Are you a fan of Silicon Valley? Turns out, HBO's latest hit is good for more than an entertaining half hour. It's also full of good advice for launching a startup in general and software development projects in particular. (If you’ve never seen the show, here’s a brief synopsis: programmer Richard works at tech giant Hooli by day, and on his side project — a music streaming app called Pied Piper — by night. When it’s discovered that the foundation of Richard's app is a supremely powerful compression algorithm, Pied Piper is suddenly worth millions. He turns down Hooli's offer of $10 million to buy the company, and instead accepts a seed investment of $200,000 to develop and run the company himself. He hires his housemates, Dinesh and Gilfoyle, along with former Hooli staffer, Jared, as his team.) Here are a few lessons we picked up between laughs: 1. Innovation isn't everything. A cutting-edge program or app is great, but it doesn't guarantee success. As Richard learned the hard way, velocity is key. Hooli was faster to present its reverse-engineered version of Richard's software at TechCrunch Disrupt, making Pied Piper irrelevant before it even launched. It didn't matter that Richard was the original innovator; Hooli executed more efficiently and jumped on market demand. Takeaway: Speed is vital, so get your project out as soon as you have a minimum viable product. Then add the bells and whistles — and only spend your time and energy on features that you're certain customers want. Resist the gold-plating! 2. Deadlines aren't the enemy. When Richard first discovers he has to unveil his startup at TechCrunch Disrupt to challenge Hooli, slashing his timeline from 5 months to 8 weeks, he has a panic attack. But instead of collapsing in defeat and raising the white flag, the Pied Piper team rises to the occasion and uses the ambitious deadline to buckle down, make their process as lean as possible, and collaborate efficiently. Takeaway: Don’t dread deadlines — let them motivate you. Keep your work organized, refine your process, and stick to essential tasks. 3. Find creative ways to motivate your team. Tired of team members dragging their feet, accidental project manager Jared tries to pit coders Dinesh and Gilfoyle against each other so they'll work faster. Even though they both recognize Jared's sly tactic, it works. With their newfound competitive spirits, tasks start moving faster and things get done. Takeaway: Have fun with work — channel your team's competitive nature, gamify the process, and inject some laughter into your daily routine. Far from distracting your team, it'll boost productivity. Image found on Giphy.com; Source: HBO.com 4. Always have a Plan C. You back up your work. You're conservative in setting budgets. But what about employee turnover? Or server failure? Richard's diligent about backing up his code, and yet when contractor "The Carver" is brought in to do Pied Piper's cloud architecture, he ends up trashing everything — including the repository. The Pied Piper team is back to square one, with deadlines looming, and no Plan C to save them. Takeaway: We've said it once, we'll say it again: there is no such thing as "risk-free." You need a risk management strategy. It's not enough to create a thorough project plan and hope for the best. To cover all your bases, read our Ultimate Guide to Project Risk. 5. A talented team is NOT enough. Even if you assemble a dream team that includes top talent, it means nothing if they can't work together. You can't assume your team is collaborating effectively, or even that they're on the same page about responsibilities and timelines. To Richard's dismay, Dinesh and Gilfoyle discover they both completed the same set of tasks, duplicating work and wasting their limited time. Takeaway: Find an online project collaboration tool to help your team delegate tasks and work together. Clear transparency and communication are not optional when it comes to project success, so make sure whatever tool you choose will properly enhance your teamwork. After battling through these lessons, Richard and the Pied Piper team walk away from TechCrunch Disrupt outshining Hooli with a jaw-dropping compression rate and a buzz-worthy product. If you've seen the show, what software development advice would you give the Pied Piper team? Any other pop culture-inspired management tips to share? Image Credits: Silicon Valley on HBO.com
Visual timelines are essential tools for planning, tracking, and managing a project. You can map out dependencies and milestones to get an accurate overview of progress and deadlines, and create a reusable version, such as an event timeline template, to steer your future projects too. But while using these Gantt chart-style timelines for project management is fairly easy, creating one in Excel can be tricky. We'll walk you through the process of how to make a timeline in Excel and share a project schedule template you can reuse for future work. How to Create a Timeline in Excel Step 1: Start by creating a table List each task in your project from beginning to end, including key decisions and deliverables, and set a start date, end date, and duration for each one. Next, turn your table into a bar chart. Select Insert, then click the Bar Chart icon and choose the 2-D stacked bar chart. Step 2: Add Start Dates Right click your empty bar chart, then choose Select Data. When the Data Source window appears, click Add under Legend Entries (Series). The Edit Series window will appear. Click in the empty “Series name:“ field, then click on the Start Date cell of the table you created in step 1. Finally, click on the spreadsheet icon to the right of the “Series values:” field to open the Edit Series window. Click on the first Start Date in your table, then drag your mouse down to the last Start Date to highlight all your task start dates. Click on the spreadsheet icon at the end of the Edit Series form. The previous window will appear; select ‘Ok.” Step 3: Add Durations Follow the same process with your Durations column: click Add under Legend Entries (Series). Select the empty “Series: name” field, then click the first Duration cell in your table. Click the spreadsheet icon next to the Series values field to open the Edit Series window. Select the first duration in your table, and drag your mouse down to the last duration to select all your duration entries. Click the spreadsheet icon to the right of the Edit Series form, then select Ok to add durations to your Excel timeline. Step 4: Add Task Names Right click on any bar in your chart and choose Select Data. Click the spreadsheet icon to the right of Category (X) Axis Labels, then click and drag to highlight the names of your tasks in your table. Do not select the name of the column (Task), only the task names themselves. Then click ok, and ok again. Step 5: Format Your Gantt Chart You now have a stacked bar chart indicating the starting dates of your tasks and their durations—but your tasks are in reverse order. Right click your list of tasks and select Format Axis. Select the ‘Categories in reverse order’ checkbox. To hide the blue part of each bar, right click on the blue part of any bar and choose Format Data Series. Click Fill, then select No fill. Then click Border Color and select No line, and finally Shadow and unclick the Shadow box. Then delete the unnecessary bar chart key to create more space. To get rid of the white space at the beginning of your Gantt chart, right click on the first Start Date in your data table and choose Format Cells. Under General, write down the number listed. Hit Cancel. Back in your Gantt chart, right click on the dates above the bars and choose Format Axis. Change the Minimum bound to the number you’ve written down. Select close. If you want to get rid of the white space between the bars, right click on the top red bar and select Format Data Series. Set Separated to 100% and Gap Width to 10%. Congratulations! You’ve created a project timeline in Excel. Download a Free Excel Timeline Template Instead of creating your own project timeline template in Excel, download one that's ready made. Track deadlines and project status for all kinds of projects, from software development to online marketing campaigns, with this free timeline template download from Microsoft Office. An Easier Way to Create Project Timelines As you can see, it’s time consuming and tedious to create project timelines in Excel. Plus, whenever a deadline changes or new tasks need to be added, it’s difficult to manually update your Excel chart. Instead of messing with spreadsheets and table formatting, use an online Gantt chart. Wrike’s Timeline feature lets you easily plan your projects, set due dates, milestones and dependencies, and adjust to changes by dragging and dropping tasks and durations. You can also share your timeline with colleagues, or take a snapshot and send the link to clients and stakeholders so they can get progress updates quickly and easily. Get a free trial of Wrike and try it out for yourself, with nothing to download or install.
Whether you're working with remote colleagues or coordinating with clients, you need a video conference and meeting app that's reliable and easy to use. You don't have time to deal with dropped calls, choppy audio and video, stream lags, annoying downloads and plugins, or other frustrating technical issues. Between our weekly webinars and daily meetings with our remote colleagues around the globe, the Wrike team has tried just about every top video conference and meeting app available. Here's a list of our 5 favorites: Top Video Conference & Meeting Apps 1. Zoom With HD video conferencing, screen sharing from desktop or mobile, recording features, and the ability to choose full screen or gallery views for video streams (or choose different views for multiple monitors), Zoom is quickly emerging as one of the top video meeting apps available. What we like best: Zoom boasts a slew of cool features like a collaborative whiteboard and the ability to send group texts, images, and audio files during meetings. Plus, the ability to join meetings from mobile via wifi or cellular networks makes it a great option for teams that are constantly on the go. Pricing: The free version includes an unlimited number of meetings with up to 25 people, up to 40 minutes per meeting, and unlimited one-on-one calls. Paid plans with advanced features start at $10/month for unlimited meeting durations and calls with up to 200 participants. 2. GoToMeeting GoToMeeting has established itself as the "go-to" solution for video conferencing and virtual meetings, and with good reason: HD-quality video, screen sharing, personalized meeting URLs, and the ability to connect to meetings via desktop or mobile make it a popular choice. Teams can also collaborate by using the whiteboard feature to annotate and highlight the presenter's screen. What we like best: International toll-free numbers and options to translate control settings make GoToMeeting a convenient option for global teams, plus it's easy to change presenters for meetings with multiple hosts. Pricing: The Pro version starts at $39/month per organizer and includes 25 participants. The Plus version starts at $56/month per organizer for up to 100 participants. GoToMeeting also offers a free plan for 3 attendees. 3. Join.me Join.me offers all the essentials you're looking for, in a lightweight, no-muss-no-fuss package. Attendees can call in via VoIP or telephone, and with numbers in over 40 countries, it's an easy solution for international teams. Record meetings, join from your preferred mobile device, share your screen, transfer files, and easily change presenters. You can also personalize your meeting space with custom URLs and screen backgrounds. What we like best: Ease of use. We can set up a meeting and be connected with colleagues in a matter of minutes, with no technical confusion or cumbersome downloads. Pricing: The free Basic plan includes up to 10 participants and instant screen sharing. Pro and Enterprise plans include up to 250 attendees with advanced features like Outlook and Google Calendar plugins, built-in cloud storage, recording, and reporting tools. 4. ReadyTalk With ReadyTalk's suite of web conferencing, mobile conferencing, video conferencing, and webinar tools, you can find the perfect solution for your needs. Hand over controls to a participant to let them take over the discussion, use the interactive real-time polling feature to make group decisions right then and there, and stream up to 4 video feeds simultaneously. ReadyTalk also conveniently integrates with Google Calendar, Outlook, Lync, Salesforce, Marketo, and more popular tools. What we like best: Support. At your request, a ReadyTalk customer support rep will join your meeting to provide instant technical assistance. Stop worrying about glitches and instead just focus on hosting a great meeting. Pricing: Meeting plans start at $24 for 10 participants, $34 for 25 participants, and $59 for 100 participants. 5. Onstream Meetings Onstream offers the usual features like screen sharing, document sharing, group or private chats, polling, shared controls, and a collaborative whiteboard. What sets Onstream apart is the ability to add up to 1,000 attendees, which is great for companies hosting all-hands meetings for more than 250 people. The toolbar at the top of the screen keeps controls for screen sharing, file sharing, drawing tools, and polling easily accessible. Also convenient: you can send files to all attendees or just to select people, or make documents available for download after the meeting concludes. What we like best: You can edit your meeting recordings without downloading the video file. Highlight key discussions or add chapter markers so viewers can easily skip to important points — all within the Onstream application. Pricing: Subscriptions start at $49/month Take Your Meetings to the Next Level Now that you've got the technical aspect of the perfect virtual meeting settled, fix these four common problems with virtual meetings to make all your meetings productive. Read Next: 7 Tips for Better Meetings (Infographic) Everything You Need to Successfully Manage a Virtual Team (Checklist) 4 Problems with Virtual Meetings that You Can Fix
To say life as a marketing manager can be hectic would be putting it mildly. With so much going on and distractions popping up every five minutes, you may feel like you need to go into complete isolation in order to actually get anything done. In fact, that’s exactly what that crazy scuba-like contraption is for in the photo below: Hugo Gernsback’s 1925 invention "The Isolator" makes the wearer deaf to all outside noise, limits vision to a tiny window, and even has an oxygen hose. Before you go out and buy an Isolator for every member of your marketing team, try these simple strategies for promoting productivity, improving meetings, and encouraging creativity. Instant Productivity Boosters Block out creative time on your calendar where you unplug completely. Turn off email notifications, put your phone on Do Not Disturb, etc. Just make sure your team knows when you’re free to be interrupted so they're not stuck waiting for your input. Delegate. Assign tasks based on strengths, or skills you know your team members want to sharpen. It'll keep your top performers from being overloaded and help your whole team improve and stay engaged. Review lessons learned so you can continually improve your process and become more efficient. Save articles and inspiration in a Wrike folder via the Chrome extension instead of emailing them to your team as you find them. It'll cut down on interruptions and distractions while your team’s focused on the task at hand. Review your inspiration folder at the beginning of a new creative project to kickstart a productive brainstorming session. Give your team time to engage in “unnecessary creation” — Todd Henry’s name for exploring possibilities, picking up new skills, and working on side projects or experiments. You never know what cool ideas, skills, or side projects will benefit your daily work. Clarify goals and how each person contributes in your MRM (marketing resource management is the MRM meaning) plan. When every team member knows their importance, they are more likely to get the job done and done well. Streamline communications and simplify processes. Take a good hard look at the way your team functions and reevaluate whether every step and approval is really necessary. Prioritize based on your strategic marketing goals, and set fake deadlines for yourself for extra motivation. Better Creativity Add more color to your office. Yellow is particularly good for stimulating creativity and optimism. Encourage people to listen to music through headphones. It'll help them focus and get in the creative zone. Provide pens and paper so people can doodle, mind map, brainstorm, write by hand, or easily pick up and head outdoors. Embrace work naps. If your location permits, a quick, 15-minute snooze improves creativity, memory, learning ability, and helps prevent burnout. Meetings & Brainstorming Sessions Keep meetings short and only invite the necessary people to attend. Take it outside. Short meetings, brainstorming sessions — head to the park or go for a short walk while discussing new possibilities. Fresh air and light activity will make your brainstorming sessions more productive, and you’ll get better-quality creative ideas. Start meetings and brainstorming sessions with something fun, like a funny YouTube clip. People are more productive and creative when they’re in a good mood. End meetings by stating who will do what by when. Set at least one day a week as a "no meeting" day where nothing is scheduled. Quick Miscellaneous Tips Stock your office kitchen with healthy snacks and drinks instead of junk that will lead to a food coma or sugar crash. Automate tedious tasks, use marketing automation software, or create templates for routine tasks, documents, and email messages. Stop multitasking. Instead batch similar tasks together to quickly knock them out. Schedule a set time to deal with emails and other requests, instead of dealing with interruptions as they appear. Use an RSS reader to quickly catch up on marketing news and blogs you follow. Download our free marketing eBook Need a new tool to boost collaboration and productivity on your marketing team? Download our free eBook for a real-world guide to buying a collaboration tool that suits your exact needs. Get it now: Collaboration Software for Marketing Teams: A Buyer’s Guide What are your best marketing shortcuts and productivity tips? Share what works for your team in the comments below — we're always looking for new tips! "The Isolator" photo credit: A Great Disorder
Launching a crowdfunding campaign may be exciting, but it's also exhausting. Use this checklist to get you through the hectic months ahead. It's broken up into pre-launch, launch, and post-campaign sections to help you stay organized (and sane) at each stage. Good luck! (See also our Definitive Guide to Crowdfunding Sites Infographic.) Want to share this infographic on your site? Use this embed code: Wrike Social Collaboration Software Have you organized a crowdfunding campaign before? What would you add to this checklist? If you have any pearls of wisdom, we'd love to hear from you! Give Wrike a try when managing your crowdfunding campaign with a free trial. For more reading, check out our collection of crowdfunding resources: 10 Essential Elements of a Successful Crowdfunding Campaign Top Crowdfunding Sites: Which Should You Choose? Ultimate Guide to Crowdfunding Campaign Tools and Resources
Let's be honest: meetings su-- ahem, aren't fun. We've all been there: trapped around a conference table, air conditioning set to "arctic blast," listening to a manager's endless monologue about customer acquisition strategies or abstract quarterly goals. At best, you might get a free pastry. At worst, it's an utter waste of your time. Here's the good news: it doesn't have to be this way. Meetings can actually be a useful way for colleagues to work together, overcome challenges, and generate exciting new ideas. Start following these simple tips to keep your meetings productive. 7 Tips for Better Meetings 1. Keep it short! 30 minutes max. You won't hold anyone's attention much longer than that. 2. Set clear expectations ahead of time. Include what will be covered and what preparation, if any, attendees need to complete beforehand. 3. Send meeting materials in advance. Agendas, slides, spreadsheets: let people review everything before the meeting starts. The meeting itself is for actually getting things done. 4. Stay punctual. Be respectful of your teammates' time by starting — and ending — when you say you will. 5. Encourage discussion. If someone's dominating the conversation, step in to redirect or ask for another person's opinion. 6. Stay focused. If a discussion veers off on a tangent, or turns into a dialogue between two people, table the conversation for a more appropriate time. 7. Record key ideas and action items. If your meeting produces genius ideas, what's the point if you don't capture them and ensure follow-through? Curious about exactly how much time and money is sunk into ineffective meetings every single day? (Hint: it's a lot.) Check out the infographic below for more details and stats, including the root causes of bad meetings and tips for keeping virtual attendees engaged. Source: Fuze Want a reputation for hosting awesome meetings people actually look forward to? Take a look at these 4 Simple Steps for the Perfect Meeting.
Are your projects thriving? Or are they suffering from swelling budgets, sluggish progress, and strained deadlines? If your hard work is constantly in danger of flatlining, know this: you’re certainly not alone. There’s an epidemic of failed projects afflicting businesses of all sizes, with organizations hemorrhaging hundreds of millions of dollars in lost funds. In the infographic below, we lay out the leading causes, tell-tale symptoms, and proven cures for project failure. Share our prescription for project success on social media, or post it to your own site with this embed code: Infographic brought to you by WrikeFor more insights into project management facts and figures, check out our Complete Collection of Project Management Statistics - 2015.
Marketers, you have a tough job to do. You have to be edgy enough to stand out in a crowded market and attract attention — but not so edgy you embarrass yourself, attracting the wrong kind of attention. And if you screw up, there is no, “Quick, take it down before someone notices!” Not only has someone noticed, they’ve likely shared the photo or screenshot on Twitter, posted it to Facebook, and submitted it to Reddit. All you can do is pray you haven’t inspired a trending hashtag, and hope customers have short memories. So, how do you push the envelope, without pushing it so far that your PR team gets called in for emergency damage control? It can feel like an impossible balance to achieve. Creativity alone doesn't cut it, you have to be smart — and you have to have the right process in place to protect yourself and your brand from any embarrassing gaffes. Is process the kiss of death for creativity? As tricky as it is to walk the line between creative genius and career suicide, it’s just as tough to strike the right balance between a thorough approvals process and one that's overwrought. That's why, for many marketers and creatives, process just means more stress. Extra hoops to jump through, complicated reviews involving too many people and opinions, and an endless cycle of revisions, until all that’s left is an overworked mess of a marketing system and a burned out team. But the right process isn’t just extra red tape — it’s a safety net. It means you can take the risks that are necessary to stand out and win the market, and rest easy knowing that all the right checks are in place and your brand is safe. Here are 3 costly process mistakes to avoid, plus tips for a streamlined marketing workflow that will set you up for success without slowing you down. 1. Vague creative briefs 70% of designers say that marketers submit unclear creative briefs for new jobs. This means designers are either forced to chase down the details they need to begin work, or guess and fill in the blanks themselves. Either way, you're looking at a lot of wasted time, and a much higher chance that mistakes will be made or key details overlooked. Workflow tip: Every efficient marketing and creative process starts with an effective creative brief. Take the time to establish standardized creative briefs and work requests, complete with fields for campaign goals, file formats and dimensions, related assets, and due dates. It will save your team valuable time (and unnecessary stress) by ensuring expectations are clear and no guesswork is required. [Download a free creative brief template here: The Creative Brief Template: Elements of an Effective Creative Brief] 2. Ambiguous approvals At one point or another, most marketing and creative professionals have heard someone in the C-suite say, “Why did you use this? I never approved this!” There’s nothing quite like the sinking feeling you get in your stomach. And yet the approvals process is often a confusing mess. If the CMO and Creative Director give conflicting feedback, whose comments do you follow? If one person gives their stamp of approval, and another asks for edits, does the first person need to look at the revised version again? And if you send something out for review and approval and don’t hear anything back, does that mean there aren’t any edits or just that everyone’s been too busy to look at it? Creative teams say their #1 collaboration challenge is too much feedback from too many people, so the last thing you want is a drawn out review process with too many voices weighing in. But you do need to bring some order and transparency to the review and approvals process. Workflow tip: Use an online proofing tool that lets people leave comments directly on digital images and documents, so that feedback is precise and all reviewers can see which revisions have already been requested. Plus, approvals can be assigned to specific people, so the author can clearly see who’s given their approval, who’s requested edits, and who hasn’t reviewed yet (and they can send friendly reminders). 3. File version mix-ups When it comes to creative collaboration, your revisions, drafts, and mockups often result in dozens of versions of the same file. When files get sent out for review and approval, consolidating documents with everyone’s feedback and updates into a single definitive version is a tricky task. And when it comes time to print, publish, or upload the final file, it’s all too easy to mistakenly choose the wrong version. After all, you’re probably navigating a mess of files with names like, “final-draft-campaign-Oct-17.jpg,” “last-complete-final-Final(V20)_copy.jpg”, and “Final-ad-USETHISONE.jpg”. Keeping everything organized so that old, unapproved versions aren’t accidentally used in final campaigns is unnecessarily stressful. Workflow tip: Gathering everyone’s feedback doesn’t mean you’re doomed to disorganized files. Simplify your digital asset management by limiting the number of revision rounds. Since every revision results in new files, streamline your current process by eliminating unnecessary steps. Then, use an online proofing and approval tool that supports file editing and versioning. Instead of being emailed, forwarded, and copied, all edits are made to a single file — and everyone on your team can clearly see which version is most up-to-date. Score your biggest marketing wins At Wrike, our marketing department uses our own app to perfect our creative process and launch winning campaigns. Start a free two-week trial of Wrike’s new solution for marketing and creative teams, with nothing to download or install.
Choosing the right project management tool for your small business can be a daunting endeavor, especially if it’s your first time venturing into project management territory. Which features are must-haves for small business teams? What exactly should you be looking for in a PM tool? Take a page out of someone else's book. Software Advice asked hundreds of small business owners which features they found most important in a project management tool. Check out what they had to say so you can decide what matters for your team: Top 9 PM Tool Features 1. Time-tracking (66%): See exactly where your time goes, determine where you can trim wasted hours, and accurately predict how long a new project will take (and how that affects profitability.) 2. Task management (52%): Organize your daily work and track every detail and to-do to make sure you stay on schedule and nothing gets forgotten. 3. Resource management (41%): Keep an eye on all your resources to know which are available and ensure they're being used efficiently. 4. Reporting (36%): Easily generate accurate reports and evaluate the success of your current strategy. 5. Document management (19%): Store and manage all your documents online. You'll save time looking for relevant files, since everything’s in one spot and easily accessible. 6. Collaboration tools (12%): Get your team working together to accomplish goals faster, generate new ideas, and coordinate efforts. 7. Budgeting (11%): See where every precious penny is being spent, prevent overspending, and track profits. 8. PPM (6%): Prioritize all your projects based on business goals by weighing cost and time against potential benefits. 9. Issue management (6%): Make sure any issues affecting your project, such as technical glitches or low supplies, are quickly recognized, addressed, and resolved. All of these individual features help small business owners in unique ways: from maximizing their time and resources to stretching every dollar to focusing their team's effort on profits. If you're a small business owner, we'd love to hear from you! Which project management features do you find most helpful in running your business? Help your fellow SMBs by sharing your experience in the comments.
In the last few years, the crowdfunding scene has exploded. Now there are hundreds of platforms to choose from, with more popping up every day. But which crowdfunding site is best for your small business? Or charitable cause? We covered 26 Top Crowdfunding Sites by Niche, and now we've created an infographic with all the essential details. Check it out! (See also our Ultimate Crowdfunding Checklist Infographic.) Like this infographic? Embed it on your own site using this code: Wrike Social Collaboration Software Are you about to launch your first crowdfunding campaign using one of these sites? Let us know how it goes!
We all want to be productive at work and gain recognition (and hopefully a raise) for our dedication. But that doesn’t mean you should chain yourself to your desk! Longer hours don't automatically translate into increased productivity. In fact, that mid-day break for lunch is more important than ever if you really want to wow your colleagues with your creativity, focus, and ability to do great work. Click 'play' on the short video below for 7 compelling reasons to step away from your desk at noon. Do you agree that the lunch break deserves a comeback? Share this video on social media, or get a conversation started in the comments below. Increase Your Productivity At the Office For those hours you are at your desk, try out the Wrike team's favorite workplace productivity tips: 10 Workplace Productivity Tips From People Who Actually Use Them (Video)
