Maria Waida
Maria is a freelance content writer who specializes in blogging and other marketing materials for enterprise software businesses.
Project management will undergo significant changes this coming year. Worldwide physical and cultural events are shaping every new project management trend happening in the industry. They may even be transforming the entire project management discipline. Keep reading to stay in the know about some of the most notable changes, alongside our predictions for what to expect in the near future. What are the current trends in project management? While we all want to see into the future of project management trends, these current industry ideas are sure to influence project management teams for months to come: Improving communication across blended teams Effective communication skills are required to stay motivated during and after the pandemic. This means having the necessary tools and expertise to work remotely. Today’s project managers must learn how to use systems that overcome the challenges of working from home. Not only does improving communication increase productivity, but it may also improve mental health in the workplace after the pandemic. Maximizing the effectiveness of hybrid and remote work Even after the global pandemic has subsided, the hybrid work model will still be a staple of business moving forward. There are many advantages to having face-to-face interaction with employees. However, this interaction will require the use of new technology and strategies to manage it properly. Embracing Agile as a means to combine strategy with output In 2022, companies will need to ensure that their teams are Agile and fast-moving. Instead of having a one-size-fits-all framework, teams will need to have the knowledge and experience necessary to choose strategic frameworks that fit their needs. Over the past year, more companies have started using Agile methods to improve their project management processes. We would expect them to increase their usage in the coming years. A prediction of future trends in project management Based on our experience and research, we believe that the following future trends in project management are worth exploring. Use each one to better understand your goals for the upcoming year and what the industry may look like in a few months' time. 1. Fully remote project teams The onset of the coronavirus pandemic forced many organizations to rethink their work-from-home policies. As a result, many workers in the US have shifted to working from home full- or part-time. That means project management is no longer confined to the typical office. Some tasks are more easily carried out when team members are located close to one another. For instance, team building exercises are less time-consuming when done face-to-face. Despite the challenges, remote work has many advantages that can help organizations attract and retain top talent. For instance, it allows employees to work from anywhere in the world. Alongside that, full-time employees are increasingly working as members of dispersed, global teams, communicating and coordinating via online software and apps. Technology plays a huge role in that. Meetings are held via Zoom, tasks are tracked in a project management tool,and schedules are developed and delivered to team members entirely online. Since the rise of remote work is likely to continue, project managers need to find ways to reduce friction and make their work more efficient. So the question to ask yourself is: can you improve your projects by bringing on freelancers or remote workers? If the answer is yes, don't hold back because of technology complications — the right tech exists to support you. 2. An increased dependency on project management tools Project management has always been a tool for carrying out goals and managing risk. Over the years, however, its scope has broadened to encompass a wide range of activities and initiatives. Project management tools help organizations execute their strategy but they can also be used to manage the portfolio and the various tasks related to that strategy. Doing so will help them make more informed decisions and improve their organizations' progress on key goals while providing more value. There are external project management trends affecting our dependence on these tools too. As the world changes due to the rise of artificial intelligence and machine learning, project management will be affected by the need to collect and analyze vast amounts of data. Exactly how this will play out is difficult to predict but most experts agree that it will be unavoidable. 3. A focus on enhanced collaboration The true digital transformation of project management should be complete by the end of 2022. We’re referring to relying on online tools for collaboration and coordination between teams, and not just complex back-and-forth email exchanges. New remote, hybrid, and flexible working options allow employees to work wherever they want, while employers benefit from the higher quality output of their workers. Despite the advantages of distributed teams, it can be very challenging to promote collaboration among the employees. In an effort to solve this issue, many companies have started implementing online project management tools. For example, some teams use multimedia conferencing so that remote workers can still meet and communicate with their in-house counterparts. Others use project management software such as Wrike to plan, schedule, and monitor progress across all active initiatives. No matter which tools you choose to use in 2022, one thing is clear: learning how to work well with others despite physical barriers will continue to be essential as we continue to deal with the global pandemic. 4. Understanding different types of soft skills Project managers typically need a certain level of expertise in various areas of operations in order to be successful in their roles. However, without the right combination of soft skills, they may not be able to effectively manage people and produce the best results. First and foremost, the ability to communicate expectations and work well with all parties involved is very important. This is why soft skills such as empathy, decision-making, and leadership are critical to a project's success. A project manager who has these abilities plays a critical role in improving the entire team’s performance as both a model for behavior and setting the tone for workplace culture. Because at the end of the day, the project manager will determine the level of cooperation between the team members until the project is finished. Wondering how to stay ahead of the curve and improve your own soft skills? Here are some tips to practice: Don’t make assumptions about what others are thinking and feeling. Encourage discussion and always get important project details in writing. Encourage employees to be themselves, contribute to project planning, and express their personalities. Connect on a deeper level with individual team members by asking questions about their life outside of work. Learn how to properly apologize and resolve an argument for yourself and for others. Be open to feedback. You can always learn and improve. 5. Emphasis on avoiding physical and mental stress In 2022, we predict you'll be more challenged by employee development than employee retention, requiring your new team members to settle in faster with optimized training programs and work delegated to new team members sooner. Avoiding physical and mental stress will be a large part of keeping employees happy, healthy, and on your team. You may not realize it but there are a lot of ways you can make work smoother for your entire team. Here’s how: Set clear expectations with goals and deadlines This method would allow your team members to focus on the things that they're good at and not on the things that they're not good at. It would also prevent them from accidentally repeating the same exercises or processes. Offer schedule flexibility Everyone wants to work more flexible hours. This is why it is important to allow your team members to work without being monitored often. They can only complete their work once specific deadlines have been met. Address issues, if they ever come up, and focus on making work easier for everyone involved. You can also provide more freedom in terms of where employees can work from. Offer at least one work from home day per week or month. Or, if your employees are local and have been entirely remote, give them a desk to come in and work from if they ever need it. Make fitness part of workplace culture Your staff members should take time to exercise. Some ways to ensure this include offering some assistance through onsite yoga classes, walking meetings, or even small activities such as a group stretching session every morning. Offer more praise than criticism Great managers recognize the efforts of their team members. They can either congratulate them on a great job in private or make a small announcement about their achievements during a weekly meeting. Even a small acknowledgment of someone’s hard work can make a big difference in how they feel about the project so far. 6. A continued concentration on Agile methodology Agile development is a set of principles that enables developers to get started with projects without having to learn how to manage traditional tasks and processes. With Agile, teams can easily break down a project into multiple stages, allowing them to manage the work seamlessly. It also allows them to collaborate more effectively with project stakeholders. Not only is it more adaptable—a must now that we’re seeing a renewed importance on remote work flexibility and increased attention on how we collaborate—but it’s also completely customizable. How Wrike will help with project management in 2022 Wrike is a project management tool built to bring teams into the future of work with all the support they need to get ahead of new project management trends. That includes managing complex project phases, communicating across teams and departments, and collaborating seamlessly. Managing complex project phases Complex projects require a phased approach to ensure they meet expectations and budgets. They also require a team effort to identify and understand the various dependencies that could affect the project's success. The Complex Project With Phases template by Wrike simplifies the management of large, complex projects. It features a variety of predefined phases and tasks, and it can be viewed in the project chart view. Communicating across teams and departments Communication is a vital component of a successful project, especially when juggling hybrid and remote teams. Without a good communication plan, it’s easy for misunderstandings to happen between the teams and departments. This template will help you build a consistent cadence for communicating with the team and stakeholders. Use it to create a project schedule to keep track of all the updates that are needed by each stakeholder. Collaborating with everyone involved With more people working remotely, the need for effective collaboration tools is more important than ever. The good news is that thanks to Wrike, teams can work seamlessly from anywhere. Use Wrike to create a digital workspace that's organized and secure in the cloud. Our project management platform is ideal for securely storing all your files and details with individualized permission settings. Teams can work more effectively with others through Wrike’s custom-field request forms and tools. Wrike’s tools will also help you cut down on emails and make suggestions in real time. Get a jump-start on your 2022 project management with Wrike’s two-week free trial.
Even though it’s a simple concept, takt time can be a very powerful tool for project managers who need a more productive strategy. Knowing the exact production rate of a project will help you avoid running out of time or resources. It will also help your organization increase profits and better serve customer needs. In this article, we’ll answer all of your top questions about takt time along with examples, benefits, and more. What is takt time? Takt time is a formula that enables you to manage every step of the manufacturing process efficiently and without waste. The total represents the time it takes to make a product to meet a customer's demand. It does not include unsupervised work time such as lunch breaks or scheduled maintenance. Takt time is a German term created by airplane manufacturers in the 1930s that means "to regulate the tempo" or "to play" music, which makes sense considering the symphony of complex steps needed to complete most projects. Manufacturers use the calculation to control the speed of their production lines. But it can also be used by project management offices and marketing managers to efficiently pace out initiatives. This calculation allows businesses to effectively create supply without leaving too much inventory on the market. Takt time also shows the rate at which a finished product should be produced which improves the accuracy of project planning and setting clear expectations. Additionally, takt time helps to monitor the efficiency of a production line once it is up and running, as well as the performance of the entire process, to ensure that waste is removed. All in all, it’s useful for both managing time and predicting any future production issues. Takt time can be used in any phase of project planning to improve productivity. Because takt time makes it easier to adjust competing project schedules without losing progress on either, managers will often use takt time to maintain a continuous flow of products without wasting any resources. Project management solutions such as Wrike are great for tracking takt time and improving resource management. The goal is to get rid of the non-value-adding activities that we don't need to complete. This makes it a strong incentive to get rid of those tasks that are not related to the work in order to improve takt time. Wrike has several features that assist with this, including time tracking, visual project planning charts, and reporting. How to calculate takt time It's important to know the exact takt time of your product to avoid wasting it. The good news is that calculating takt time is relatively simple. Knowing the time it takes to meet a customer’s demand is not rocket science. This data can be pulled from your project management tool’s report features to help you make informed decisions about how to manage your team’s workloads across an entire portfolio of active projects. Monitoring takt time can make a significant difference on success during the lifecycle of a project. For example, when the demand for takt time rises so much that it has to come down, managers can reorganize activities to fit into the shorter takt time. Here’s the simple formula you can use to accurately calculate takt time: Takt time = the total number of available working hours divided by customer demand. Tip: In order to get the most out of the lean process, it’s important to break down the production into smaller cycles. Then, compare the takt time for the total project to the individual cycles to get a more accurate estimate. Takt time example Using the takt time formula, we can look at a simple example of how to calculate and understand the results: Let’s say there are eight working hours in a day. Right now, customers demand one item that takes eight hours to make. The takt time equals one working day. Some will break down those hours into minutes and calculate minutes per item creation. In this example that would be eight hours x 60 minutes or a takt time of 480 minutes. If there are any breaks, meetings, administrative tasks, or work unrelated to the direct project outcome within that eight-hour period, you’ll have to subtract the average minutes from that total for your takt time calculation. What are the benefits of takt time? Takt time is a popular project management tool for a reason. Whether you want to master leads and lags or simply manage incoming work requests without derailing progress in other areas, then takt time is for you. Here are the benefits of takt time you can achieve regardless of your industry: Create efficient processes Takt time helps Scrum project managers measure exactly how much they’ll need to shave off of production time in order to meet customer demand. With this in mind, they can find new methods for task scheduling, planning, and execution. Instead of overhauling the entire process, they can instead focus on the areas that need the most improvement and go from there until they meet their goal. Eliminate or reduce waste Takt time is all about efficiently using project resources. When you’re focused on improving productivity to reach a specific time goal, it’s easier to identify which resources can be used in smarter ways. If you’re using a project management tool, this can look like finding roadblocks ahead of time or sending automated notifications to team members once it’s their turn to begin their portion of the project. Strategically manage inventory Customer demand ebbs and flows throughout the year for many industries. By using takt time, managers can accurately forecast so that their production aligns with customer demand, saving time and money on wasted output. Manage time wisely Takt time is best for deciding where you should invest more or less time as a team. Many managers who use takt time often find and eliminate bottlenecks in their process that they may not have found otherwise. Set the right pace Takt time helps managers holistically set the pace for multiple ongoing projects. As you receive incoming work requests, experience delays, and manage customer expectations, you may find that some projects must be slowed while others are rushed in order to adjust. By using takt time, you’ll be able to properly pace out initiative while keeping everything on course. Are there limitations of takt time? Takt time, like any project management strategy, does have its limitations. Over the course of an active project, the task hierarchy has to be leveled to make sure that the tasks are not bulked in front of certain phases. This prevents the action plan created from the takt time calculation from being flexible as a whole. Also, the concept of takt time does not take into account the human factors that happen during certain processes, such as a team member needing a longer lunch or PTO. This means that the demand must be leveled in order to make the processes more efficient. Takt time vs cycle time vs lead time While cycle time and takt time are both commonly used by lean practitioners, they measure different things. Cycle time is the time it takes for the team to complete a task or order from start to finish. Takt time is the time it takes to finish a product to meet demand. For example, if a customer orders a new product every hour, the team needs to finish it in an hour or less. That means the takt time must be less than an hour. If the team takes longer than an hour (the cycle time), then the process will need to be streamlined or minimized in order to align with the takt time. People also tend to confuse the terms cycle time and lead time, which are both lean metrics. Lead time is the time it takes for a customer order to be fulfilled. And, as we’ve already mentioned, cycle time is the time it takes for a team to complete a task. For example, if a single customer order takes five hours to fill but the team needs six hours instead, they’ll need to adjust their own timeline to meet the customer demand (takt time). And unlike takt time, which refers to meeting customer demand, lead time focuses instead on individual order fulfillment. Still not sure what the difference is between takt time vs cycle time vs lead time? Here’s a handy summary: Takt time = how long it takes to meet customer demand in general Cycle time = how long it takes for a team to complete an order or project Lead time = how long it takes to fulfill an individual customer’s order In conclusion A production system that is designed to provide continuous flow and value for the customer is ideal for minimizing waste and producing high-quality results. Wrike offers features such as visual project status dashboards and teamwide time management that make it easier to analyze and adjust your takt time. Start your free two-week trial of Wrike and begin mastering this powerful project management tool today.
As 2021 draws to a close, many employees are still working remotely across the world. With this in mind, businesses are looking at how they can involve everyone within their organizations in a fun and memorable virtual Christmas party. In this guide, we’ll provide practical insight into the planning and hosting of virtual Christmas parties. Keep reading to discover the tips, tricks, and tools you need to create a successful digital event your team will actually enjoy. How to get everyone involved in a virtual Christmas party Engaging an audience of remote workers seems challenging at first. They’re already used to virtual events but not necessarily the fun kind. In order to make your virtual Christmas party exciting, you’ll need to follow some best practices for planning virtual events. The three hallmarks of improving engagement at any virtual event are the inclusion of a physical component, an interactive process, and being able to see other attendees. A physical component of a virtual event can include something sent to an attendee’s address ahead of time that they can use on the day. For a virtual Christmas party, this may be a funny themed hat or a present. Most companies choose to do virtual gift cards as their Christmas party presents for employees. Instead, make the day more exciting by sending a physical gift to every attendee. Creating a gift box or basket that people can actually open will make your virtual Christmas party that much more memorable. An interactive process requires audience participation before, during, and after the event. For example, you can spark engagement from the moment you first invite guests by using a virtual registration process that gets them excited about the event. For large groups or events, registration should be done at least two weeks in advance. And just like at an in-person event, your virtual Christmas party team leads should interact with the confirmed attendees ahead of time through fun event reminders and announcements. Pro tip: Having a virtual event registration process helps differentiate your virtual Christmas party from other digital office gatherings. It shows that this is more than just a calendar invite for a training session or regular meeting. E-cards such as the festive holiday cocktail party ones from Paperless Post are great for this. Finally, host your virtual Christmas party on a video call platform and not just on a one-way livestream or audio-only app. Require cameras to be on throughout the event. Create opportunities for guests to use every feature of the event platform. For example, you can play part games and designate teams by having Team A use the raised hand emoji and Team B use the heart emoji on Zoom. You can also use breakout rooms to create smaller groups for team building activities and Christmas-themed challenges. Top tips for planning a virtual Christmas party Planning a virtual Christmas party can feel and look a lot like planning a virtual work meeting. Here are some ways to make these two events different yet well organized: Designate a charismatic host who can keep track of the event timeline and keep everyone engaged. Use a team collaboration software like Wrike to project manage your virtual Christmas party. Ask your team what they’d like to see happen at the virtual Christmas party so they can feel involved in the planning process too. Include team building activities and icebreaker games to kick off the social part of the evening. Double-check that your host WiFi is strong and guests can hear and see you clearly. Your party should be scheduled for a Friday night instead of a Saturday afternoon if you want to maximize attendance. If you decide to go all out, make sure to provide alcohol-free transportation or driver services. If you organize a virtual Christmas party during work hours, make certain that your team is prepared to handle the additional workload. Go all out with your background decorations to make the event feel truly special. This can be a physical background filled with a Christmas tree and gifts or a customized virtual background everyone can use that has a festive design. Virtual Christmas party ideas and games your team won't hate Host a sommelier-led wine or hot cocoa tasting complete with nuts, candies, and cheese. Participate in a remote escape room experience. The winning team gets a Secret Santa gift. Have a Christmas cookie decorating competition with management as the judges. This requires some prep ahead of time but will be a visual feast for all attendees. Dress to a theme and host a contest for the best ugly sweaters, Santas, and other Christmas character outfits. Bring in classic board games such as bingo, charades, and virtual Apples to Apples. Look for versions with a holiday or Christmas twist. Invite guest performers to do stand-up comedy, play live music, or even do magic while dressed as Santa. If children are in attendance, screen a Christmas movie like “A Muppet Christmas Carol”. If it’s adults only, watch something like “Die Hard”. Host a creative workshop such as cocktail making, scarf knitting, or ornament crafting. Invite a local school, church, or community group to sing Christmas carols during the event. Start a Christmas-themed trivia game for prizes. How do you make a virtual Christmas party inclusive? Although there are various holiday celebrations and festivities that happen throughout the year, they seldom get the same attention that they deserve. An inclusive approach encourages employees to recognize that they come from a variety of faiths, traditions, and cultures. To make your virtual Christmas party more inclusive, leaders should make their employees feel valued by turning it into a virtual office holiday party instead. Or, if hosting a true Christmas celebration is important to the majority of your team, make sure you’re upfront about it. Sometimes an employer will announce a regular holiday event that ends up feeling, looking, and sounding a lot like a Christmas party. But according to the experts at the Society for Human Resource Management, it’s much better to be upfront about which holiday or holidays will be represented at your party than mislabeling it for the sake of inclusion. If you do host a virtual Christmas party, make sure to also acknowledge and give the appropriate time off for other winter holiday celebrations for employees who celebrate those instead. How to plan a virtual Christmas party with Wrike Wrike is an online task management system that manages to-do lists and multi-department projects, including events like virtual Christmas parties. Its advanced features allow it to efficiently organize groups of people. To start, it's important that the virtual Christmas party planning team has a centralized folder for each major portion of the event running at the same time. This way, they can easily identify which parts of the plan are complete and which ones are still in progress. Next, each team has its own subfolders, which can be organized into areas of responsibility and major initiatives. This system also keeps all of the important details organized, allowing each team to set its own deadlines and work seamlessly with the other event crew. For virtual Christmas parties, this means keeping track of everything from mailing invitations and gifts to arranging live performers. After, Wrike users can add a registration folder to their virtual Christmas party project. The registration folder contains all the necessary information related to attendee registration. From there, tasks can be broken down into specific sub-tasks with more detail. For example, if your task is to host a cookie baking contest, your sub-task list may include the item “draft contest rules by December 15”. In addition to adding dates to tasks and sub-tasks, members of the event management team can add custom tags to each item. This will make tasks easier to find, sort, and assign to the appropriate team members. Each team can customize their tag options in Wrike to fit their own guidelines for breaking down tasks into action items. For example, teams can designate certain tasks as “Administrative” to automatically sort logistics-based tasks into one skimmable list. Once you've created a list of tasks, you can start scheduling them in Wrike. Doing so in the timeline view will help organize them nicely and ensure that your announcements, invitations, RSVPs, and party shopping all get done on time. There are lots of ways to view tasks once you have them created and assigned. Drag-and-drop tasks can be organized in a timeline view. You can also group them into predefined hierarchies. And if one task is dependent on another (such as waiting for RSVPs to come in before putting together the gift baskets), Wrike allows users to connect tasks and send automated notifications and reminders to the appropriate people when it’s time to move on to the next steps. Having task dependencies makes it easier to identify which tasks are dependent on which part of your virtual Christmas party plan. Also, it saves you time when you need to update the status of a specific task since Wrike will trigger these reminders for you. And after your virtual Christmas party is over, you can simply just drag and drop the entire folder into a "Past Events" folder for next year. Create a templated version of your planning process to streamline future event planning and organizing. Or simply keep a record of the fun everyone had and how you brought it to life. No matter how you use the information, it’s handy to have on file within your project management system for future reference. Ready to get your virtual Christmas party organized and on track to be a big hit? Get started today with Wrike’s two-week free trial to take advantage of our detailed task management capabilities.
In the good old days of digital marketing circa 1971 (when the first ever email was sent), the best indicator of campaign success was whether or not someone looked at what you put out into the world. Now that technology is more advanced and the market is flooded with content, marketers need to use a more sophisticated approach. Enter digital marketing KPIs. Today, agency and marketing directors use digital marketing project KPIs to improve profit, streamline resources, and prove return on investment to their clients. Keep reading to discover the definitions, examples, and tools top marketers use to remain competitive in today’s digital landscape. What are digital marketing KPIs? KPI stands for key performance indicator which is also known as performance metrics. A digital marketing key performance indicator is what marketers use to measure the success of a particular strategy or marketing channel. The KPI or KPIs you choose will depend on what your goal is for the project. Marketers will often choose one or two primary KPIs to support their main goal and a handful of relevant secondary KPIs to support any additional objectives. For example, let’s say you run a social media campaign on Twitter and your goal is to increase your engagement percentage within your existing audience. Your primary KPIs will be the number of comments and retweets each original tweet receives. There are three main categories of digital marketing KPIs to know: 1. Awareness Awareness is all about getting your brand in front of as many new people as possible. If your brand is already established, the next challenge is to help potential customers learn about new products or services they might be interested in. Common marketing tactics in this phase include cold emailing and calling. 2. Conversion The goal of this phase is to make a sale. Marketers often do this by building long-term relationships and trust. Content like blog posts and podcasts with problem-solving advice for the audience works well for this stage. 3. Analysis After you make a sale you can use analysis KPIs to determine how much you spent in resources to acquire each new customer. This information will inform your next campaign. Why set KPIs in digital marketing? KPIs in digital marketing prove return on investment to clients and stakeholders. They also help you measure progress, streamline processes, and quantify what would otherwise be intangible marketing benefits. Using KPIs in digital marketing will help you better understand why something does or does not work for your particular brand or strategy. Without KPIs, marketing agencies run the risk of throwing spaghetti at a wall and seeing what sticks. If your agency does not assert its value and authority through actual proof, it’s hard to get or keep clients long-term. KPIs translate into concrete numbers that prove what you’re doing is getting real results. Who sets KPIs in marketing? At an agency, a marketing or agency director will set the KPIs. Otherwise, the responsibility falls on the campaign manager. Whoever chooses the KPIs also has to come up with a plan for tracking them. They may adopt related marketing tools and habits to make sure results are consistently recorded and monitored throughout the lifetime of each campaign. Agency project management tools such as Wrike can help streamline these processes. Users can easily assign monitoring and reporting tasks to designated teammates so that nothing slips through the cracks. Marketing KPI examples Marketing KPIs differ from project to project, platform to platform, and goal to goal. Use these most common marketing KPI examples below as a jumping-off point: Email marketing KPIs 1. Number of emails successfully delivered, opened, and/or replied to What it is: The total of all emails interacted with compared to the total sent. Why you need it: This information tells marketers if their messages are getting through to inboxes. It also demonstrates whether or not the subject line is persuasive enough and if the campaign promotes further engagement. How to measure it: Use an email marketing campaign software to bypass spam filters and track open rates. 2. Embedded link and CTA button click-through rates What it is: The percentage of people who have both opened your emails and clicked the link or button inside. Why you need it: The click-through rate shows how effective your offers or calls to action are. How to measure it: Add a link tracking app to test components like CTA messages, colors, and placement. 3. Social shares and forwards What it is: The number of times a post has been shared or sent to other people from social media. Why you need it: Sharing is a high-value form of engagement that gets your posts in front of more people which is great for increasing impressions and expanding your audience. How to measure it: Most social media apps include this information within your Analytics. Social media KPIs 1. Number of followers versus number of unfollowers What it is: The total number of people who have followed your account that day or week compared to the number of people who have unfollowed your account in the same. Why you need it: Ideally you'll have more followers than unfollowers but this KPI shows whether or not your content is targeting the correct audience and is interesting enough to keep their attention. How to measure it: Your number of followers is publicly available at the top of your social media profile. However, you may need to use a third-party app to track unfollowers. 2. Likes, comments, and shares What it is: These are the top forms of engagement for any social media post regardless of what platform it's on. Why you need it: Better engagement equals higher conversion rates, steadier audience growth, and stronger relationships over time.= How to measure it: This information is made publicly available on most social media platforms. 3. New impressions What it is: The number of times your content was organically shown to someone on the platform whether or not they interacted with it. Why you need it: This social media KPI demonstrates reach, which you should aim to increase over time through paid ads, better engagement, and more followers. How to measure it: Creator analytics or a behind-the-scenes app will show your new impressions by day, week, or month. Content marketing KPIs 1. Unique visits What it is: The total number of people (or IP addresses) clicking on your website within a given time frame. Why you need it: Unique visits document the volume of traffic over time, which is useful for selling products and services. However, some unique visits might be from bots which is why it's critical to also track engagement and conversions at the same time. How to measure it: Website analytics platforms like Google help users track this data after it’s set up, which means historical data will not be available. 2. Average time on page What it is: The average amount of time all visitors (both unique and returning) spend on each individual web page. Why you need it: Your goal should be to make the average time on page high because it will likely lead to better sales conversion rate. Plus it shows that your content is relevant to your audience. How to measure it: Website analytics tools will help you measure it. 3. Link and CTA button click-through rates What it is: The percentage at which all site visitors click on links and buttons. Why you need it: Most website links and buttons are tied to sales or important data capture such as email newsletters. Having a high rate of success means that your offers and audience are in alignment. How to measure it: Website analytics tools or third party link tracking apps are best. SEO KPIs 1. Keyword search engine ranking What it is: How high your website ranks for a specific keyword or phrase within popular search engines. Why you need it: Your goal should be to rank number 1 on Google and Bing. Or on the first page, at the very least, so that more people will find and click on your website. How to measure it: Type in your keyword phrase into a search engine to see if it shows up or use a tool like SEMRush for more advanced analytics. 2. Organic traffic What it is: Site traffic from anything other than paid ads. Why you need it: High rates of organic traffic means that more people are finding your products and services by simply searching related questions or words, which indicates that your SEO strategy is working. How to measure it: Use a website analytics tool.3. Link click-through rates What it is: The rate at which people are clicking on paid search advertisements or web pages that appear organically in search results. Why you need it: For paid ads, the link click-through rate shows how effective your copy is. How to measure it: Website analytics and third-party apps help you track individual links. Also, whichever search engine advertisement platform you use will likely track this data automatically. PPC KPIs 1. Click rate What it is: Percentage of people who see your ad in search engines and click on it. Why you need it: The higher the percentage, the more persuasive your copy is. How to measure it: Your advertising platform will have user analytics for you. 2. Sales conversion rate What it is: The total number of sales divided by the number of interactions with a given paid ad. Why you need it: This number shows whether or not the offer promised in the ad is still relevant for the audience the ad is being shown to and if it aligns with their expectations enough to persuade them to buy. How to track it: Your advertising platform will have these statistics for you.3. Cost per acquisition What it is: The dollar amount you pay for every new customer you obtained through a paid advertisement. Why you need it: This shows exactly where your budget is going and whether or not your campaign is worth reinvesting in.How to track it: Use an analytics tool or divide the total cost of the PPC campaign by the total revenue made from it. What are the challenges of marketing KPIs? The main challenge of marketing KPIs is choosing the right ones, monitoring them effectively, and turning data into actionable insights. To choose the right marketing KPIs every time, create SMART goals then match KPIs to link your channel type (like email or social media) to your desired outcome. To monitor them effectively, make sure that all your KPIs are measurable and that there are tools in place to capture all related data. Finally, turn data into actionable insights by using a professional services management platform to create automated reports plus easy-to-read insights. What to do when KPIs aren't met Now that you have your digital marketing KPIs set, it’s important to know what happens if your KPIs are failing. If they’re not connected to strategy, overshooting (or undershooting) your goals, or are too outdated now, the best way to get back on track is to adopt a marketing project management solution like Wrike. Why Wrike can help you with digital marketing KPIs Wrike helps directors and managers use digital marketing KPIs to make informed decisions. Wrike Report automates marketing, data capture, assessment, and reporting using visual graphs so that KPIs are easier to understand. At-a-glance updates like these save time and make collaboration that much smoother. Marketing teams can also create templates for repeated campaigns or to relive the success of another client’s strategy for a new project. Use Wrike’s two-week free trial to visualize your objectives and key results (OKRs) so that your KPIs are bulletproof throughout any project.
Planning your strategy for next quarter and not sure which direction to go in? In this article, we’re analyzing push vs. pull marketing so you can make the best possible decision. Learn more about what they are, how they are used, and the main difference between push and pull marketing. We’ll also go over some push vs. pull marketing examples and provide templates you can use to create winning marketing content. What is push marketing? All advertising can be classified into two broad categories: push and pull. On the one hand, push advertising aims to push products towards specific customers, while pull advertising focuses on the right people at the right time. Push marketing, specifically, is a strategy managers use to promote their products to consumers. The goal of push marketing is to get the products seen by the consumers at the point of purchase. Exposure is the north star for this marketing plan. This can be accomplished through many different channels, including social media, standard mail, or in stores. Although many companies try to build long-term relationships with their customers alongside this strategy, push marketing focuses on acquiring an immediate sale. That’s why it’s great for increasing sales volume and improving brand loyalty. Push marketing can be applied to both B2C and professional services spaces. For example, in the B2B space, a manufacturer or wholesaler may try to convince a retail outlet to stock its product by including samples at an in-person marketing demonstration. Although push marketing seems like the best option on paper, marketing managers should be cautious about making this their only approach. If a company decides to spend a huge sum on advertising, they can easily lose money if their customers ignore their messages. Because push marketing doesn’t focus on building relationships, major drivers of sales, such as repeat business, aren’t a direct result of this campaign type. In other words, using push marketing as your only strategy could lead to missed opportunities. On the other hand, push marketing is most successful when marketing campaigns promote goods and services that are already in demand. Overall, push marketing is a great way to create immediate results and make a strong impression on potential customers. It eliminates the need for branding and promotes a new product quickly. Its temporary effects attract new customers even though it can be expensive and the results are often not long term. Before you get started on a push marketing plan, your team should first gather information on the potential customers that you’ll be pushing the advertisements out to. Afterward, marketers can use this data to choose which platform or platforms they’ll focus on. From there, they’ll be able to create a powerful message that appeals to the right demographic and is highly effective for the marketing channel they plan to use. What is pull marketing? Pull marketing is a strategy that focuses on increasing the number of consumers who want to buy a particular product. It often involves convincing a consumer to actively seek a product in order to get retailers to stock it. Brands that use pull marketing will reach out to consumers through a direct marketing campaign. The consumers then go to a retailer and purchase the product. This allows the producer to both sell the product and fill stock according to the consumer's demand. This strategy typically works best when the lead time is long enough for consumers to compare alternatives. This allows them to make a purchase without being pressured into a hasty decision. It also means companies must convince consumers that they should buy the product they see advertised. The advantage to consumers is that they won’t have to settle for whatever product is in stock elsewhere simply because it is available. Instead, they’ll see the real value of your goods or services through your pull marketing strategy and are more willing to make the effort and reinvest long term if the proposition is strong enough. There are many ways to reach customers through pull marketing, all of which aim to build excitement for a product or a company. With pull marketing, a company can promote a product before it is available for purchase. It saves them money by reducing the number of units they produce before the product launches. In the best case scenario, the demand for a product will exceed the supply when pull marketing is used. Most people are unsure of the differences between push vs. pull marketing. But they should also be asking what the differences are between pull marketing and regular marketing. A pull marketing campaign is different from a traditional advertising campaign. Instead of focusing on a specific product or service, this strategy starts with analyzing the company’s goals and market potential. While both methods may analyze market research data, a pull marketing campaign places a greater emphasis on generating new interest. Pull marketing is especially important for products that are completely unique in some way. Whether it’s a never-before-released trademark doll or a rare kitchen gadget, pull marketing is best used to reach new or underserved markets. Word-of-mouth excitement and attracting plenty of customers is the name of the game with push marketing. This excitement should last across various stages of a product's life cycle, selling out in stores or surpassing user capacity whenever possible. Key differences between push and pull marketing At first glance, push vs. pull marketing seems to be about exact opposites. But in reality, they do overlap. We’ve outlined the primary characteristics of each and how they look when applied in real life. Demand: Push marketing works well with products people are already familiar with or have an interest in. Pull marketing is effective for selling something people may have never heard of before and for creating demand where there was none or little to begin with. Length of time: Push marketing focuses on short-term sales, whereas pull marketing may take longer to establish. Product type: Pull marketing products are typically one of a kind in some way and may require telling audiences exactly what they are. Push marketing products are familiar to audiences and usually require little to no comparison shopping. Goal: Push marketing aims to make a sale immediately, whereas pull marketing builds an audience over time and often from scratch. Cost: Both types of marketing campaigns are what you make of them. They both may use similar channels but reach different audiences. It truly depends on the product and who you’re trying to reach. In a nutshell: the differences between push and pull marketing primarily revolve around the brand’s relationship to the audiences they’re targeting and the sales goals they are trying to reach. Push and pull strategy examples Amazon is a great example of a company that uses both push and pull marketing strategies to make a profit. First, its warehouses are strategically placed close to major cities and metropolitan areas. This makes Amazon a pure push company when it comes to selling its products because their service meets customers where their demand is. At the same time, they use a pull strategy to promote third-party sellers with tools such as retargeting ads that entice users to go back onto the site and complete their purchase. Both are highly effective. Without their warehouses, Amazon would have fewer sellers since space is often an obstacle for brands with physical inventory, which could deter wannabe businesses from the site. And without promoting their sellers' products, they wouldn’t see any profit from their sales. How to choose between push or pull marketing There are two things to consider as you choose between push or pull marketing. The first is demand. Is there already strong demand for what you do or offer? Do you know how and where to reach customers at the point of sale, whether online or in person, for this specific product? If you can confidently answer those questions, then push marketing is the strategy for you. On the other hand, is word-of-mouth marketing an important part of your strategy? Do you know if your offer fulfills a need that your customers don’t realize they have or don’t yet know your solution is the best possible option? If yes, then pull marketing is your best bet. How to set up your marketing strategy with Wrike Wrike is a project management tool marketers use to plan and execute their strategies. Wrike users plan and launch hundreds of digital marketing campaigns across various platforms and languages. Planning and executing these campaigns can be challenging, even for those who already know a thing or two about push vs. pull marketing. That’s where Wrike’s template comes in. This template is built to help marketing teams organize and execute digital marketing campaigns. To begin, break down your campaign into phases. Create tasks that must be completed within each phase and assign them to your team. Each task can be assigned to a specific member of your team. These tasks can be easily categorized into various categories and can be deleted or renamed as needed. Next, track progress with our interactive Gantt chart and export reports for review. Because Wrike is secure, you can safely communicate and share data with other stakeholders and managers to get feedback on performance. Not only is this useful for keeping track of complex push and pull marketing campaigns, but it’s also helpful for managing different marketing projects at the same time. Most marketers utilize both push and pull marketing strategies but have the same team members working on both. Having your projects managed all in one place makes it easier to see progress, communicate tasks, and keep everyone on the same page despite all the different strategies in play. In addition to task assignments, Wrike also offers visual Gantt charts to help users better understand the big picture. The Gantt chart view shows the project's overall plan and all the tasks in its dynamic timeline. It can help you spot delays and maximize your chances of meeting your deadlines. To further maximize visibility, this template comes with a pre-configured dashboard that shows campaign progress, which includes unassigned tasks and overdue tasks. It also includes a variety of predefined widgets to help you keep track of all your campaign data. As you go about creating materials for your push and pull campaigns, Wrike allows you to store campaign assets and label them in files that display in chronological order so you can manage them better. In addition to managing campaigns, Wrike helps both push and pull marketers maximize the efficiency of daily operations. The role of marketing operations management is a critical one, as organizations are now more focused on collecting and managing large amounts of data. This often involves planning, implementing, and reporting on various analytical platforms. Wrike is the ideal companion for analytical marketing teams, who love the ability to manage all of their campaigns. Whether you use our premade template or a custom one, your marketing operations team can execute at new levels of efficiency. In conclusion The debate over the pros and cons of pull and push marketing has been ongoing for decades. Both strategies are often used by marketing professionals as part of their company's marketing plans. Whichever you choose, make sure you partner with a solution that offers the level of organization, visibility, and attention to detail that Wrike does through features such as Gantt charts and dashboards that make even the most complex strategies manageable. Start your two-week free trial with Wrike today.
Poor communication skills in the workplace often lead to missed project deadlines, unproductive teams, and client complaints. In this article, we’re giving you a cheat sheet you can use to identify and avoid poor communication skills at work. Help both your teams and your stakeholders succeed with these practical solutions to common miscommunications outlined below. Afterward, keep reading to learn more about how Wrike’s project management tool makes staying on top of communication effortless. What is miscommunication? Miscommunication is a type of communication breakdown that occurs when one party can't provide the proper information to another party for any number of reasons. It’s not always obvious when a miscommunication occurs. Sometimes the realization happens in the moment, so the person can correct themselves. But more often than not, one or both parties don’t realize the error until after something has gone wrong. What are the different types of miscommunication? Mistakes: Think typos, incorrect information, or simply forgetting to CC another team member on an important message. Bad writing: Overly verbose messages and complex words or phrases often create more problems than they solve. Time changes: Employees in different time zones need clarity around deadlines and meeting scheduling that other teams normally wouldn’t. Cultural differences: One person’s email may seem professional and direct to someone from one culture, yet cold and rude to someone from another. Language barriers: If you have native speakers and non-native speakers working together, chances are there will be a mistranslation from time to time. Unspoken expectations: Lack of clear vision or communication of everyone’s responsibilities can lead to finger-pointing down the line. Over- or under-managing: Leaving employees to fend for themselves and micromanaging their every move are both counterproductive to healthy communication. Lack of transparency: Giving team members access to big-picture progress reports and related data is important to effective communication in project management. Assumptions: Even small assumptions, such as thinking an employee will definitely be present and on the clock next week, can cause common project management challenges once you find out you’ve planned a major deadline on the same day as their PTO. Workplace customs: For example, in some offices, the longtime employees know that arriving to a meeting five minutes early is expected, while others may be used to more lax timing. What are the common causes of poor communication? From the top down, good communication is key to attracting and keeping good employees. Unfortunately, many leaders are not as good at communicating as they should be. The good news is that managers can easily adjust their actions to better align with their goals by following this simple communication red flag checklist: Ignoring interpersonal conflicts Whether it’s an office romance turned sour or an environment in which employees simply don’t like one another, interpersonal communication plays a large role in project success. Even if your team doesn’t have natural chemistry, it’s leadership's job to help them get along. Not sharing the big picture It's powerful for businesses to have goals and objectives, as they help employees focus on achieving desirable results. The issue is that many organizations fail to provide clear and consistent direction to their employees. Forgetting to give praise and constructive criticism Feedback is often provided by a project manager to help people understand their performance. It provides vital information to make important business decisions in the future. Top performers regularly utilize feedback to improve their work performance. Point out good behaviors to employees too so that those actions become habits for them in the future. Not prioritizing employee morale When employees lose interest in their work, they are often considered demoralized. This can lead to an employee becoming irritable and unproductive, which can affect companywide performance. Restoring employee morale involves reevaluating the culture and thinking about how to create a conducive environment for employees to thrive. Failing to acknowledge differences As more people choose to work in diverse environments, this has raised the potential for communication issues. For instance, one person from a certain background may relay a message differently to another person from a different background. HR training and mediation are key for solving these miscommunications before they get out of hand. What are the consequences of a lack of communication in the workplace? The consequences of a lack of communication in the workplace are challenging to measure because there are lots of direct and indirect ways it will impact teams. Circumstances matter too. But in general, what we know for sure is that poor communication skills at work are never positive. According to USA Today, “28% of employees cite poor communication as the reason for not being able to deliver work on time”. Imagine creating the perfect project plan, avoiding and minimizing roadblocks, only to discover completely preventable issues such as miscommunication have derailed your team. Removing the possibility of poor communication from the equation improves project delivery, but it also makes dealing with those other issues so much simpler. Another study by SHRM pointed out that miscommunication within projects was one of the most costly mistakes a business can make. Their research showed “the average loss per company of $62.4 million per year because of inadequate communication to and between employees”. There may already be examples in your projects of this happening on a small scale. Issues such as incorrect orders, waiting around for other people to make decisions, and even missing a single client email can cost hundreds of dollars for the smallest of businesses. If there’s an issue with your profits, chances are it can be traced back to poor communication in some form or another. And last but not least, one of the biggest consequences of a lack of communication in the workplace is the destruction of employee morale. A Gallup Journal article pointed out that growth and revenue largely depend on communication between companies and their employees. In fact, “74% of employees have the feeling they’re missing out on company news because the internal communication department is non-existent or doing a poor job.” And when employees feel disconnected from a company’s purpose, they are often disengaged, unproductive, and unmotivated. Examples of poor communication in the workplace Poor communication planning Bad business communication occurs when a company doesn't have a system in place to deal with incoming orders. Without communication with the customers, the company is likely to lose business. One-way streets A one-way street in this context is when a member of the team only contacts their business associates when they need a favor or some ideas. This behavior undermines their communication skills and breeds distrust or resentment among the rest of the group. Cold shoulders A cold shoulder is the equivalent of ghosting someone in the workplace. It typically looks like a person intentionally or unexpectedly declining to respond to calls or emails sent by another team member, manager, client, or stakeholder. Passive-aggressiveness Team members who are passive-aggressive deliberately avoid interacting with their co-workers. This behavior can be caused by intentionally avoiding a co-worker or making off-color remarks that undercut someone else’s efforts. Outright aggression Intimidation tactics can create a toxic work environment. Examples include ultimatums, placing blame on others, and threats to an employee’s financial livelihood. Not only is this unethical, but it also leads to high turnover rates. Placing blame on others A failure to accept responsibility for one's actions shows a lack of responsibility. Believing that others are responsible for their actions shows a lack of compassion and understanding. Neither is productive in the workplace. Poor listening skills Leaders and employees who fail to listen to others are not only disconnected from their conversations but are also engaging in poor communications. In general, these behaviors can have a negative effect on how people feel about their colleagues and team leaders. While many of these scenarios aren’t too difficult to avoid, they can add up over time. Some of these actions may not be considered offensive or aggressive on their own. But letting them pile up can create hostility among collaborators over time. Even if you can’t micromanage every email, text, and call, you can put tools in place that make communication streamlined and transparent. How to avoid miscommunication in project management Agile development is a favorite among modern software-development teams that want to avoid miscommunication altogether while managing multiple projects. Agile tools such as Wrike help groups work together seamlessly and deliver results faster than those that follow other methodologies. One of the ways it does that is through clear project planning. Wrike enables you to structure and manage your work in Agile using visual data representations such as graphs and charts. Tools like ours will help you prioritize your backlog and set up sprints, manage your meetings, and report on progress. This allows individual users to organize their own personal workflows and prioritize their backlog for sprints ahead of time. Wrike also simplifies the process of updating team members. Its activity stream offers a live feed that shows all project updates. Other features such as automated notifications make keeping up with project developments seamless. Want to improve communication between clients and your team? Wrike’s work-intake forms are designed to help teams organize and manage incoming requests. They also help teams plan and collaborate on shared projects, finding opportunities for overlap whenever possible to save on resources. When it comes to getting work done, Wrike makes it possible for teams to stay organized. Individuals can update their workflows and share them with others. Doing this makes it easy for management to keep track of progress across the entire team. It also clears up any confusion around roadblocks, project updates, and the occasional PTO. Wrike also helps teams communicate with stakeholders. For example, users can submit bug reports to external stakeholders who can help solve the problems. Management can adjust settings into project plans so that partners have a peek into progress without seeing any information that is too sensitive. Even if you only use Wrike’s predefined workflows and dashboards that help monitor your progress, it’s a lot easier to avoid poor communication at work when you use our tool. Ready to streamline operations and improve productivity teamwide? Start your free two-week trial of Wrike today.
Bullet journals are great tools to destress and organize various aspects of project management. In this guide, we’re diving deep into the pros and cons of using this method to organize projects of all kinds. Keep reading to discover what bullet journal project management is and how this practice can boost productivity to new levels. What is a bullet journal? A bullet journal is a customized space to organize all of your personal projects and goals. It can also be used to track deadlines and prioritize tasks. Bullet journaling became popular thanks to the book Getting Things Done, which is about a project management technique that uses a bullet journal to manage different projects efficiently. Bullet journals are often used to create daily, weekly, and monthly project plans. They can also be home to your to-do lists, inspiration boards, and project notes. They’re relaxing to create and relatively easy to maintain. If you have multiple projects to manage, then you may want to use more than one notebook. Or you can swap your physical journal for a professional services management software that has plenty of space for storing digital plans. Software tools are also easy to customize, make collaboration easier, and help with turning the plan into reality through task creation and assignment tools. With Wrike, data from multiple users will automatically sync so that everyone is on the same page with new updates and responsibilities. If you do use a physical journal, using loose leaf paper in a binder will allow you to add pages as you go. This is useful for keeping track of all the data in one place instead of switching to additional notebooks when you run out of room. There are many elegant, decorated bullet journal page layouts out there. Many invest time into making them artistic with drawings, decorative tape, and cut-out images. This isn’t necessary for project management, but it may be a fun activity outside of work. Bullet journals can use several different layouts. The most common is a two-page spread that includes a month-long calendar on one page and a breakdown of goals for that period on the other. The latter will help you keep track of all the dates and commitments that are important to you as you get closer to starting a new project. The two-page spread makes it easy to see where you'll be working most efficiently in the coming weeks. It's ideal for people who manage multiple projects simultaneously. You can also create a view of the next six months within your bullet journal project management layout. This is called a future log. A future log is a calendar that lets you keep track of important events and dates for long-term projects. How do you use a bullet journal in project planning? Projects are essentially collections of notes and tasks that are linked to a common goal. They can be pulled together in a bullet journal for you to easily see all of the work related to that specific project. To start, you’ll need to list out your goals. Create a list that includes every project goal you or your team can think of. Sort them in order of importance. Ideally, these smaller project goals will align with your organization’s big-picture goals. Once you know what you’d like to accomplish, you can begin your bullet journal. Start by breaking down your number one goal into a project action plan. This can span days, weeks, or months. Then, break down your project action plan into individual tasks. Determine what the task is, who will be in charge of getting it done, and when it needs to be completed. After that, you’re ready to use your bullet journal for project planning. Step 1: List out your sections Number your pages if they aren’t already. At the beginning of the bullet journal, write the name of the page on the left side and the page number on the right. Step 2: Add your key You may use symbols and abbreviations throughout your project planning. Put these at the beginning of the journal either after or on the same page as your key. Use color coding to signify which symbols belong to each project if you have more than one. Step 3: Write out your future log A future log is a list of key dates and tasks that aren’t part of your immediate three-to-six month plans but are important to keep in mind. Add this after your key and leave space for other items as they come up. Step 4: Create your calendar This can be in the form of a traditional calendar page. Some people like to hand draw them. However, you can also print, cut out, and paste a blank monthly calendar page into your journal too. Step 5: Track tasks Create sections for monthly, weekly, and daily task lists. You can organize these in a few ways. Some project managers prefer to do it by project or by person. You can also create one massive list with everything you’re personally responsible for so you have it all in one place. Or use a combination of any of these for your various projects. Make sure to check in with your bullet journal weekly and monthly. Note any upcoming or past deadlines. Adjust your task list and schedule for unexpected issues as needed. The benefits of using a bullet journal for work Project managers often have a hard time keeping track of their work activities without losing track of anything along the way. This is one of the reasons why the bullet journal is so useful. Not only does it give you a roadmap of your next projects, but it’s also good for daily use. You can keep track of to-do lists, priorities, and daily reflections. You can also journal about your progress and realign with goals all in the same notebook or tool. You can also rapidly log your thoughts for the day to boost your creativity and clear out emotions that no longer serve the project. Combine your bullet journal for work with your personal goals. It will be easier to prioritize and accurately schedule tasks when you have your entire life laid out in front of you on paper. Another benefit of using a bullet journal for work is that you can either DIY a notebook or use a planner you already have. It’s not so much what you use but how you use it. And bonus: bullet journaling only takes five to 15 minutes a day. Whether it’s reviewing tomorrow’s meetings or crossing off today’s tasks, a bullet journal practice is easy to build into your schedule no matter how busy you are. The disadvantages of using a bullet journal in project management While bullet journaling project management is great for keeping track of key project details, many project managers need a separate system to manage their meetings and reports. Having more than one journal or calendar to manage at one time can be confusing. Add more than one project to the mix, and it may be counterproductive to use a traditional pen and paper bullet journal to accomplish your goals. Another disadvantage of using a bullet journal in project management is your lack of ability to collaborate with others. When writing on paper, you have to either show your team the notebook in person or scan the pages and share them online. Either way, it’s not ideal for large, remote, and/or revolving teams. The other thing to know about bullet journaling before diving in headfirst is that it can be quite time-consuming. If you do a crafty layout with calligraphy and scrapbooking accessories, then it may even take several days to finish. And once you do have your plans laid out, they can be hard to change. Rewriting, erasing, and making more space for things that come up are essential for project planning. For that reason, we suggest using an 11 inch by 7 inch grid lined notebook to give yourself extra space. Also, you can outline headlines and calendars with a pen or marker if you like the look. But stick to pencil for any factual information that is subject to change throughout the lifetime of the project. If you don’t do this now, you may end up having to scrap entire pages and start over later on. Bullet journal alternatives you should consider Bullet journals are fun, unique, and creative. But there are some projects where they just aren’t the best possible option for managing it all. The project may be too complex or too large for a single notebook. There may even be so many updates needed that a physical notebook doesn’t make sense for your project. If you’re facing any of these issues, you can try any of the following bullet journal alternatives: Digital calendar and list app combo Bulletin board, sticky notes, and shared files Project management software Project management software is the top choice for bullet journal alternatives. Not only is it flexible, but it can make project planning more productive. Wrike is the ultimate platform for customizing your own bullet journal project management processes. With over 30 predefined apps you can use to sync all your project data in one place, it's the most versatile platform for managing complex tasks. As a single source of truth for a project, team, and entire organization, project management software offers more advanced features than a simple notebook can. Instead of writing everything down on a few sheets of paper, Wrike acts like a living document. And unlike other digital organization tools, Wrike is specifically built to optimize project performance and success. Wrike's tools are designed to work seamlessly with any team. Anyone who has permission to access the project can share files and tasks quickly and easily. Once uploaded, collaborators can visually edit and obtain files. They’ll also have access to reports and tasks that are simple to understand at a glance without losing the details in the process. This allows all managers to gain visibility across departments and groups. Wrike is the ideal solution for teams that want to grow and operate efficiently with the help of cutting edge technology. For example, Wrike’s Work Intelligence helps you get started with the next generation of work, with AI-powered projects and automation. Wrike also features a streamlined UI that lets you customize its features to work seamlessly with your team. Although bullet journaling allows you to customize your project planning, you’ll be able to get and implement feedback from partners faster with a digital project tool. Here are some other stand out benefits of using a project management software over a physical or digital bullet journal: It’s interactive. For example, Wrike offers Gantt charts that lets users visualize their plans and progress. It’s efficient. Kanban boards make it easy to work seamlessly with Agile teams by creating and sharing whenever needed. It’s faster. Wrike's template library is designed to help you quickly create and manage complex projects. It’s customizable. With custom request forms, you can easily gather details for your intake, assign tasks to the right teams, and dynamically route questions and requests. It’s up to date. Wrike’s calendars are ideal for team members who want to keep up with the latest information. It’s repeatable. Most tasks go through the same steps before they are finished. In a project management solution, you build a path for yours that will automatically assign and notify people when it's ready to begin through Wrike’s Automation Engine. It’s trackable. With timers, approvals, and visual task assignments, you can manage entire teams while streamlining your work. It’s transparent. Get a 360 view across all of your organizations with custom dashboards. It’s syncable. Wrike's 400+ app integrations make it possible to integrate hundreds of apps into one central hub. It’s safe. A digital project management software can safeguard your data by enforcing rules and encryption key ownership. Ready to upgrade your project planning methods and tools? Check out Wrike’s two-week free trial for some more goal-achieving features.
