What’s in Our Tech Stack (and Why it Actually Works)
At transform.forward, we help clients think intentionally about how they work—how they lead change, build stronger teams, and move strategy forward. So it’s only fair we do the same behind the scenes.
As a fully remote team spread across time zones and projects, we rely on a thoughtfully curated (and thoroughly tested) set of tools to keep us aligned, organized, and working in flow. These aren’t shiny add-ons or trend-chasers—they’re the tech we use every day to do meaningful, human-centered work with clients in higher ed, nonprofits, and beyond.
Here’s a peek under the hood: the tools we rely on daily, why we actually like them, and a few tips that just might save you a headache or two. Spoiler: we don’t use tech just to say we use tech. Every tool here has a real purpose—and helps us stay focused on the people-centered, strategic work we believe in.
Asana
Asana is the heartbeat of our operations. It’s where we manage everything from weekly meeting agendas to multi-phase strategic planning projects. Every internal process lives here—from onboarding a new team member to preparing deliverables for a final report.
Why we love it:
Asana gives structure to our creativity. It lets us balance long-term planning with day-to-day execution, all without needing sticky notes or multiple versions of the same spreadsheet. And since we don’t often use Asana with clients, it serves as our behind-the-scenes control center where we can move quickly and transparently.
Tip: Use the “My Tasks” view with custom sections like “Today,” “This Week,” and “Later” to prioritize. And don’t sleep on recurring tasks—they’re lifesavers for weekly routines like Friday reflections or end-of-month expenses.
Slack
Slack is our virtual hallway, meeting room, and watercooler rolled into one. It’s where we check in, brainstorm, share wins, and chat like real humans without adding to inbox bloat.
Why we love it:
Slack helps us maintain a sense of team, even when we’re working remotely across multiple time zones. With channels for everything from project-specific convos to spontaneous jams and memes, it keeps communication flowing and reduces context-switching. It’s our daily touchpoint and cultural glue.
Tip: Use the “/remind” command to schedule messages to yourself or the team (“/remind me to check this client doc on Monday at 10am”). And set notification preferences by channel so you’re not overwhelmed but don’t miss what matters. You can also integrate Slack into most of the other platforms we’ll mention so you have a single home base for all notifications!
Google Drive
Google Drive is our digital home base. Every project has its own folder, neatly organized with subfolders for deliverables, notes, drafts, and client-accessible resources.It’s our digital filing cabinet, but a lot more searchable and shareable.
Why we love it:
Google Drive makes collaboration easy and eliminates the need for version control. With real-time syncing and customizable permissions, we can keep everything accessible to the right people at the right time. For example, we often grant clients access to specific folders within a larger file structure, and everything integrates seamlessly with our other tools.
Tip: Develop an internal naming scheme - name folders with a consistent prefix (like a client name, project code, or number) so they sort automatically and stay organized. Also, star your go-to folders to keep them one click away. This has been especially helpful for me when juggling four clients and five active deliverables!
Google Docs and Sheets
These are our real-time workhorses. Whether we’re drafting a stakeholder engagement protocol, co-authoring a deliverable, or managing a project budget, Docs and Sheets let us build and edit together.
Why we love it:
Similar to their Google Drive cousin, live collaboration is where Docs and Sheets shine. Our team can work on the same document during a meeting, leave comments for one another asynchronously, and track edits over time. No more emailing “final_final_v3” attachments. We can comment asynchronously or co-edit during live meetings. It makes working across time zones smoother and less stressful.
Tip: In Docs, turn on the outline view to easily navigate long documents—especially helpful for strategic plans and 100-page reports. And now you can simplify what used to be multiple documents by using tabs in a single document. For example, you only need one communication file and a tab for each communication draft. In Sheets, freeze header rows and color-code tabs to track phases, status updates, or stakeholder groups.
Canva (Teams)
Canva Pro is our all-in-one design platform for reports, deliverables, social posts, and slide decks. It empowers every team member to create polished, branded materials with no graphic design degree required.
Why we love it:
Canva helps us bring our ideas to life visually without outsourcing much of our design work or spending hours fiddling around in PowerPoint. The brand kit and templates ensure consistency, while the drag-and-drop interface keeps it approachable. And definitely splurge for Pro or Teams - starting at $100 per person per year, the premium versions of Canva unlock endless potential, assets, and features that make our materials stand out.
Tip: Use your Brand Kit to lock in logos, fonts, and colors, then create templates for common needs (like report covers or retreat slides). Bonus: duplicate an old design and use it as a starter file for something new - less reinventing, more refining, and more hours back in your day.
HubSpot
HupSpot is our CRM (Customer Relationship Management), pipeline tracker, and client relationship sidekick. It helps us manage outreach, track proposals, forecast revenue, and keep tabs on conversations across the business development lifecycle.
Why we love it:
It keeps us responsive and thoughtful without feeling transactional. We’re able to keep context between conversations and see what stage each relationship is in, without digging through inboxes. We also may have multiple projects at the same organization staffed by different people so it lets everyone see what’s going on across an organization to stay on top of helpful context.
Tip: Customize your pipeline stages so they reflect your actual sales process rather than using the generic defaults. And use the “Notes” and “Tasks” features to track context between calls, follow-ups, and key milestones. We also have our tasks synced to Asana so people aren’t managing multiple to-do lists.
Gusto
Gusto is our HR platform—covering everything from onboarding and payroll to team surveys and reviews. It’s where our internal operations meet our people-centered culture.
Why we love it:
If you’ve ever managed HR processes, you know they can be cumbersome. Gusto makes HR seem approachable. It has a smooth interface, making it intuitive, transparent, and user-friendly for both employees and admins. Whether someone is submitting time, updating their info, or completing onboarding steps, the platform is easy to navigate—for employees and admins alike. We also use Gusto for our monthly climate check-ins and our annual review process.
Tip: Like many software platforms, Gusto has a ton of customizable notification options. Set yours early based on your needs. For example, when I’m on a hiring team that’s actively recruiting and interviewing, I have Gusto send me daily hiring email dates so I don’t have to log into Gusto and check things manually as often.
ChatGPT (Premium)
ChatGPT is our brainstorming partner, editing sidekick, and strategy sparring buddy. We use it to generate ideas, tighten phrasing, test structure, and get unstuck when staring at a blank screen.
Why we love it:
This isn’t about replacing thinking - it’s about enhancing it. We use ChatGPT to draft outlines, explore different framing, summarize transcripts, poke holes in our existing ideas, and test language before we commit. It helps us get unstuck, think out loud, and move forward faster.
Tip: Treat ChatGPT like a colleague you can workshop with. Don’t ask it to “write an article”; instead, ask it to “help me brainstorm three ways to frame this point” or “revise this paragraph to sound more in alignment with my company’s tone.” And save your best prompts in a running doc for reuse!
Miro
Miro is our digital whiteboard - a space for strategy mapping, org chart sketching, retreat planning, and systems thinking. It’s become our replacement for the dearly departed Google Jamboard. And while we’re still getting to know Miro, so far, it has many of our favorite Jamboard features and then some!
Why we love it:
Miro lets us think spatially and collaboratively, even across screens. It’s especially helpful in early-stage strategy work when we’re still mapping ideas, themes, or relationships. We love that it works equally well for internal planning and for client-facing work.
Tip: Don’t be afraid to have fun with Miro! There are so many features; use stickies, connectors, and emojis/icons to make it visual and memorable.
Building an Integrated Ecosystem
We’ve intentionally built a tech stack that prioritizes integration over redundancy. It’s easy to end up with tools that duplicate functions - Google, HubSpot, and Slack all offer task lists, but we sync those to Asana so our team only needs to check one place to know what’s on deck. Similarly, while Canva offers light whiteboarding features, we use Miro for its more robust collaboration options during strategy development. Commenting functions are available on nearly every platform we use. Still, instead of asking people to chase notifications across ten tabs, we funnel those updates into Slack, our centralized hub for communication. Our approach is rooted in a simple belief: people need a home base, not a digital scavenger hunt. By reducing overlap and integrating smartly, we make space for our team to focus on the work, not the workflow.
Wrapping It Up
We believe tech should serve the people using it, not the other way around. Our tech stack helps us stay creative, collaborative, and clear - even when we’re working across time zones or project types. It’s not about using tools for the sake of it. It’s about choosing the right ones to help us do great work, with a little more ease (and a lot fewer emails). We also have a few additional honorable mentions:
Squarespace - Website
Wave - Accounting
Streamyard - Webinars
Google Meet - Virtual Meetings
Reclaim.AI - Calendar Automations
Curious about how we build workflows that work for our team and our clients? We’ll share more in an upcoming post from our CEO, Adam Cebulski. Until then, if you’re thinking about how to streamline the way your team works, we’d love to chat. Let’s build systems that support your strategy, not slow it down.
