Parabol

I think templates are limited

Using Parabol feels like cracking the code on project status and retrospective meetings. One outcome, for our team, is that Parabol makes remote team meetings just as efficient as in-person meetings. But that's actually under-selling it, because when we use Parabol we have a flow that makes our meetings run better even when everyone is in the same room. Plus, we get detailed and structured notes/info from the meetings in the same format every time, and it's easy to run repeat meetings. And Parabol automatically emails out action items. The list goes on and on. These folks clearly use their own product, too, because every month it gets better. The UI is so good. There are lots of parts of the meeting flow. But just to zero in on one of them ... I never thought, personally, that I'd actually like a post-it-notes/vote-on-dots workflow. I've done a *ton* of those exercises/meetings over the years, and for the first time, in Parabol, that way of organizing a meeting is more than just "okay, fine, useful", it's GREAT. I've actually never thought too much about why Parabol's user experience is so good. (Because I don't have to! It just works.) But my guess is that the Parabol team has just iterated and iterated on the UI until the meeting flow is perfect. (Actually, now that I *am* thinking about it, a tear-down of the Parabol UI would make a really good blog post for somebody who writes about user interfaces.)

Another great feature! I'm in love with the Parabol product. Good job, guys and gals!