Ideally we glide through our projects with happy customers and arrive at deployment ready to shake hands and say goodbye…all on good terms.  Reality, though, is often something altogether different. 

I'd like to say I never experience customer frustrations on any of my projects, but the truth is I've experienced some degree of customer frustration on nearly every project at some point during the process.  It may be a big issue or it may be something miniscule, but at some point it usually happens.
 
Customer frustrations can arise from any one of a number of things.  From unanticipated change orders, to error-filled deliverables, to rude project team members, to project budget issues, to just conflicting personalities. 

Anything – literally – can set it off and it may not be a showstopper, but it should be addressed.  The potential issues can be endless – so I definitely can't address all the possibilities here.  But we can discuss a few possible proactive or responsive measures we can take to try to alleviate customer frustrations if we sense that things aren't going as well as hoped…at least from the customer's point of view….
 

Step up communication practices
 
Effective, efficient, and timely communication remains, in my mind, the number one responsibility of the project manager.  All task assignments, all feedback, all customer interaction, all issues resolution, and all collaboration in general, begins and ends with good communication. 

In fact, with more than 50% of all projects failing, one survey showed that project managers cite 'poor communication' as the second biggest contributor to project failure – right behind 'bad or incomplete requirements.'
 
If a failure point at the beginning of the project was to skip the creation of a project communications plan and now you're seeing communication breakdown, it may be the right time to go back and create the plan so everyone has the same communication expectations going forward for the rest of the project.

 
Revisit weak areas
 
There may be weak areas of the project that are causing the customer concern like how risk is being handled or possibly the delivery of error-prone deliverables.  Revisit those weak areas and add more effort where needed.

For example, begin reviewing risk topics and issues regularly on a weekly basis as part of the weekly status call or meeting with the customer.  If deliverables have been a problem area, incorporate peer reviews on every future deliverable.  Having the entire team review every deliverable will greatly reduce the likelihood of presenting the customer with a document or deliverable with issues or errors.
 
 
React to team member concerns
 
If the customer is frustrated with someone on the team, meet with the customer to find out why, meet with the team member to work out some corrective action, and then jointly meet with the customer to discuss. 

Personnel issues rarely work themselves out on their own and if there is friction between the customer and one of your team members it may not even be obvious to your team member.  Bring it to the forefront and take the necessary corrective action BEFORE your customer has to request a replacement.  If you let it get to that point, then your leadership will definitely be called into question as well.

 
Circle back
 
If necessary, go back to the kickoff presentation and notes to analyze where you are vs. where you should be in terms of process and promises and assumptions.  It's never too late to try to get the project back on track and make the customer feel comfortable again. 

It's possible that you discussed processes, actions and policies that would be implemented or followed and they never happened or were never implemented.  If that is the case, it may be frustration point for the customer to see that it was an expectation that was never fulfilled.  Often the customer sees it as something they paid for but never received. 

 
Call for input
 
Customer satisfaction is one of the three key indicators of project success, so responding to and resolving customer frustration should always be a top priority.  When you've experienced customer frustration, how have you responded?  What actions have you taken to resolve these issues?  What general approaches have worked the best for you?  Thanks – we'd love to see your feedback!
 

Gone are the days of the once-stuffy office space with stacks of files filling up your in and outboxes. Technology has brought an entirely new look to today’s modern office. Below, I’ve outlined three trends that I think greatly innovate our workplaces and define what they look like in the sleek modern era.

Going Paperless

An office free of paper is a happy one indeed for several reasons. From an organizational standpoint, electronic copies are much easier to document and store. Keeping files organized in folders or by project allows you to always know where to find what you’re looking for. Isn’t it handy to have access to a document in the context of a particular assignment? No more sifting through stacks of papers or file folders, and, what’s no less important – no post-it notes covering your computer monitor or the walls of your office. Last, but not least, a paperless office is not only about your comfort and productivity. It’s also green!

I once had a very stylish coworker who was in the habit of printing out emails. Our boss was very eco-conscious, so she sent out an office-wide email that stated “Printing emails went out of style with the fanny pack!” The email included a really funny picture of people wearing fanny packs. The entire office got a laugh out of the image, but more importantly, my coworker stopped unnecessarily printing out emails.

Using Social Media

Building a business takes time, but with the recent penetration of the web into our work and the popularity of social media, the process can go easier and quicker. Social media are a useful channel for informing your customers of what’s happening with the company and sector.

Interaction is key for social media to be a success. Customers want to know there’s someone behind the face of the company. By engaging customers online, providing company transparency and asking for questions and feedback, a company’s reputation will start to build online.

Social media also helps companies collect information about what their customers want and build their businesses. The t-shirt company Threadless is a great example of how a Facebook profile can be maximized. Customers can buy t-shirts straight from the Facebook page. They can also comment on items and share those comments on their own Facebook walls. This approach has led Threadless to gain over 100,000 fans.

Taking Advantage of Mobile Apps

Another driving force that impacts modern office is the popularity of smartphones and tablets. People are constantly on the go, so they’ve become reliant on getting information from their mobile devices. When you have leveraged a mobile app that lets you keep up with work, things can continue moving along even when your employee is, say, stuck in traffic jam.

Apps can be a huge help when other technologies fail you. My husband and I were on vacation this summer when he got a panicked call from one of his employees. The power went out at his job due to a thunderstorm and his staff was about to be visited by an important vendor. My husband was able to share all of the information his staff needed without leaving the Jacuzzi!  

No longer are we glued to pen-and-paper ways of communication. Technology is making an office portable, with the traditional four walls and a desk being replaced by smartphones and electronic communication. The entire landscape of the “office” is changing before our eyes.

Bring your office into the modern age. Create a paperless work environment to declutter your work space and help the environment. Take full advantage of social media instead of using it only to chat with old high school friends. Use mobile apps to connect with your customers and coworkers anywhere at any time. These small adjustments can help adapt your business to meet the current trends and keep you from being left behind.


This article was provided by Erin Palmer on behalf of Villanova University’s online programs. As you take your office to the web consider taking your education online as well. Villanova offers a wide range of programs and prep courses online. 

Keeping the project budget in line is one of the most difficult things that a project manager does – and yet it is a huge factor in determining the overall success of the project when the engagement winds down.

The goal is to keep it in line throughout and avoid falling into emergency mode at any point with a huge budget overrun that you have to either fix or find yourself at the brink of project shutdown.
 
Through my experience, I've found that the following three processes are extremely helpful to me as I try to keep my project budgets in check on the multiple projects I'm usually managing at any given point in time. Project managers are busy with many things beyond managing the budget on our plate.

Developing good processes and habits will help you significantly reduce the likelihood that your project budget will turn into a catastrophe.  Let's review each of the three ways to minimize your project budget exposure more closely….

 
Review and revise the project budget at least weekly 

The first thing you can do to protect your project budget is probably the easiest thing you can do and it is definitely the least invasive thing you can do.  All it requires is you – and the proper information provided to you on a weekly basis. 

Get weekly information from Accounting concerning the charges to your project and revise your information diligently every week. This may seem simple…even mundane.  But it always amazes me how many project managers get lazy and let this slide for a week or two and then eventually longer.  "Hey, it wasn't a problem three weeks ago and nothing significant has happened on the project so why should my budget be in jeopardy now?" 
 
Well, it's amazing how the little things build up – and they can build up fast.  Stay on top of the budget – don't let a week go by without comparing forecast to actuals and re-forecasting, if necessary. It's much easier to fix a 10% budget overrun now before it gets out of control than it is to fix a 40% budget overrun a month from now after it is already out of control.

And which one is management going to be more pleased about hearing?  Which one will the customer be more understanding of and flexible in working with you on?
 

Make your project budget high profile

This is also a fairly easy one and it has worked extremely well for me.  And if you're organization is a matrix organization with everyone working on multiple projects at once, even better.  Here's the scenario….
 
You are a project manager running five projects at once. Each of your technical team members are on – on average – three different projects at the same time.  And let's remember that – in all honesty – 80-90% of all employees calculate their project charges for the week at the last minute, usually on Friday. 

Very few accurately document their time during each workday or at the end of the day.  And we all remember most of what we did each week … but there's always that four or five hours that we really can't pinpoint exactly what we were doing.  We know we worked 50 hours this week, but can only accurately account for 45 of them.  They have to go somewhere.  Where do they go? They go to the project that they feel those hours will be least noticed in.  And that is usually the project that those personnel know is not being monitored closely. 
 
So don't let that be your project.  Make sure your team members know you're watching the project budget – and the hours that they charge to it – like a hawk. Discuss the budget with them at every weekly internal team meeting and give them a status update on how the project budget is standing up to the original forecast.  Share your concerns with them. 

Periodically question them on charges just to keep them on their toes. Don't be accusing, just ask them questions about the charges and the work that was being performed.  If they know you're that aware, it's highly unlikely that any of your projects will be recipients of the 'grey' hours at the end of each work week.
 

Manage scope closely

This is probably the hardest one to do and can have the most devastating affect on the project budget.  The problem here can be two fold. 

You have the issue of managing the project scope from your project manager perspective and negotiating changes and change orders with the customer.  But you also have the task of managing your project team members closely as they work with the customer. 
 
On at least a third of my projects I've run across potential scope issues through discussions I've had with my project team members who were in close communication with the customer. They tend to develop a relationship with the customer and then you have the ego trip issue of your developer 'knowing' they can do anything quickly and easily.

The customer makes a small request, your developer thinks it will be no problem to incorporate this 'new' request quickly and you end up having a developer spend a few hours – which can mean a few thousand dollars - of your precious project budget on a customer request that is likely beyond the original scope of the project. 
 
None of this was malicious or even on purpose – they were just helping out the customer on a small request. Inform your team, warn them of these situations, and then ask them about their customer interactions and any requests that may be coming their way when you meet with them internally on a weekly basis.


 
Call for feedback
 
Let's hear from our readers.  What budget issues have you experienced?  Do you find it hard, at times, to rein your team in when trying to keep costs down.  What steps do you take to keep your project budget from getting out of hand?

A few weeks ago, we encouraged all of you to have your say in our “Working Habits” survey. Thanks to your very active participation, it turned out to be a blast, with 1,000+ responses received. We really appreciate your input, and soon we’ll share the interesting findings about virtual work that you helped us to discover. For instance, we were surprised to learn that as many as 57% of the respondents don’t use Skype, IM apps and social communication tools at work. Did you expect that? We assume that Wrike replaces all these tools for you! ;-)

Also, as we promised, we did a drawing of 10 funny, yet useful, prizes (including the awesome grassy lawn charging station that we basically fell in love with ourselves!) among everyone who took part in the survey. 

Wait a moment, is it December already? It has been such a fantastic year, the time flew by so quickly.

First of all, we would like to thank all of you for choosing Wrike and relying on it in managing your day-to-day project work. It is a pleasure to serve both “Wrike experts” with a rich experience of using our app and our new friends that have just recently joined Wrike’s customer community. We really appreciate your contribution through your feedback, awesome suggestions, and experience shared with other users in your case studies.



We’ve added 20+ new features to help you become way more productive. In 2011 we added the abilities to attach files with drag-and-drop, edit documents without downloading, view your tasks from your favorite mobile or tablet device and much more.  Many of these updates were inspired by your suggestions, so if you haven’t voiced your favorite feature yet, it’s the right time to do it!
 
As the pace of information flow increases, project management needs to be much more flexible and agile. Thanks to a slick facelift, Wrike got a friendlier look and feel, as well as an unparalleled speed boost that allows you to load and manage tons of data in just seconds whether you are running dozens, hundreds or even thousands of tasks and projects. “Thanks to Wrike, our team now completes 30% more tasks with open deadlines per month,” says William Fetter, director of marketing and communications at Hexagon Metrology.

“I love the fact that Wrike hit everything in my dream list! With Wrike's help, we get vastly better results, we get more things done and done faster,” says Timothy Seward, CEO of ROI Revolution.  Thank you Tim for such nice words! We hope many of you would “+1” Timothy’s opinion ;). Your positive feedback resulted in new fantastic customer stories and podcasts discussing best practices to using Wrike and new project management methods inspired by our app.

Our achievements were also appreciated by the business community: Wrike received a Stevies award and got extensive media coverage in GigaOm, ReadWriteWeb, eWeek, AllBusinessBlog, InformationWeek, PM4Girls and more!

So what’s the bottom line? Terri Griffith from GigaOm has perfectly summarized the results:
"Complexity can be managed, work can be shared, and transparency supported — all at blazing speed." [in Wrike]

Indeed, 2011 was amazingly eventful.  However, we’ve set even higher goals for 2012 and we’re eager to achieve them.  We’d like to close this year by wishing you Happy Holidays! May the New Year make your projects even more successful and collaboration - seamless. And we at Wrike will do our best to make all your wishes for productive work come true!  

Are you a devoted Outlook user? If so, we bet you’ll be fascinated to unpack and try out a Christmas gift we prepared for you – our new Outlook add-in. It solves the e-mail chaos problem at a new level and brings everything you love about Wrike to your fingertips in your Outlook inbox. Play the video right away to see the new add-in in action! 



As you can see from this short demo, the new add-in lets you convert any e-mail into an interactive task literally in one click. But what we were striving for most of all when creating it is the elegant solution to the overloaded inbox problem! Whenever anyone on the team updates the task in Wrike, it automatically floats up in your Outlook inbox. This is the same task, not a copy or a change notification. You can simply forget about getting zillions of e-mails on the same subject! Now you see all the data brought together in a single interactive message that automatically shows up when a task is updated to keep your fingers on the pulse of the project.

At the bottom of the task you see the Activity Stream with all task changes – just the same as in Wrike. This way, you can instantly check the latest updates while still staying in your preferred e-mail client! It is handy and easy-to-use, and it saves hours of your precious time, otherwise taken away by having to check the numerous updates in separate messages.

You also can make changes to the task right from your Outlook account. Discuss things, reschedule, reassign, tag your tasks, upload images and documents, and even edit MS Office files without downloading them, all right in your inbox, the same easy way as you do it in Wrike.



Important! As you can see, the new Outlook add-in is completely different from the previous one, bringing many more helpful task management features to your favorite e-mail client. However, due to certain limitations in Outlook, the new add-in will not automatically sync Outlook to-dos with Wrike.

To install the new add-in, please go to the “Sync” tab in your account settings.

Today, we introduce you a new handy feature that lets you easily draw somebody's attention to your comments in Wrike. Simply add @TeammateName in a comment to a task to invite a colleague to the task discussion!

No matter if the person mentioned after @ follows the task or not, she or he will immediately receive an email notification with the text of your comment. Imagine how handy the feature is when you need a piece of advice from a teammate who is not directly involved in the task! For example, if you work on your company's branded YouTube channel, you may need to know if the design mock-up you created is technically viable, so you mention your DHTML developer in the comment. Or when you need to ensure the sales proposal you created aligns with your team's goals, you mention the appropriate executive. There are so many cases when the feature is very handy, including the ones when you need to involve overly busy teammates into the discussion.

If the task wasn't shared with the teammate you mention after @, it automatically gets shared right after you submit the comment. This way, he or she is able to better understand the context of the comment and actively participate in the discussions in the future.

If your colleague replies to the comment via e-mail or in the workspace, Wrike considers this as an interest in the topic, and the person automatically starts following the task and keeping track of the task progress. Now you can be sure the person will be aware of all updates and discussions of this task!

Wrike auto-suggests a drop-down based on what you've typed after the @ symbol, so the feature is very easy and intuitive, and it quickly draws the attention of the right teammate directly to your comment. You are very welcome to try this new social communication feature right now and share your experience with us in the comments!