somewhere in source control.
It does need maintenance. If I walk past something that I know is out-of-date, I'll tear it down. Every week we clean up the office more formally. We go through a fortune in stationery.
This only works, of course, because we're all in the same room. For a while our team spent four days a week at the client site, and Fridays in the company office, but we're so crippled without our War Room that we hardly move any more.
But we have to be anyway. Any web project needs constant, constant communication between graphic designers and developers, and instant messaging doesn't cut it. There are few other areas in IT where the required specialties need such different mindsets, but are so dependent on each other. Sitting side-by-side takes all the heat out of a suggestion of web-safe fonts where an email could be taken as a challenge to the designer's authority.
Version control is a developer skill, and with sixteen different product_home_page.psd files floating around, it was hard to keep track of the definitive version. We solved the problem by printing out the designs - all of them - and sticking them on the wall. Areas that need discussion are marked with yellow post-it notes. While I can find and open a photoshop file in thirty seconds, I can turn my chair in two. And visitors to the work room can see exactly what, and how, we're doing.
With talk of distributed teams, drag-and-drop task management and ubiquitous video conferencing, I can't help but feel that the industry is moving in the wrong direction. So if your team isn't really using their internal communication tools, try turning them off. Move everyone into one room. Clear the walls. Bring in a big box of pens, paper, and bluetack. See what happens.