It's interesting to see teams struggle to work with alignment. In alignment, everyone knows at any point in time what everyone else is doing, deciding, thinking, needing and accomplishing. Teams move at the speed of alignment. When teams work with our alignment, there are all kinds of disconnects and delays, tensions and inefficiencies.
Unaligned teams are mystified by their own lack of alignment. They inaccurately assume of they have enough emails, meetings, spreadsheets, wasteful reporting structures, role and responsibility definitions, alignment will magically occur. What they don't realize is that their lack of alignment emanates from a single condition. They lack simple common spaces where they can share all forms of organization and communication. Without these spaces, everything is fragmented and disconnected, in spite of the excessive efforts to communicate and organize.
We use the apps Trello, Google Docs and Slack. Trello uses boards, lists and cards to keep every single project and plan organized and up to date. Docs are collaborative drafting and archive spaces for everything created in our work. Slack uses groups and channels to stream every conversation related to what's happening in Trello and on Docs.
These apps keep us incredibly aligned and agile. People feel included, engaged and productive without emails, meetings, spreadsheets, wasteful reporting structures, role and responsibility definitions. Everything gets seamlessly organized and communicated.