The charm of Wrike is that no one had to change much of their day-to-day behavior. Wrike worked the way our staff worked: through e-mail.
How to Introduce a New Tool to a Team
with Long-Standing Working Habits
The charm of Wrike is that no one had to change much of their day-to-day behavior. Wrike worked the way our staff worked: through e-mail.
Challenge
Bellwether Technology’s engineers work at customer sites. They rarely meet in the office, so the most convenient and familiar way for them to communicate is through e-mail. In the email-based work style, there was no place for efficient project management. Brad Rosenberg, project manager at Bellwether Technology, needed a way to effectively track project progress without forcing the team to change their working habits.
Solution
"Wrike’s Intelligent E-mail Engine was the clincher," says Rosenberg. While preserving the e-mail-based working habits of the company’s long-timers, it allowed him to improve the task tracking process. By now, all the company’s engineers are notified about new tasks by Wrike-generated e-mails and mark tasks complete right from their inboxes. Such balance between new project management practices and traditions was key to the tool’s adoption, and soon Wrike was rolled out across the whole company.
- provides enterprise IT support
- has one of the largest technical staffs in the New Orleans area
- Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, Hewlett-Packard Preferred Partner and Cisco Premier Certified Partner
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No need to change working habits |
All data accessible in a blink of an eye |
Customers involved in collaboration |
As Wrike works through e-mail, your team continues collaborating through this habitual tool. Tasks can be created, assigned and commented on right from the inbox. Team members also receive interactive to-do e-mails and notifications about task progress. "Wrike works the way we’re used to working," says Brad. |
With Wrike, there is no need to look through various apps and hundreds of e-mails to find the necessary data. All project information, be it a list of urgent tasks or an important document, is conveniently aggregated in Wrike. "Once I got Wrike, I put all of my projects and tasks into the site, rather than just using Microsoft Project and Post-It Notes," says Brad. |
If you want to let your clients view tasks and projects, Wrike is a good choice for you. With
unlimited viewer licenses, you can allow all of your clients to take part in the project
collaboration. |
Bellwether Technology’s tips for introducing a new
tool to a team that strongly sticks to an old one
Do your homework thoroughly. |
Take your team’s working habits into account. |
Explain the benefits of the tool to your team. |
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Test software carefully and weigh all the pros and cons before introducing it to the team. "I must have tested nearly 40 different applications before getting to Wrike. Most required too much upkeep from my co-workers, or they were simply too basic for our needs," says Brad. |
Rather than imposing a new, sophisticated tool to your team, try to find the one they will be comfortable using. For example, if your team is used to e-mail communication, look for software with e-mail integration. If your team members are smartphone fans, a smartphone app is a must. |
Make sure your team knows how the new tool may help them in their day-to-day work. For example, e-mail to-do lists in Wrike are interactive, so the company’s engineers can mark their tasks complete without logging into the system. That is a great time-saver and one of their favorite Wrike features. |
Your team will thank you!