Wrike Adoption Tip of the Month: The Basics of Building a New Habit
It is true that people are naturally resistant to changes in the workplace. But often times, a project management software is more than just a tool - it's a new habit people must learn. And when consciously building any new habit, there is always some time when it is difficult to fully embrace the change. Making a new habit stick requires an average of 66 days, or roughly 2 months. For those who are not tech-savvy, the idea of learning the ins-and-outs of a new software might seem even more unpalatable. If your team has strong opposition to anything new, there are efficient ways to make Wrike easy to adopt. As you try to get your team onboard the pro-Wrike train, you need to be firm in the stance that nothing is "real" unless it's in Wrike. This is one of the most common successful adoption strategies we found with our interviewed customers. Unless you are unwavering in your determination to get everyone onboard, some projects will be put into Wrike while others will stay scattered throughout email exchanges, excel spreadsheets, and personal desktop folders. Lead by example and rely on Wrike completely for all of your project comments, work at home policy, and updates. Your model will let your team know that from here on out all projects should reside in one place - and that place is Wrike. If one of your team members sends you an email asking about a task, this is the perfect opportunity for a gentle reminder. Prompt them to put their questions into Wrike before you respond. One of our interviewed customers went as far as letting a contractor know that he simply couldn't respond to the contractor's comments because the email "didn't exist." The contractor got the hint and turned to Wrike to continue the conversation. Now, I'm not advocating that you also start "overlooking" task-related emails, but it does make a point. Taken a hard stance and still facing adoption troubles? If your team members are committed to working out of their email client, they can continue this practice. In fact, that's why our easy-to-use email integrations exist! For one of our customers, most of their users don't even log into Wrike directly - they work from within their inbox. The key to this method is using our smart email integrations, including our Gmail widget or interactive add-ins for Outlook and Apple Mail. Team members can simply reply to an email when they want to comment on a task they follow, or even turn their emails into tasks for project discussion and updates. Management can check into Wrike to get progress reports and receive real-time updates, while team members can work where they are most comfortable. Remember: using new software means forming new habits. Stay strong through the process and give your team the time and support they need to fully make the switch. Have you had a successful experience implementing Wrike with your teams? Did you use a similar method, or something completely different? Let us know in the comments below! And stay tuned for the next two success trends we found: finding power users and creating clear usage goals.
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How to Evolve From Using Prehistoric Tools to Using Wrike
We've recently talked about the inevitable "Work Dino" in every office — those outdated tools or processes we use that are no longer as effective as they once were. Like using email to manage projects or spreadsheets to track task status, and holding weekly or even daily status meetings to talk about progress face to face.
Redfoo's 5 Wrike Tips for Business Success
Meet Redfoo: former member of LMFAO who has since become an independent recording artist and CEO of LaFreak clothing line and Party Rock Records. As a busy musician, he found it difficult to communicate with his team while traveling around the world, and his team had just as much trouble knowing exactly who was responsible for specific tasks. But since implementing Wrike, Redfoo has seen a total transformation in the way his team works. They're more productive, communicate better, and (most importantly) they have more time to have fun. Here are five of Redfoo's secrets for Wrike success: Tip #1 - Use Wrike during team meetings Redfoo keeps his team organized by having everyone open their Wrike accounts during meetings. Each task and every idea goes straight into Wrike as they move through agenda items, so it's clear who's responsible and what the next steps are. Some ideas: Brainstorm with your team in Wrike Add and assign tasks in Wrike while discussing upcoming events, projects, etc. Share links and upload the latest document versions so everyone has access to what they need Discuss overdue items with the team to uncover roadblocks and improve processes Tip #2 - Create Wrike tasks via email Wrike's email integration makes it easy to create and edit tasks on the go. Redfoo uses this tool extensively to turn emails into action items and assign them directly to his team members. Some ideas: See your Wrike @mention notifications in your inbox Reply to comments directly from emails Capture and categorize important emails by adding them to the proper folder in Wrike Tip #3 - Keep an ideas folder As an artist, Redfoo is constantly coming up with ideas for songs, events, and fashion designs. Wrike provides a secure, central location where he can archive every idea even before he decides what he wants to do with it. He knows exactly where to find his ideas and can rest easy knowing that nothing is lost or forgotten. Some ideas: Keep an "Ideas" folder to archive your thoughts Within the folder, create subfolders for better organization Add any attachments or links associated with the idea so everything stays together Tip #4 - Use the mobile app to track tasks on the go Wrike's mobile apps for iOS and Android let Redfoo stay in contact with his team even when he's halfway across the world. He can check project statuses, see the latest updates in his Activity Stream, and discuss progress or leave feedback for his team, minimizing project delays. Some ideas: Respond to comments and view the Activity Stream directly from the mobile app Use your mobile device's camera to attach photos to Wrike tasks Record voice notes on your mobile device and upload them into Wrike Tip #5 - Keep all project-related items in one location Redfoo's goal is to keep all work and ideas in Wrike. "If it's not in Wrike, it doesn't exist!" he says. Keeping everything in one place removes the stress of scouring countless emails and spreadsheets just to find a particular document, comment, or idea. Having all his project data consolidated also makes it easier to look back and see which processes worked and how to streamline. Some ideas: "Wrike it down!" Instead of capturing an idea on a post-it or in an email, just put it in Wrike Duplicate folders and tasks or mark them recurrent to create project templates Evaluate your process by reviewing completed projects and recording lessons learned Watch the video interview with Redfoo, where he tells you how he uses Wrike to get work done: How do you keep your team organized? What are your tips for keeping your team organized? Tell us in the comments! Read next: Wrike it Down with Redfoo: How to Manage Projects Like a Rockstar! Redfoo's Success Story 12 Ways to Use Wrike You've Never Considered Image Credit: Top photo by Tom Treanor
How Sales Teams Use Wrike: Q&A with Erik Kostelnik, Head of Sales
Erik Kostelnik is the Senior Director of Global Sales at Wrike. He has 10 years of experience in sales leadership and SaaS software. We spoke with him about his job here, and how our sales organization leverages Wrike to increase visibility and save time. What’s your role here at Wrike, and what does your day-to-day life look like? I’m in charge of the sales side our revenue operations. If you call Wrike and speak with a sales rep, that person falls under my umbrella. That includes our SMB team, our Mid-Market team, and the Enterprise team. My day-to-day can vary quite a bit. I usually spend mornings talking to our international team based out of Ireland, and during the U.S. hours I spend a lot of time trying to bring talented people to Wrike. There’s also a lot of projecting, and developing training programs to make sure our new hires know the product and can provide the positive service experience our customers expect. What’s the biggest challenge of managing that organization? For a little perspective, I came to Wrike a little less than 2 years ago, and at the time we had 4 sales reps — all very talented — but basically in the same position. So adding structure, defining roles, growing the organization, and developing those reps was a big task. Now we’ve got 75 quota-holding reps in 3 offices worldwide, and I think my biggest challenge is making sure our new hires are getting the one-on-one time they need to be successful. How does using Wrike help make that process easier? The value of using Wrike for onboarding new hires can’t be stated enough. We have folders in Wrike that serve as templates for each position. “Account Executive Onboarding” for example. So if we hire a new Account Executive, I can duplicate that template, and assign it to the new hire. Then I get updates as they complete those tasks or ask questions. At the end of the week, I can run a report to see what they’ve done and what they haven’t, so we can follow up if needed. Basically, the big picture here is that we ramp new hires and have them closing deals within 30 days. The standard for sales teams at other companies is 90 days. Using Wrike for training and onboarding doesn’t just save time, it actually boosts production from reps. How do you leverage Wrike’s Salesforce registration? The Salesforce Integration is a big part of our workflow, and makes it possible for our sales team and consulting group to work together. It gives reps visibility into each consultant’s workload, and allows them to delegate services to the person who has the best availability. If we didn’t have this in our toolset, we’d probably need another operations manager. The fact that it relays updates back to the reps in real time, without the need for them to leave Salesforce, helps them stay focused on selling. It makes everything really easy. How does your use of these tools benefit our customers? Anytime we can eliminate delays from our process, we’re able to serve our customers faster. Whether it’s scheduling a training or consultation call, or helping us follow up with a support ticket, the speed on our side makes us a more effective service and sales organization. How would you recommend other sales leaders use Wrike? In addition to onboarding reps, I recommend moving your legal and contract process into Wrike. Wrike’s revision tools for documents can show you who made what change and when. So if we’re redlining paperwork with counsel or reps, it’s easy to make sure you’re all looking at the most recent version. I also recommend creating a feedback channel between your sales and product marketing teams. Your sales reps spend more time talking to customers and prospects than anyone, and giving them a place to pass and discuss that feedback is a good way to ensure your product development is in line with the market. How is Wrike different from other companies you’ve worked at? I think the visibility we have here makes this company very different. If you want an answer, you can search Wrike and find it. We don’t waste a lot of time waiting for permission to execute. Everything you need is right in Wrike. Also on the sales side, our culture is amazing. Those 4 reps I mentioned earlier are all still with the team and in leadership roles, and having that kind of backbone keeps us all grounded. It also doesn’t hurt that we have an amazing product, because the value we offer to our customers is very real. What’s in the future for the sales organization at Wrike? Good times! More hiring, more opportunities for our reps to grow professionally, and more chances to make a big difference in the lives of our users. The future is very bright! If someone would like to join our sales team, where can they learn more? Our Careers page has a lot of listings for people at all experience levels, including recent grads. We’re hiring in Dublin (Ireland), Mountain View, and San Diego, and would love to hear from you. Check out opportunities to join our sales team on Glassdoor!
Customer's Adoption Tip: Customize Your Own Wrike Manual
When adopting a new tool like Wrike, it helps to create a digestible document that can help your team understand the process and the benefits of using the tool. This is exactly what Lightspeed POS did. Find out how their customized "manual" helped.
A Quick Guide for Managers: How to Track and Report Work Progress in Wrike
Even if you heavily rely on the principles of self-organizing teams while managing your projects, you still need a handy way to track project progress and report on results. For all project managers, team leaders and Wrike fans, we’ve prepared an easy-to-digest manual with screenshots that gives you a quick overview of Wrike’s key reporting capabilities. You’ll learn how to create customized reports and save them on the dashboard for further use. For all project managers, team leaders and Wrike fans, we’ve prepared an easy-to-digest manual with screenshots that gives you a quick overview of Wrike’s key reporting capabilities. You’ll learn how to create customized reports and save them on the dashboard for further use. If you're wondering what is dashboard reporting for project management, it refers to how your dashboard's visibility can give a 360° view of your project's status, insights and data points, and act as a report for how the project is progressing. Pay special attention to the last section that shows you how to access reports and the Gantt chart from your mobile device (iPhone, Android or iPad). This guide is a great addition to Wrike’s adoption toolkit, supplementing it with a “How-to” reporting angle for managers. For further details on the features described in the guide, like the dashboard, filters, Gantt chart, etc., visit our help section or watch the video tutorials on Wrike TV. Wrike for managers: an easy-to-digest manual. Download pdf
Best Practices for Seamless Wrike Adoption from Full-Service Ad Agency
Scott Struber, the VP/Operations of Yamanair Creative, a full-service ad agency, deployed Wrike to his team in March 2012. Scott now runs easily 80% of the business in Wrike, effortlessly collaborating with a team of 20+ spread across the country. In my conversation with Scott, I asked "If your friend in another company or department was implementing Wrike, what advice would you give her to get up and running quickly?" His response was both insightful and helpful for any new or existing business using Wrike. Understand your Business Goals First, make sure you understand what you're trying to accomplish and how Wrike helps achieve that goal. Then, become as well educated about Wrike as possible. Stay aware of what your people need to know and need to do in Wrike. The users need to understand how this will work within the organization and at their team level. Finally, lead by example. You got to use it yourself if you expect others to use it. Be an ambassador for Wrike. Position for Productivity Positioning Wrike appropriately is very important. Don’t say, “Here’s something you need to learn.” Instead, roll Wrike out and share, “We found something that’s going to boost our productivity and allow you to move through the day with less stress, and go home without worrying about what you may have missed." Wrike is a tool we use to help make our jobs easier. Put another way, we let the software do the heavy-lifting when it comes to remembering. Be Firm on Team Adoption When implementing Wrike, it’s important to be firm about team adoption. As I shared with my team, “If it’s not in Wrike, it didn’t happen.” Not using Wrike was not an option. Simultaneously, encourage and help your people to get past the learning curve and they’ll be happier and more compliant. Empower your Users Make sure the users know where to get answers. Wrike offers great support through a variety of channels. Inform and empower your users to be self-sufficient or you’ll end up answering all of their questions. Ask for Feedback Don’t be afraid to ask for feedback. Work to figure out how well Wrike is working overall and how it’s working for individual people. Don’t assume the way you set it up is awesome and perfect and the one and only way to do it. Be open and flexible to changing the process. We have revised the work flow many times over, always for the better, and often using suggestions from team members.
Use Wrike More Productively With These 8 Tips & Tricks
If you're new to Wrike, just getting your feet wet using the tool, and are wondering what productivity tricks there are in the software that can make you a more efficient worker, then this post is for you. We've collected 8 of the best tips and tricks (that you might not know about) so you can turbocharge the way you work in Wrike. Read on!
Checklists Make Your Tasks as Easy as 1-2-3
When tasks have multiple components, it can be challenging to track what has been completed versus what is still in progress, especially when different segments must be completed by different people. To help you make these tasks more structured and easier to track, Wrike added a new, useful feature. Now you can further break down your tasks into to-do lists or step-by-step instructions with the help of checklists in your task description. To take advantage of checklists, find the new checkbox button in the task description's formatting panel. This feature will add another level of depth to keep your tasks organized and clean. When listing the task's components in the description, it's up to you to order your list to suit your preference, whether that be by due date, assignees, importance, or simply as ideas come to mind. Once a component is completed and you check its box, the item turns grey to fade out of focus. With checklists, all collaborators can easily see what has been finished and what needs to be done before the entire task is completed. One of the cool things about the checklists is that they can help you avoid confusing scenarios when a task is assigned to several employees. Before, one employee would mark an entire task as completed when only his or her individual contribution was done. Now, when you create one task and assign that task to five different people, add a checklist to your task description for clearer workload distribution. Use this feature and kindly remind John to go to the checklist within the task to indicate that he has finished only his portion. When everyone has checked off their separate line items, the last contributor or task author knows to mark the entire task as completed. Have you heard of small wins? Psychologists say that completing several smaller tasks one after another has a powerful motivating effect when you're in the middle of a large assignment. See how that works for you and your team with the new feature! And for additional benefit, we hope checklists can serve as your convenient alternative while we continue working hard to bring subtasks to your workspace.
Customer's Tip of The Day: How to Make the Learning Curve of Adopting Wrike Even Shorter
One of our customers, the Australian company Aduro Pty Ltd., is an expert in e-learning. Their platform enables teachers and managers to upload their learning materials online, so that students can play them on any device anytime. This is a great step forward in speeding up the lesson preparation process and a great way to save a lot of money on organizing training sessions. Whew, do you wish your school had adopted this platform a long time ago? Of course, we couldn’t help asking Aduro which ways of adopting Wrike worked best for their team. We believe their practices will help you bring newcomers on board even quicker and easier, whether you have just created a Wrike account, or you are planning to extend it to new departments or team members!One of our customers, the Australian company Aduro Pty Ltd., is an expert in e-learning. Their platform enables teachers and managers to upload their learning materials online, so that students can play them on any device anytime. This is a great step forward in speeding up the lesson preparation process and a great way to save a lot of money on organizing training sessions. Whew, do you wish your school had adopted this platform a long time ago? “For me, studying is all about the pleasure of learning and the passion to get better,” says Martin Schwall, Business Development Manager at Aduro Pty Ltd., “When it comes to bringing a new tool for the team, I always try to catch their attention by inspiring a personal interest in it. I also try to find the best ways of fitting it into the team’s current working practices, be it the workflow or the other tools and devices they use." Aduro's team at Brisbane bridge semi-marathon The tips Martin has shared with us are based exactly on these principles: 1. Make the benefits clear. Resistance to changes is natural for all teams, and it can be the main stumbling block when it comes to a new tool. That’s why it’s important to dedicate some time for the initial presentation and make sure that the benefits outweigh the inclination to stick to your team’s old habits. Getting prepared for the initial presentation is equally important. You need to focus more on “why” than on “how.” You don’t need to go too deep into details. Be ready to handle critical objections, and so on. You can find all these and many more useful tips in the 1-2-3 guide to cultivating a productivity habit with Wrike. 2. Use project templates. You might consider creating templates for all similar projects that your team can simply duplicate when needed. For your team members, this really facilitates the launching of a new project, especially during the first weeks of using the software. And once they see how much time it saves, they will be much more enthusiastic about the new project management tool! If you used MS Project to manage your projects prior to Wrike, you can easily import them into your new workspace. 3. Make the most of e-mail integration. One of the hardest things for a project manager is to make sure everyone regularly updates their tasks and informs the rest of the team about the changes. If your team uses e-mail a lot in their day-to-day work, e-mail integration greatly helps to develop this habit of regularly updating. With Wrike’s help, your team members can easily update and comment on a task, or create a new one right from their inbox! And with Wrike’s add-ins for Outlook and Apple mail, they can actually do it in the interactive Wrike tab while still staying in their e-mail client. This way, your team doesn’t need to change their habits to keep the project data up-to-date. 4. Ensure the work guidelines are easily accessible. If you need some special guidelines to fit Wrike into your working process, it’s handy to write them down and keep the documents online. You can create a special folder in Wrike for that and attach files to the folder description. This way, team members can always access the docs to freshen their memory and avoid potential misunderstandings. Also, you’ll save time on explaining the guidelines to the future newcomers. 5. Don’t forget about mobile apps. As Martin mentioned before, it’s always better to proceed from tools and devices that your team already uses. We bet most of your team members have either an iPhone or Android. In this case, they can easily stay on top of the projects and update tasks through their preferred gadgets, thanks to Wrike’s mobile apps. Now it’s easy to access their workspace wherever they are! We would like to thank Martin for sharing these wonderful tips and hope you’ll also find them helpful for your team’s onboarding. Check out one of our previous posts if you are eager to see more pieces of advice on how to adopt Wrike quickly and easily on your team. Why is it important to keep learning? As a small bonus, we’ve asked Martin to share his vision of continuous learning, a concept that is becoming a more and more popular nowadays. “I see continuous learning and development as a keystone of the organization’s growth and success. Today, talented people are getting more and more difficult to acquire and to keep. And in these conditions, the concept of continuous learning not only brings new competences to your organization, but also ensures your talents receive the necessary attention and keep contributing to your organization’s excellence,” Martin says. Interested to learn more about it? Watch our podcast with Martin! “The visibility Wrike provided us on projects and resources has dramatically changed our way of working. But what I love most about this tool is its flexibility. I have implemented Wrike 3 times in 3 different organizations, and every time I was able to fit my process by using folders,” says Martin Schwall, Business Development Manager at Aduro Pty Ltd.
Visual Guides for New Users: Getting Managers, Team Members, and Collaborators Up to Speed Quickly
As the number of Wrike's new users grows everyday, we want to ensure that every new user can pick up the key functionalities and hit the ground running as swiftly as possible. After all, the faster you learn how to use Wrike, the more efficiently you can collaborate with your team on all the tasks that need to get done. We put together three separate Quick Guides to Wrike -- for managers, for team members, and for collaborators -- to make it incredibly easy to begin using the tool. These easy-to-read visual manuals contain screenshots and tips to help you understand Wrike’s features according to your role within the team or project: A Quick Guide to Wrike for Managers teaches managers and team leaders how to master the tools for progress tracking, reporting, time tracking, planning, and workload allocation. If managers want to ensure the smooth adoption of Wrike among all stakeholders, we recommend they point their employees and collaborators to the other two manuals below. A Quick Guide to Wrike for Team Members introduces project members to the basics of the workspace and the different views, and includes tips on effectively collaborating on tasks, tracking individual work progress, and optimizing your dashboard widgets. A Quick Guide to Wrike for Collaborators gives collaborators a brief overview of the workspace, and an introduction to reporting on task progress as well as tracking work progress within Wrike. For further details on Wrike features described in the guides, such as the dashboard, search, filters, Gantt charts, and more, check the other adoption materials, visit our help section, or watch the video tutorials on Wrike TV.