Secrets to Getting Projects Done in Less Time

Published by Vitaly   |  Tuesday, 10 January, 2012
The secret of efficiency in project management is pretty simple: You don't need to do everything; you need to do everything that's important.

But with tight deadlines, lots of people and multiple projects, planning  your time can be very tricky.  
 
In our new podcast, we discuss this issue with Matt Bullock, a COO at Base Camp Franchising. Matt successfully coordinates dozens of projects for almost 100 franchise retail stores nationwide under 2 brands: Kid to Kid and Uptown Cheapskate.

Matt has first-hand knowledge of what it means to manage multiple project groups with their own goals, priorities and working habits. He knows precisely how crucial it is to have a clear picture of all projects to allocate resources between them, especially when you plan hundreds of tasks for a really large team. 

"At some point, we decided to bring all that to a system, rather than continue trying to work through the Outlook Calendar," comments Matt Bullock. In less than three months of using Wrike, Matt systematized all his team's tasks and projects in one place.

After that, he implemented four management rules that dramatically changed project planning for Base Camp Franchising and allowed the team to do more in less time with better quality.

If you feel overloaded with tasks and stressed out by deadlines, Matt's experience can really help you out!
 
 

These four rules revolutionized project management in Base Camp Franchising. If you face the same challenges of running multiple projects simultaneously, they might be helpful for your business, too. Here's what Matt advises:

1. Coordinate your team's efforts
This may seem obvious, but in reality, too often people are overloaded with unstructured information when new tasks spontaneously appear from everywhere - via e-mails, phone, Skype, etc.

Employees rarely see the whole picture of the project, so they're not aware of where the team's priorities stand. Consequently, they get out of sync in collaboration. We all have faced situations when, say, it took three days to complete a task, while there were only three people working on it for an hour each. When a worker isn't in the loop with what his peer does, he might have a wrong vision of priorities. People work on things that seem to be the most important for them, but the priorities may be different on the level of an entire project.

To avoid misalignment in his team's efforts, Matt implemented Wrike, which made collaboration in Base Camp Franchising absolutely transparent: "There are two things I like about Wrike. First, it gives me a list of to-dos within each project any time I need it. Secondly, it automatically sends notifications, so that not only me, but all other project contributors are always aware of what they need to accomplish and when."
 
 
2. There can't be too many experts
We got used to the idea that too many cooks spoil the broth. However, with the impact of technology, this proverb doesn't really match modern collaboration.

If your team is able to share information and communicate efficiently, involving experts can help you discover mistakes on earlier stages and avoid losing time  on unpromising projects.
 
"We have an outsourcing coder, and I'm able to pull in other subject matter experts on each particular project. We all work in the same environment in Wrike and thus manage to keep everyone in the loop. We involve more people and produce a better product because of that." (Matt Bullock) 

 
3. Use technologies that save time
Try to minimize the time you spend on collecting status updates and spreading the information between all collaborators. Instead, focus on the activities that add real value to the results you deliver to your customers.

Matt highlights: "Instead of having long meetings in order to know how is the project going, in Wrike, it's like in Facebook, where you post a status on a task when something is happening, and you always know when something has changed or needs to be changed. That helps a lot!"
 

4. Be precise; it really helps! 
Project management is not only about managing projects, but also about managing opportunities.

You should be ready to estimate your resources immediately when a new idea comes up. This way, you don't risk jumping into something that you are unable to accomplish before the deadline.

Matt believes that the Gantt chart is the most efficient tool for making this tip work: "We use the Gantt chart, where we can easily see how much time we have and decide whether we are able to add a new feature or not. I can set task dependencies and milestones, so it's easy to plan to see how changes might influence everything."
 
___

Applying these methods to its project management practices, Base Camp Franchising improved its time planning and made collaboration more efficient. As a consequence, no change can knock the team off the course – it's now able to react way faster than before.
 
Matt admits that Wrike has greatly influenced these improvements and supports his business a lot on the way to achievements. We welcome you to join one of our FREE Webinar, where you'll learn how Wrike can make your business more successful, too! 

3 Proven Ways to Keep Your Customers Happy

Published by Xenia   |  Tuesday, 13 December, 2011
How can you achieve customer service so fine that clients actually comment on it and spread the word about your company? Learn from the benchmark experiences of other companies, and benefit from the latest technologies to facilitate your work.

123 EDI, a leading provider of Electronic Data Interchange (EDI), has been offering a variety of robust, cost-effective EDI solutions since 1991. Projects of 123 EDI are typically complex and require coordination between sales, accounting and programming departments to ensure the company meets and even exceeds customers' expectations.

According to Bernie Murciano, President at 123 EDI, the following principles, supported by Wrike's features, help to achieve top-notch customer service:

Attention to detail
Being thorough in performing clients' requests, minding the details, no matter how small they are, is crucial on the road to customer satisfaction. But can you take the load of remembering too many things off your brain and still deliver everything and more to your clients?

Yes, you can! Wrike stores all the short-term and long-term commitments of 123 EDI, providing "a view of the big picture without losing sight of the many details" says Bernie. Thus, 123 EDI stays ahead of the game and ensures that even minor customer needs are not overlooked. "Positive customer feedback doubled in a couple of months after we adopted Wrike," shares Bernie.

Seamless collaboration
To achieve excellent customer service, a unified effort of all the organizational departments is required. 123 EDI chose Wrike for teamwork with its enhanced collaboration features: real-time discussions, handy ways to follow tasks, and a cross-project newsfeed to track progress with ease.

What makes Wrike especially convenient for collaboration is easy data-sharing on project progress with everyone involved. If you wish to connect remote teams, external partners and clients to the project, you can easily do so – the number of external viewers is unlimited.  Bernie confirms: "Wrike's user-friendly web application keeps everyone on the same page."

Commitment to timelines
When you deliver a project on time, customers appreciate it and come back for more. With Wrike's automatic reminders about tasks and updates, you never miss a deadline.

Scheduling tasks is simple and can be done from list, table and timeline views in real time. Bernie Murciano values this ability "to more effectively prioritize tasks by revising due dates." Thus, 123 EDI quickly reacts to the ever-changing business conditions, so that no customer is disappointed by a missed deadline. 

Now that you know Bernie's opinion on what's crucial for improving customer service, we'd love to hear about your experiences! If you wish to share your stories about how Wrike's implementation helped you to tackle project or business management challenges, you are very welcome to do so! Contact us at support@team.wrike.com.

Tips from 123 EDI on Improving Customer
Satisfaction with Wrike's Help

Published by Valerie   |  Thursday, 01 September, 2011
How can you achieve customer service so fine that clients actually comment on it and spread the word about your company? Learn from the benchmark experiences of other companies, and benefit from the latest technologies to facilitate your work.

123 EDI, a leading provider of Electronic Data Interchange (EDI), has been offering a variety of robust, cost-effective EDI solutions since 1991. Projects of 123 EDI are typically complex and require coordination between sales, accounting and programming departments to ensure the company meets and even exceeds customers' expectations.

According to Bernie Murciano, President at 123 EDI, the following principles, supported by Wrike's features, help to achieve top-notch customer service:

Attention to detail
Being thorough in performing clients' requests, minding the details, no matter how small they are, is crucial on the road to customer satisfaction. But can you take the load of remembering too many things off your brain and still deliver everything and more to your clients?

Yes, you can! Wrike stores all the short-term and long-term commitments of 123 EDI, providing "a view of the big picture without losing sight of the many details" says Bernie. Thus, 123 EDI stays ahead of the game and ensures that even minor customer needs are not overlooked. "Positive customer feedback doubled in a couple of months after we adopted Wrike," shares Bernie.

Seamless collaboration
To achieve excellent customer service, a unified effort of all the organizational departments is required. 123 EDI chose Wrike for teamwork with its enhanced collaboration features: real-time discussions, handy ways to follow tasks, and a cross-project newsfeed to track progress with ease.

What makes Wrike especially convenient for collaboration is easy data-sharing on project progress with everyone involved. If you wish to connect remote teams, external partners and clients to the project, you can easily do so – the number of external viewers is unlimited.  Bernie confirms: "Wrike's user-friendly web application keeps everyone on the same page."

Commitment to timelines
When you deliver a project on time, customers appreciate it and come back for more. With Wrike's automatic reminders about tasks and updates, you never miss a deadline.

Scheduling tasks is simple and can be done from list, table and timeline views in real time. Bernie Murciano values this ability "to more effectively prioritize tasks by revising due dates." Thus, 123 EDI quickly reacts to the ever-changing business conditions, so that no customer is disappointed by a missed deadline. 

Now that you know Bernie's opinion on what's crucial for improving customer service, we'd love to hear about your experiences! If you wish to share your stories about how Wrike's implementation helped you to tackle project or business management challenges, you are very welcome to do so! Contact us at support@team.wrike.com.

German Internet Agency Successfully Adopted Bottom-up Planning with Wrike

Published by Dasha   |  Wednesday, 29 June, 2011
Every project manager knows what a huge part of the working day goes toward routine micromanagement tasks, such as collecting the latest data on the project and informing all the team members about plan changes. These problems were very familiar to Daniel Schneider, senior project manager at Secondred Newmedia. After the agency’s portfolio expanded to numerous international clients, Daniel discovered that collaboration turned into a real challenge. “I literally felt drowned with permanent information updates on projects and couldn’t concentrate on high-level tasks, devoting too much time to the coordination process,” he says.

When Secondred Newmedia adopted Wrike, they successfully overcame all collaboration issues with Wrike’s help and discovered an optimal solution for their needs - bottom-up planning. With Wrike, all team members can contribute to general planning, making the firm more agile and saving Daniel Schneider from lots of routine work. “Wrike took the load of micromanagement off me, so that I could switch from manager-centric to team-centric planning,” says Daniel Schneider. If you want to know more about Secondred Newmedia’s successful experience and find useful tips on bottom-up planning, read the whole story of the Internet agency.

ROI Revolution’s Tips on Efficient Task Management

Published by Irene   |  Monday, 27 June, 2011
In today’s ever-changing business environment, a pen and a piece of paper are no longer enough for a manager’s success. Without effective tools for task management and team collaboration, a manager is left empty-handed against the information flood. The constant flow of new data, rescheduled deadlines and modified requirements should be quickly processed by the manager and communicated to the whole team.

These pressing issues were very familiar to Timothy Seward, CEO of ROI Revolution, the leading expert in the search engine marketing and a new Wrike customer.  According to Timothy, “Flexibility and speed is super-critical in today’s digital age,” so he was looking for task management software that would allow  him to easily structure the workflow, accurately organize tasks in neat hierarchies and break the work down into smaller, easy-to-tackle, actionable items. 

All these requirements were met by Wrike. “I love the fact that it hit everything on my dream list. With its help, we get vastly better results. We get more things done and done faster,” says Timothy.  He has thoroughly investigated all of Wrike’s features and is eager to share his findings with you. For example, do you know how to save 50% of time spent on meetings with the help of Wrike’s social networking features? Find the answer and other useful tips in the case study “The Secret of Efficient Task Management: Tips from ROI Revolution.”

You are welcome to listen to the 15-minute audio podcast with Timothy Seward and adopt success tactics from the leading online advertising company:

Also, listen to Timothy's tips on search engine marketing in a bonus track:


As usual, we would be thrilled to hear your comments and ideas about the new podcast and case study. And, of course, you are welcome to follow Timothy’s example and become our next podcast guest. If you are interested in sharing your story of dealing with project management challenges, please contact us at marketing@team.wrike.com.

How to Optimize Remote Collaboration: inlevel’s Success Story

Published by Irene   |  Wednesday, 15 June, 2011
Seamless collaboration is one of the major drivers of team success, especially if team members are spread across several cities or even countries. In the previous post, we described Wrike’s role in ensuring smooth collaboration for such teams. To elaborate on the topic, today we’ll share tips on effective managing of dynamic, distributed teams from our customer Maciej Janiec, CEO at inlevel. 

inlevel specializes in providing firms with a novel business software marketplace where applications can easily be found and purchased. The company is very dynamic and is a perfect example of the highly virtualized organization. inlevel’s core team consists of only three people, and most activities are externalized. “Getting new collaborators on board and keeping everyone on the same page is a big challenge and requires a lot of coordination, but I’m successfully handling it with Wrike,” says Maciej.
 
In inlevel’s success story, Maciej tells you about the best practices for synchronizing the workflow between team members when face-to-face communication is hindered or impossible. According to Maciej, “Managing a distributed team in a multi-project environment is much smoother when you can easily get an overview of what's going on at any moment, who is responsible for each  task, and what’s next in the pipeline.”

Read the full version of the inlevel case study and learn valuable project management advice, including how not to get lost in information overflow when you are multitasking.

Liked the story? We welcome you to become the next success story’s hero and give your exclusive tips for effective project management and seamless collaboration. Simply drop us a note at marketing@team.wrike.com!

Award-winning Marketing Communications Agency Efficiently Manages Multiple Projects with Wrike

Published by Dasha   |  Tuesday, 30 November, 2010
As their number of clients and projects grew, managers at Viva Creative, a leading global provider of marketing communication services, realized that traditional desktop software didn’t help them and their team members handle the challenges of a multi-project environment. Outdated plans, lost assignments, miscommunications between colleagues and duplicate efforts – these problems were as familiar to Viva Creative as to most teams that have several projects running simultaneously.

To improve the collaboration on multiple projects, Viva’s managers started looking for easy-to-use project management software that would help to manage the workload. Members of the distributed team at Viva Creative needed a convenient way to stay up-to-date with project schedules and a handy tool to track their own assignments. For the managers, it was hard to monitor the team’s progress and get a global overview of all the activities.

With Wrike, team members at Viva Creative have found an easy and efficient solution to keep the dynamic workflow well-organized. “Wrike has become an irreplaceable tool that we rely on as we grow our business,” says Lorne Greene, CEO at Viva Creative. Read the whole interview with Lorne to discover why Wrike has become such a valuable tool for Viva Creative and how the team members benefit from using this innovative project management software.
 

Keep Your Team Members on the Same Page with Wrike

Published by Dasha   |  Thursday, 26 August, 2010
Monitoring project statuses, sorting out responsibilities and deadlines, managing documents – how much time and effort do you need to invest in these routine tasks? Tipton Communications, an award-winning company providing PR services, estimates that project administration consumed up to 10% of their working hours. As more new members joined the team and the complexity of business grew, it was getting really challenging for the company’s managers to keep an eye on all the ongoing projects. Team members sometimes duplicated tasks because they didn’t know what exactly their colleagues were working on. Manual project-tracking methods used by Tipton didn’t prevent slips in the workflow. The company’s managers realized they needed a reliable project management application to prevent further problems that would be a potential threat to the corporate image.

Adoption of Wrike brought quick improvements both to managers and team members. “Wrike has been the most productive tool we have added to our arsenal since I started this business nearly five years ago,” says Dan Tipton, president and CEO at Tipton Communications. Read the whole interview with Dan to find out why Wrike turned out to be the best match for the company’s needs and how the workflow at Tipton has changed since it adopted this project management software

Focus on Your Goals While Wrike Takes Care of the Project Communication Routine

Published by Dasha   |  Wednesday, 07 July, 2010
When your small team has to collaborate with numerous external partners, it’s an extra challenge to organize effective collaboration. Is it possible to manage the information flow under the high pressure of multitasking so that no tasks are forgotten, no documents are lost and everyone is kept up-to-date? Hildebrands GmbH, a German company that provides shop fitting solutions, works with 30+ external partners, so they’re very familiar with this situation. They found a solution to handle it. “Wrike minimizes the need to make numerous phone calls and send dozens of emails when working on a project. Wrike automatically takes care of a lot of routine communication tasks. Everyone who is involved gets instantly notified about the updates in the schedule,” says Gunter Hildebrand, managing partner at Hildebrands.

Read the whole interview with Gunter to find out how Wrike helped his company to save 25% of time spent on routine project communication tasks and to organize effective project collaboration with numerous external partners distributed all over Europe.

Wrike Fuels Productivity

Published by Dasha   |  Thursday, 10 June, 2010
It’s an undeniable fact that people’s opinions differ. And even if several individuals are united with one goal, they don’t necessarily go the same way toward achieving it. This is as true for project teamwork as for any kind of cooperation. All the team members may have different views of the project, and everyone certainly has his or her own working habits. 

There has to be an opportunity to accommodate a variety of opinions in order to collaborate efficiently, according to Rurik Bradbury, chief marketing officer at Unison Technologies. Unison provides unified communications solutions to help businesses become more productive with their communications.  Aimed at increasing its own productivity, the company was looking for flexible project management software that would fit into the way its international team works.  “A good collaboration and project management solution is essential for getting things done in a team, especially in a distributed one,” says Rurik. It took Unison Technologies quite a long time to find the right tool. Most of the products the team tried had a unified structure of projects, which didn’t provide the flexibility the company needed. Thus, there was no gain in productivity.

However, it turned out to be absolutely different with Wrike. Unison Technologies has seen a major improvement in productivity after adopting the tool. Read the whole interview to find out how Wrike allowed a team separated by oceans to increase the number of completed tasks by 20%. 
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