Perfecting Your Startup Investor Pitch Deck: 3 Essential Links
One of the highlights of being an entrepreneur is telling people about the amazing startup you've built — whether to attract investors, users, or prospective hires. It's a highlight as well as possibly the most nerve-wracking moment of an entrepreneur's life: that moment when you're before an audience, alone with your pitch deck, trying to communicate why they should care enough to invest their time or money in your company. The art of creating your startup's pitch deck is one that has wrought a thousand and one blog posts. There is a lot of advice out there, given out by angel investors and successful startup CEOs alike. You can even access a host of decks written with startups in mind on Slideshare. Having combed through a myriad of resources, we've concluded that these three links below are absolutely essential to crafting and polishing your startup's pitch deck. Ignore them at your own peril. 1. Reid Hoffman & LinkedIn's Successful Series B pitch to Greylock A decade after it was presented in 2004, this deck is still essential. It's an amazing resource, showing each slide along with accompanying insight from Reid Hoffman, LinkedIn's co-founder (and current investor at Greylock Partners). Hoffman offers advice on how entrepreneurs should approach the pitch process, while providing context for the tech climate of 2004. Best Tips: Open with your investment thesis: what prospective investors must believe in order to want to invest in your company. Steer toward objections. There will be a few issues that could present problems for your financing — address them head on. 2. Guy Kawasaki's Pitch Deck Template Pitch Deck Template by Guy Kawasaki from Quintin Adamis Back in 2012, author, noted entrepreneur, and chief evangelist Guy Kawasaki posted an alternative pitch deck template on his blog. You can download the full PowerPoint here. He discusses the pitch deck formula in depth within the post, giving pointers that he says no investor will actually tell you, because it's always easier for them to smile and say, "That's interesting." Best Tips: When it comes to PowerPoint pitches for your company, think "Hot Or Not", not eHarmony. Your investors decide if your company is “hot or not” in a matter of seconds. According to Kawasaki, the best-case outcome of a pitch is not a request for money wiring instructions. There is a more important goal: rising above the noise and avoiding elimination. You want to “live another day” and get to the next stage: due diligence. 3. Crowdfunder's Investor Pitch Deck Template Over on Forbes, Chance Barnett, CEO of Crowdfunder.com, contributes a downloadable PowerPoint deck template that distills the investor pitch formula down to 11 core slides every deck needs in order to get its point across clearly. Barnett's pitch deck formula is based on his extensive experience raising money for his own ventures, as well as looking at over 10,000 pitch decks on Crowdfunder. You can download his Investor Pitch Deck Template (PPT) here. Best Tips: Including too much information in your initial pitch can be counterproductive. You want to leave some questions unanswered, hit the big points in a clear way, and avoid over-sharing. Put key numbers and traction at the very beginning. This grabs attention and clarifies the market opportunity, especially if the numbers are good. What other pitch deck advice do you have? Do you have suggestions of pitch decks that should join this list? Hit the comments and show us the light.
Long Distance Leadership: Successfully Scaling a Remote Team to 50+ Employees
Nic Bryson is the Senior Director of Customer Support at Wrike. Since joining the company in 2009, he’s grown Customer Support from just one person to a remote team of 50+ members, spread across the globe. In the past 10 years, remote work has grown by 103% in the US alone. Fueled by increased worker satisfaction, greater productivity, and an average cost savings of over $11,000 per worker each year, the growing trend of remote work shows no signs of slowing. The ability to effectively manage a remote team is now a must-have skill, especially for small business and startup teams who need to take advantage of the global talent pool and freelance workforce in order to find workers with the skills they need, on terms they can afford. While the benefits of remote teamwork are compelling, it’s not without challenges—particularly for managers and project leaders. Communication, tracking progress and priorities, and managing resources are all made more difficult by distance, in addition to logistics like time zones and language or culture barriers. Even with the right tools and processes in place to make day-to-day work easier with remote teams, a larger challenge presents itself: that of scaling your team alongside your growing business. How do you successfully train new team members and cultivate a thriving remote team culture? And how do you provide your team with professional development and growth opportunities, when you may only meet face-to-face a few times each year? Here at Wrike, we’ve faced these questions head on with our own Customer Support Team, led by Nic Bryson. Over the last 8 years, he's grown the team from just himself to a group of over 50 people, spread across North & South America and Europe. From onboarding new members to developing and promoting new Support Team leaders, Nic has experienced firsthand the growing pains of scaling a remote team, and shares some of the vital lessons he's learned along the way. Essential Tips for Hiring Remote Workers Not everyone has a temperament that’s suited for remote work. Many telecommuters grapple with isolation, the pressure to be always on, and establishing a healthy work/life balance. That’s why it’s so important to go beyond technical skills and knowledge to consider whether a candidate’s personality is compatible with remote work. When you’re evaluating a potential new hire, what qualities should you look for? According to Nic Bryson, Senior Director of Customer Support here at Wrike, the key is to find someone who’s proactive: who will both seek out the answers to their technical questions, and put in the extra effort to connect with their teammates. In the support world, that means someone who isn’t just waiting for a new ticket to appear, but looking for ways to improve processes and projects. As a manager, this requires you to look deeper than the sheer number of tickets cleared or tasks completed, but the quality of work and willingness to go the extra mile. Who’s not only answering the customer’s question, but also providing them with related resources, or taking the time to follow up a few days later? Who’s considering how the work gets done, and looking for ways to make things more efficient or effective? The other important question to consider: is the candidate a people person? It may seem counter-intuitive that extroverts would pursue a remote position where they likely won’t interact with other people face-to-face, but Bryson says that drive to connect with others is essential. These are the kinds of people who will go out of their way to interact with their colleagues, whether via chat apps or video calls, and contribute to a successful remote team culture. Onboarding Strategies to Keep Remote Workers Engaged from the Start Remote team members can’t simply stop by your office or lean over to a colleague in the next cubicle to ask a quick question, so opportunities to see how other people work and learn through observation are limited. Casual office chats or lunch conversations with colleagues from other departments don’t happen naturally like they can in an office environment, which can limit a new team member’s understanding of how the company functions as a whole. That’s why thorough training is a must when onboarding new team members. Remote managers must make the extra effort to be available to their teams, answering questions, offering ongoing support, and providing the training resources and context that enables cross-department collaboration. Bryson says, “It’s just as important for people to know what they don’t know—and also understand that they’re not expected to know everything. There are no bad questions, and people should always feel comfortable asking for help. They need to be able to self-serve, or know who the best person is to answer their question.” Make sure your remote team has access to ongoing training and is always encouraged to ask questions, regardless of how long they’ve been with your company. "Servant Leadership" and Building a Strong Remote Team Culture Establishing a vibrant company culture is difficult enough when your team shares an office. When you’re communicating via laptop, it’s that much more challenging to cultivate close working relationships and a collaborative atmosphere. And as your team grows, that challenge grows with it. When Wrike’s support team was only a handful of people, new members spent enough one-on-one time training with their colleagues that relationships formed naturally. As the team began to grow, however, Bryson says he made a point to establish a servant leadership mentality. People were promoted to management positions not only based on their job performance, but their willingness to support their teammates. Now, the leadership team consists of people who look for opportunities to help their direct reports and provide them with the resources and mentorship they need to excel in their roles and grow their careers. Tools like Slack allow the team to be in constant contact throughout the day, discussing everything from work-related issues to personal news and pop culture. People are encouraged to be open about any challenges they’re facing and to ask questions. Bryson says this openness helps them resolve process problems, which are more difficult to uncover and diagnose as a remote team where visibility is limited, and people can be more hesitant to admit that they’re struggling with an aspect of their work. The team also relies on Zoom for team meetings, which allows for up to 25 webcams. Bryson says having everyone turn their webcams on during meetings makes a big difference, letting the team get in as much face time as possible. “If someone doesn’t have their webcam on, their teammates will make a point to say ‘hey, we want to see you!’ It’s not just me talking to a black screen,” he says. It's important to remember that it's not just the frequency of communication, it's also the quality. When your team is reading your messages via email, chat, or the comments section of your work management software, important cues like tone of voice and physical expressions are lost. And when you add in language and cultural differences, those nuances are even more difficult to translate. Even common sayings that are second nature to you can be easily misunderstood by remote colleagues who aren’t viewing the message with the same cultural lens. Bryson recalls, “Early on there was a customer communication with a support team rep, where at one point the customer said, “You guys are killing it!” And the support person replied with something like, “Oh, I’m so sorry to hear that”—they thought they’d done a bad job—and it was just one of those instances where you realize how fast idioms and cultural context comes into play. And you have to make sure your team understands what’s meant by those slang phrases that they might not be familiar with.” As workspaces become more and more informal, the use of emojis and gifs can help make up for some of the context cues and make communicating with your remote team that much easier (and more fun!) Meeting the Challenge of Leadership & Career Development on a Remote Team While offering advice and guidance to your team is tricky when you don’t get a lot of face time, providing opportunities for career development is essential to keeping talented team members around for the long haul. If you want remote employees to grow with your company, supporting career development is a must. For Bryson, this is why weekly one-on-ones are so important. In a culture of constant communication, sometimes one-on-ones can seem redundant. Since Support Team managers are always available in Slack, questions get answered right away and conversations are ongoing. As Bryson explains, “Sometimes there’s this sense of, we’re already talking all the time, so what’s the point of having a separate one-on-one? It comes down to a distinction between training and development.” Training is what the person needs to know to do their job. That’s what’s being offered during Slack conversations and team meetings. It’s where managers communicate the specifics of, “This is what you need to do and how to do it.” The one-on-one is where the team member gets to say, “This is what I want to be doing.” The weekly one-on-one makes career development a priority, giving team members dedicated time to talk about their own goals and professional growth. Plus, it gives managers an opportunity to delegate responsibilities and provide their team members with opportunities to build new skills. How the Most Successful Remote Teams Work Together As more organizations embrace new ways of working, managers will have to do away with the misconception that remote teams only work when they stay small. Teams that embrace structure, transparency, and a culture of knowledge sharing can—and do!—scale just as efficiently as co-located teams. How Wrike can scale your remote work processes Want to utilize Nic's advice and empower your teams to do their best work, regardless of where they are in the world? Wrike's flexible work management platform allows teams to keep track of projects, communicate seamlessly, and collaborate in real-time, all on one platform. Find out more here.
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How Buffer is Redefining Company Benefits (Work Management Roundup)
Welcome back to the weekly Work Management Roundup where we share the latest, greatest reads from the web regarding work and productivity. This week we find Buffer doing something innovative regarding worker compensation, we learn more about Uber's recent rebrand, and we discover a reason some people hate open office layouts: germs. Read on for the good stuff! Why We Support Teammates with Dependents (and Why it’s No Longer Part of our Salary Formula) (Medium): Buffer started out paying teammates more money if they have dependents or family members who rely upon their income. But after receiving feedback, they've instead created a new "dependents grant" as a part of their benefits package. How's that for a perk? Seven Strategies For Managing Remote Tech Talent (Forbes): Seven members of the Forbes Technology Council share their best advice for getting the most out of your remote team. Tip: get the right tools and have the right processes in place. Is Your Open Office Making You Sick? (Motherboard): Sure, open offices are not always ideal for quiet productivity, but are they also inadvertently harming our health? According to a few published studies, yes! They're associated with employees getting sick more often. The Inside Story of Uber’s Radical Rebranding (Wired): It's the story that's all over this week's news in the Silicon Valley. Uber's CEO personally took it upon himself to rebrand their logo and portray the evolution of both the founder and the company. The big question that remains: does the logo communicate the brand? 7 Pieces of Wisdom That Will Change the Way You Work (99U): Here's a great piece — seven gems of wisdom regarding work from such luminaries as Kurt Vonnegut, Martha Graham, and Steven Pressfield. More Work Management Reads Think About This: Ask the Market Experts: How Do You Stay Productive and Mindful? (Business.com) 26 Blogging Mistakes That Are Costing You Time, Money, and Credibility (ProBlogger) The Biggest Wastes of Time We Regret When We Get Older (LifeHacker) Siri, Alexa, and Other Virtual Assistants Put to the Test (The New York Times) Go Try This: The Power of Power Naps: Salvador Dalí Teaches You How Micro-Naps Can Give You Creative Inspiration (Open Culture) Running a Remote Blog Network? Streamline Your Processes With Wrike (Blogging Pro) Browse Productivity Works on Flipboard If you use Flipboard on your laptop or mobile to keep up with news, then you may enjoy our magazine full of productivity advice. Check out Productivity Works, or click on the widget below: View my Flipboard Magazine.
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Version Tracking for Files
We have improved the file-sharing system in Wrike, so you can now track versions of files attached to tasks and project folders. As you know, Wrike project management software lets you attach any kind of files to tasks and folders, so that everyone on the team knows the latest version of specifications, agreements, brochures, logos, etc. When you work on a document together with your peers, each participant can contribute by uploading a new version. To make version-tracking for files more convenient for you, we moved files to a special tab in the task and folder details. “Files” tab Now, when you click on the “Edit task” or “Edit folder” link, you see the new “Files” tab. The number in the tab name shows you how many files are attached to the task/folder. Different versions of the same file are not counted separately. In the “Files” tab you can attach new files (1), upload new versions of files (2) and download files by clicking on the file name (3). The newest version of a file is typed in larger font and placed at the top of the list of files (4). Previous versions are listed below with the information about who and when uploaded the file. Uploading a new file version To upload a new version of a file, click on the “Upload a new version” link near the appropriate file (5) and select a file to upload as a new version. You can also add a file description when necessary. Then hit the “Upload file” button. When you upload a new version, Wrike automatically renames the file to follow the original file’s name to avoid any confusion.
Hurry, hurry… no time for rewriting?
If it’s about you, the new auto-complete capability of the fields will please you greatly. Now you can change any responsible party and the title of the parent folder without rewriting or deleting needless words. Place the cursor at any part of the word you would like to change and choose the proper one with the help of the arrow. It is replaced immediately. Also only the name of a person is shown now. The e-mail is visible only if the user has several e-mails.
How 5 Famous Startups Got Funding
You’ve been bitten by the entrepreneurial bug. You're dreaming about launching your own startup, bringing your ideas to life, and surrounding yourself with a team of people all working to build something great. Suddenly your wallet gives you a wakeup call: where are you going to get the money? Unless you win the lottery or know some impressive counterfeiting techniques, you’re going to need to raise a decent amount of cash. There are a bunch of different ways to finance your startup, and we’ve got the scoop on 5 tech giants that each pursued a different funding strategy on their way to becoming household names. 1. Bootstrapping GoPro “I moved back in with my parents and went to work seven days a week, 20 hours a day.” —Nicholas Woodman In 2002, a surfing trip to Australia got Nicholas Woodman thinking: how great would it be to have a camera that could capture his POV as he caught a wave? He took $265,000, scrounged up from personal savings and borrowed from his parents, to develop his camera. Woodman took early products to trade shows, growing GoPro slowly until the company started to generate its own revenue. A fervent proponent of bootstrapping, Woodman held out as long as he could before taking on outside funding. It wasn’t until 2011 that GoPro accepted $88 million in outside investments from five venture capital firms. At its IPO in 2014, the company was valued at $2.95 billion. 2. Charging Google to AmEx "We had to use all of our credit cards and our friends' credit cards and our parents' credit cards....” —Larry Page Larry Page and Sergey Brin met as Stanford University graduate students, later collaborating on a search engine project. Committed to their studies, they ran the program out of their dorm rooms while pursuing their degrees. But by 1998, Google was getting 10,000 searches a day, and the pair decided their project had a real future. They maxed out $15,000 worth of credit cards to buy a terabyte of disk space and drafted a business plan. Page and Brin later went on to raise $100,000 in seed money from Andy Bechtolsheim, co-founder of Sun Microsystems and fellow Stanford alum. At its IPO in 2004, Google was valued at $26.4 billion. 3. Building Apple on 30-Day Credit “It was unbelievable — we were in business. All of a sudden we needed about $20,000 to buy parts.” —Steve Wozniak After partnering with Steve Wozniak to build a personal computer, Steve Jobs approached a local computer store and agreed to sell them fully-assembled computers for $500 each, payment on delivery. The only problem was, the duo didn't have the money to buy the parts they needed. So Jobs took the computer shop’s purchase order to an electronic parts distributor and worked out a deal: if he could get the parts in advance and pay 30 days later, he would build and deliver the computers within that month. Then he'd use the earnings from the computer shop to pay what they owed for the parts. After calling the computer shop to verify the purchase order, the parts distributor agreed. Working round-the-clock, Wozniak and Jobs delivered the computers, paid their supplier, and used leftover profits for their next order of parts. At its IPO in 1980, Apple was valued at $1.7 billion. 4. Fueling Facebook with Angel Investments "I literally coded Facebook in my dorm room and launched it from my dorm room. I rented a server for $85 a month.” —Mark Zuckerberg After launching Facebook from their Harvard dorm rooms in February 2004, Mark Zuckerberg and partner Eduardo Saverin covered operations costs out of their own pockets, along with running a few ads. Later that summer, Zuckerberg met with Peter Thiel, president of Clarium Capital. Thiel was impressed with Zuckerberg’s vision and made a $500,000 angel investment in exchange for a 10.2% stake in Facebook. A year later, Thiel and Accel Partners would go on to invest an additional $12.5 million as Facebook continued to grow past 5 million users. At its IPO in 2012, Facebook was valued at $104 billion. 5. Crowdfunding Pebble Smartwatch “[Paul Graham] was like, 'You guys need to do something wild. What could you do that's wild?’ I thought for a moment and said, 'We could go on Kickstarter.'" —Eric Migicovsky By the end of 2011, Eric Migicovsky had a prototype for a smartwatch and $375,000 in angel investments. It was enough to keep his company afloat for a little longer, but not enough to fund a full production run. When he and Y Combinator founder Paul Graham started brainstorming fundraising options, Migicovsky mentioned Kickstarter. He’d backed a few projects before and thought it might help raise some extra money. Migicovsky studied successful projects, created his campaign page, and set his fundraising goal for $100,000. In the first day alone, backers pledged $600,000, and Migicovsky’s Pebble Watch went on to raise over $10 million from 68,929 backers. Are you ready to fund your startup? Which option would you pick? Check out our 7 Ways to Fund Your Startup Infographic and add your own page to the history books!
Reflections on a Year of Building: A Message from CEO Andrew Filev
We’re now a month into 2016, and I wanted to share a few reflections on our progress as a company from the last year. It’s been a really busy and exciting time, and it’s always refreshing to pause and look back. Since most of you don’t know a lot about me, let me say that first and foremost, my passion is building. That’s why I have so much fun running Wrike as a SaaS business: every day we are both building and delivering a great product, and seeing the results of that product for our customers. It’s one of the reasons that 2015 was such an exciting year. Building the Platform for Everyone Our goal when we design and build software is to create a flexible platform that fits different industries and types of work, so that all our users can quickly adapt Wrike to their needs. That means that a major focus for us last year was the Dynamic Platform — a set of tools that allows you to customize workflows, data containers, and reporting. The first piece of this puzzle was the addition of Custom Fields in late 2014. In early 2015, we followed up with Workflows. Since that release, you’ve created thousands of unique workflows for managing projects and tasks, and used these to get faster visibility than ever before. We further enhanced the Dynamic Platform by releasing Wrike Reports in September. This filled a need for accurate, real-time status reporting that is both easy to produce and simple to consume. So far, we've gotten great feedback on Reports, including success stories, and some thoughtful suggestions for future iterations. We're always grateful for the feedback, and are excited for updates coming to reports in 2016. In 2015 we also built powerful integrations for teams that use Salesforce.com and Microsoft Office to help workers sync through the apps they use every day. This is a vital part of eliminating duplicate work and helping companies achieve optimal visibility. We’ve also doubled down on our mobile efforts by adding several new developers, and released brand new native apps for both iOS and Android. On our team, we’ve added key executives who join us from companies like Google, Microsoft, and LinkedIn. And with the opening of a new office in Dublin, we have added over 100 new Wrikers globally. I’m very thankful for all the talented people who have joined us, and it’s a joy to work with them every day. Exciting Times for Work Management As far as our industry goes, we are in exciting times. The world is going through a transformation in which companies are using digital as a source of innovation, and real-time data is key to finding and exploiting new business opportunities. Knowledge workers need to be as connected to their teams as they are to their devices. The world is beyond the point where Work Management is a convenient addition to your IT stack — it’s now a must-have. And more so than ever, businesses need to consider the cost of being the last company in their field to invest in visibility and collaboration. This isn’t just our bet. In 2015 we raised more investments from Bain Capital Ventures, Scale Venture Partners, and DCM Ventures, all of whom are ready for this market to become mainstream. These investments have allowed us to increase our velocity in delivering a leading product, and our users should expect to see their effects even more in 2016. Personally, I want to close by thanking everyone who has helped us get to this point, both our gifted staff members, and especially our customers. The letters I get from our Wrike users are truly inspiring, and our whole company feels a lot of love every day from all of you, around the world. I’m very excited for another year of learning and building. Thank You!
GetApp & FinancesOnline Rank Wrike as the Best Project Management Software
Every quarter, software review and comparison site GetApp ranks the top cloud-based applications in various categories. The rankings are based on user reviews, integrations, mobile apps, media presence, and security. We’re happy to share that Wrike ranked #1 in four different categories: Project Management Project Collaboration Project Portfolio Management Task Management Click the links above to see the complete listings. To GetApp and everyone who has reviewed Wrike, thanks for the love! In addition to topping the GetApp rankings, Wrike is honored to have been awarded Best Project Management Software for the second year in a row by FinancesOnline. The B2B and SaaS product review site awarded Wrike a 9.8 out of 10 for excellent customer satisfaction, flexibility, and reliability. Wrike also received the site’s Supreme Software and Expert’s Choice Awards for 2016. We're ecstatic that our work in introducing what is software professional services to so many is being recognised. Read the full review on FinancesOnline. Lastly, high user ratings on TrustRadius resulted in Wrike receiving a 2016 Top Rated badge in the Project Management category. In addition, Wrike was recognized as a Leader in Project Management and High-Performer in Social Collaboration by G2Crowd, and received a "Users Love Wrike" badge. We’re so grateful to our users for sharing their positive experiences with Wrike. Thank you for a great 2015, and here's to 2016 and beyond!
How Marketing Agencies Use Timesheet Apps to Measure Project Profitability
When a business works on multiple accounts or projects, being able to time track is key for profitability. An employee timesheet app can make your team more efficient and productive. Find out why with Wrike.
Track time spent on your tasks in Wrike
The time-tracking feature is now released in Wrike, the project management software. We have received many inquiries from our users about ability to track time in Wrike, so we decided to implement this feature. Professional services providers, companies that work with freelancers, implement hourly pay, or have many projects and employees — all of you will find great value in the time tracking feature. Besides time tracking, Wrike offers a powerful platform for collaboration, task organization, task management, reports across diverse projects, Gantt charts, e-mail integration and smart notifications — all in one user workspace. Time-tracking is an essential part of increasing the productivity of your team. Time-tracking helps you keep track of the hours spent on a task or a project and evaluate the effectiveness of your employees. Your team members now can add time entries to tasks easily. They just open the task to edit, choose the date and enter number of hours spent on the task. Then you can create time reports for projects and track the workload of your team members. You can export reports to CSV file format, print and provide them to clients.
Andrew Filev on Hiring and Startup Leadership: The New York Times Interview
You hear it from every startup founder: the secret to success is in hiring the right people. People who can be creative with day-to-day challenges. People who work well with others. People who aren’t afraid to roll their sleeves up and get things done, no matter what that may entail. Just this Saturday, The New York Times' Adam Bryant ran an in-depth interview with our CEO, Andrew Filev regarding his background, his motivations, how he manages his teams, and especially how he hires. A few notable excerpts: On hiring and recruiters: "Hiring is one of the biggest parts of a CEO’s job — and it’s true for every executive. I tell my team: 'Your job is to build the best team. The recruiter is there to help and support you, but it’s your responsibility, and you own it.’" On how he evaluates job candidates: "I’ve learned to test people in action. So you give them some sort of task to see how they think about things." On his management style: “We check our egos at the door. It’s about, 'This is the best decision for the company, and here’s why.' I need to always have that explanation in my head, and I require that from everybody in the company, no matter how young or experienced they are." Read the complete interview over at The New York Times.
How to Combat the 4 Main Sources of Scope Creep
"It might be a good idea to add this feature." "Let's extend the test cycle so we have more data." "I hate adding to your work but can you...?" These sentences, once uttered, herald the onset of every project manager's recurring nightmare — that phenomenon of a project ballooning in size and scope, while budgets and timelines remain the same. It's called scope creep. And it's deadly. But what is it exactly, and how does it get past our defenses to slowly but surely inflate a project's scope? The Definition of Scope Creep In its simplest form, a project's scope is all about parameters. A project's scope should be a documented set of project boundaries, schedules, and major deliverables. These can be outlined in a statement of work. Scope creep (also known as "requirement creep" and "feature creep") has become such a dirty word in project management because it refers to how a project's requirements tend to grow uncontrollably — often dictated by project stakeholders, or internal miscommunication, causing a Frankenstein-like mashup of features that weren't there during the planning stage. And often kill your deadlines. People often confuse scope creep and gold plating. The difference between scope creep and gold plating is that gold plating does not necessarily mean the project's requirements have changed, but that the project team has been working past the point of diminishing returns. How Does it Creep Up on Projects? Let's count the ways: 1. Lack of Details The easiest and simplest culprit to blame for scope creep is vagueness. When there is a lack of a clearly-defined and controlled project scope (you can use a scope document template to create this), the scope will mutate. Don't be surprised if stakeholders and even team members choose to define your project more loosely than you envision. It's because you, as the project manager, didn't communicate the vision and the scope clearly enough in your Project Initiation Document! TIP: The Project Scope Statement that goes into the Project Initiation Document is where you should lay out all project boundaries. Don't gloss over it. Spend time concretizing it so that expectations are managed, there are no surprises, and your stakeholders comprehend exactly what they'll get at the end of the process. 2. Weak Leadership Here's the rub: stakeholders and clients may try to change the scope to get what they want if they sense that you lack experience, or are not a strong project manager. TIP: This is based on their perception of you. Stand your ground if demands are beginning to inflate project scope. Communicate strongly through body language during meetings. And if your meetings are virtual, keep these virtual communication tips in mind. 3. Differing Stakeholder Opinions Another possibility: you may have too many stakeholders, each with differing opinions. Too many cooks spoil the broth, as the adage goes. While stakeholders may all want the same end product, their motivations may vary wildly. And those motivations will affect what they feel should be prioritized during project development, which can wildly alter your timelines. TIP: Limit the number of your stakeholders. Or try to determine their motivations so you can arrive at a common ground. If it makes sense, additional requests from stakeholders can be parlayed into a future project after the current one is done. 4. 11th Hour User Feedback If you don't involve your end-users or your customers from the beginning of the process, introducing them midway through (or near the end of) a project, guess what happens? They may give you feedback you've never heard before, which often adds to your list of action items. Instant scope creep. Take the costly mistakes of the Denver International Airport project as a fair warning not to involve people late in the game. TIP: The word you need to use here is collaboration. If you collaborate with your customers early and often, you run less risk of delivering something they don't need or want. Keep communication lines open so the ideas and the feedback keep flowing. What are other ways Scope Creep creeps up on you? Your turn. What other sources of scope creep did we miss? Add your thoughts in the comments and tell us how you've fought against the scope creep terror. Read next: Lessons Learned in Scope Creep and Project Failure from Denver International Airport Photo credit: Ana Julaton by Mark Sebastian
Wrike For Creatives: How a Music Producer Gets Things Done
We talk a lot on the Wrike blog about businesses needing tools to get their act together. But it's not just construction companies, software development teams, and marketing agencies that have to organize their work to be efficient. There is also a large community of creatives using online project management software to coordinate their projects. Check this out: We didn't have to look far to find examples. One of our customers, entrepreneur and celebrity Redfoo, uses Wrike to run both his clothing line and his record label. And he says: “I couldn’t imagine running a business without Wrike.” I couldn’t imagine running a business without Wrike. —Redfoo, CEO of Party Rock Records and LaFreak Clothing Label Then we have our very own Charles L. Coleman II, Enterprise Sales Executive, who helps bring Wrike to larger organizations by day. By night, he runs The ABiatorz Music Group (AMG), a boutique music production company that creates and releases music for placement with artists, record labels, and advertising opportunities. AMG utilized Wrike in its collaboration with two-time Grammy-award-winning producer Focus and Creative Consultant Amilcar "PRO" Welton of CREATE.Digital Music, which is reflected in the video above. Take a look at another video by The ABiatorz Music Group. It was a placement with the Golden State Warriors during their 2015 NBA Championship run, and it involved Coleman collaborating with Hip-Hop artist, Rich Cole and Amilcar "PRO" Welton once again. The song and video for "Dub Nation (Locked n' Loaded)" was used promotionally across all of the Warriors online platforms. With a demanding day job, a thriving music business, and a growing family, Coleman's time is extremely precious. But he makes it work — and his secret to making the most of his limited time is Wrike. "Time is everything," says Coleman. "You don't have a lot of time as a father, a worker, a musician. So I use Wrike to help me plan out my time efficiently. I use it to manage my family vacations, my sales work at Wrike, and as a tool to make my music business more effective. Anything that needs to be executed, I do it in Wrike." Wrike as a Planning & Collaboration Tool for Recording One way Coleman uses Wrike for creative work is for planning out studio time. When you're paying by the hour to use a recording studio, you want every minute to count. "I use Wrike to plan out all my studio time so that it's most efficient," says Coleman. "I think about the entire recording session before I go in, lay it out in Wrike, then execute when I'm there." [inlinetweet prefix="" tweeter="" suffix="Read more @Wrike:"]"I use Wrike to plan out all my studio time so that it's most efficient."[/inlinetweet] —Charles L. Coleman II, Music Producer This means using Wrike tasks as checklists for every song. He inputs to-do items for specific musical parts, or attaches ideas (i.e. other songs) as pegs for how the final track should sound. This also means Coleman creates tasks for session musicians who will be playing on the track. Bringing them in as collaborators within Wrike allows him to share working versions of the music with them as well as get their feedback without having to email music files back and forth. Wrike as a Music Catalog Tool Another way Coleman uses Wrike is as a music cataloging tool or "library", that helps him document and quickly find all the music he's created and released, as well as what stage each is in. "In my Wrike instance, I have custom fields for every track I make," says Coleman. "This way I can document collaborators (any additional musicians who played on a track), samples I may have used, placement (whether the track has been placed and where), target artist (e.g. "Beyonce" or "Drake"), instruments played (if any live instruments were used). "This also allows me to easily pull reports on what music I have available for placement and quickly find songs via the information in my custom fields. It becomes easier to submit tracks to ASCAP or to get copyrights on the music when you have all your paperwork readily available. "I can also judge efficiency. I can quickly answer questions such as: How many songs did I create last year? How many did I place? Do I need to be creating more? Did we spend too much on musicians last year?" I can quickly answer questions such as... Did we spend too much on musicians last year? —Charles L. Coleman II, Music Producer From Paper Notebooks to Online Project Management Software "Before using Wrike to manage my business, to be honest, I used a production notebook," Coleman shares. "I used to take notes using pen and paper. In fact, I have about four or five old notebooks at home. And it was a PAIN to find things in them. Or even to prepare the paperwork you need to submit music for placement." Now, there's no looking back for Coleman and The ABiatorz Music Group. "These days, my wife and I are able to manage the music production business easily using Wrike. Because of Wrike's tool, I was able to move my music production forward and get more placements. I also was able to move my job forward and get promoted, and even used Wrike to manage work and close out end-of-year business while traveling during the holidays with my family. "Wrike is both a business and personal tool. It allows me to keep things in their respective buckets, and yet have only to deal with one portal for all that work. It has helped me make improvements in my workflow that save me my most precious resource: time." [inlinetweet prefix="Read:" tweeter="" suffix=""]"@Wrike has helped me make improvements in my workflow that save me my most precious resource: time."[/inlinetweet] —Charles L.Coleman II, Music Producer Find Out How Wrike Can Help Your With Your Creative Work Try a free demo of Wrike and see how you can use #WrikeForCreatives.
Energize Your Project Management in Wrike with Google Wave
Are You Ready to Wave with Wrike? Whether you already using Google Wave, or just thinking of giving it a try, we’ve got fabulous news for you! Starting on February 3, you’ll be able to boost your project management productivity in Wrike by adding Google Wave collaboration feature set to your project management tool. Wrike is the first project management software that allows you to manage your projects directly from Google’s communication platform. Wrike’s Google Wave integration will allow you to seamlessly turn your waves into tasks, set due dates, update your project schedule and add your Wave discussions as comments to tasks in Wrike! This instant collaboration combination is a breakthrough in the project management space and an outstanding achievement in team productivity. Give it a try, and you’ll see why. To start managing your projects in Wrike from Google Wave is as easy as 1,2,3. Just add a new contact, [email protected], to your Wave (1). Then create a new wave and add Wrike to it (2). This new wave will be your Wrike task. Immediately, Wrike will respond with a request to connect your Wave account to your Wrike account. (That will appear in a separate wave) (3). Once you follow the link, Wrike will recognize you and create your task in your workspace. To share your new task with your team members, add them to the same wave. Those who have already been registered in Wrike will be recognized by the system. All the comments (or “blips” in Google Wave’s terminology) that you and your colleagues add to your task wave will be automatically turned into comments in the task discussion in Wrike. All the changes you make to the main wave content will be added to the task description, as well. The next time you discuss a project-related task with your team members in Google Wave, simply add Wrike ([email protected]) to your wave, and let your project management software keep track of all the changes. Moreover, you can set due dates for your tasks, place them in the right folders and update your project schedule directly from the Wave. When you create a new task, you can use the wave titles just like e-mail subjects to place your task into the appropriate folder and set the correct due date. For example, if you need to create a task called “update our Web site” in the “ourwebsite.com” folder, and if you want to set the due date to February 18, you simply need to put ourwebsite.com :: update our Web site by 02/18 in the wave title, and don’t forget to add Wrike to your newly created wave. Wrike will recognize the familiar subject, place your task right where you want it to be and set the due date. Your timeline in Wrike will be updated automatically. It’s a significant productivity advantage that you and your whole team will benefit from when using Wrike with Google Wave. Note: At the moment, Google Wave API has a number of limitations that restrict Wrike’s integration functionalities. Hardworking Google developers promise to get rid of these limitations soon. Update: Google has released the updated API and now all the limitations are eliminated. Updates in Wrike's functionality are coming soon. Stay tuned!
Wrike’s iPhone, iPad and BlackBerry Apps Spy Shots
The apps are almost ready! We’re putting our final touch on them. So what should you expect from Wrike’s iPhone, iPad and BlackBerry versions? The answer is: huge time savings, a personal productivity boost and 24/7, easy access to your project data from your favorite device. Meanwhile, you can enjoy this “spy” preview of Wrike’s long-expected mobile apps. All the juicy details are coming very soon!