The 3-Step Guide to Choosing the Right Project Management Methodology
There are an overwhelming number of project management methodologies, many of them combinations and hybrids of several approaches. With so many different options, how do you choose the right methodology for your project and team? We created a short Slideshare to walk you through it. Follow these 3 steps, and you won't have to rely on "eenie meenie miney mo" when it comes to choosing the best way to work. 3 Steps to Choosing a Project Management Methodology Once you're ready to dig into the specifics of top methodologies, download our free eBook The Beginner's Guide to Project Management Methodologies. It covers 16 popular approaches, provides key comparisons, and discusses the pros and cons of each practice. Want to stay up to date with all of our helpful Slideshare presentations? Follow us on Slideshare!
The Ultimate Guide to Total Quality Management (TQM)
Your organization does good work. But, as a leader or a project manager, you feel like a lot of it rests on your shoulders. Up to this point, it’s been your responsibility to review everything carefully and make sure your company’s outputs meet your quality standards. It’s working, but you know there has to be a better way. What if you could set up a system and a culture where everybody is invested in quality? What if you could refine processes that lead your team to consistently and reliably deliver top-notch work? It’s possible, and it’s a concept called total quality management. What is total quality management (TQM)? To put it simply, total quality management (TQM) is a set of principles that helps organizations do their best work. It focuses on helping companies evaluate and refine their processes, with the ultimate goal of improving their outputs and delivering a high-quality customer experience. In many companies, managers and leaders accountable for the quality of work and the success of the organization. However, total quality management spreads the load more evenly. Since every employee is involved in delivering the work, they are also held accountable for its quality. What is the history of total quality management? Think total quality management is something new? Think again. This concept has some pretty strong historical roots. Quality control has been around for ages. However, a mathematician and statistician named W. Edwards Deming is seen as the pioneer of the concept of total quality management. He saw flaws in U.S. production, especially when it came to quality control. Deming thought it was odd that management controlled the production process, despite the fact the line workers were the ones who had boots on the ground — and, as a result, had far more insight into how an effective process should run. He lectured on this topic in Japan in the 1950s. Japan was receptive to the concept of total quality management and quickly began implementing it. Upon seeing the success of those efforts in Japan, total quality management spread across the rest of the world — eventually becoming commonplace in the U.S. in the 1970s and 1980s. Why is total quality management important? Total quality management can feel like a difficult concept to wrap your arms around, and it’s tempting to write it off as another complex, academic subject that doesn’t have applications in the real world. But that’s not the case. Many successful companies — like Toyota, Xerox, and Motorola — implement total quality management. Why? Well, because it can lead to a number of undeniable benefits, including: Higher-quality products and services: This is the obvious one. When you intentionally and mindfully manage a process with quality in mind, you improve your outputs. That’s the biggest benefit of total quality management — your team delivers top-notch work. Improved customer experience: A focus on the customer is a core principle of total quality management (which we’ll dig into in detail later). Keeping an eye on the needs of the end customer means you offer a better experience, leading to more loyalty, a better reputation, and even increased sales. Greater efficiency: Total quality management also hinges on processes, and even more specifically, continuous process improvement. Regularly evaluating your organization’s workflows and identifying ways to refine and streamline them leads to greater efficiency and productivity. Boosted team morale: Employee involvement is another core piece of total quality management. Every single team member rallies around a shared goal and commits to achieving it. That level of togetherness can lead to positive team culture and better morale. See? Total quality management isn’t just a stuffy theory or a buzzword — it can have real, measurable, and important effects within your team and organization. Using collaborative work management software (like Wrike) can make the process easier and enable even greater productivity. More on that a little later! What are the total quality management principles? Total quality management is about improving quality across the organization. But, it’s not quite as simple as saying, “Alright, we’re going to do a better job.” Total quality management has a formal set of eight different principles it’s based on. Here’s a straightforward explanation of each of those concepts: 1. Customer-centered You can think your processes, products, and services are top-notch. But, your opinion means nothing if your customers aren’t satisfied and impressed with your offerings. Organizations that implement total quality management always have the end customer in mind. They know their customers are the ultimate judges of whether or not their organization is of superior quality, and they refine their processes and offerings in the interest of the customer. 2. Total employee involvement Remember when we mentioned that total quality management isn’t something handed down from on high? Rather, it involves every single member of the organization in achieving a goal and improving quality. This can mean several different things. First and foremost, companies need to provide clarity around their objectives. Secondly, they need to provide the training and resources employees need to do their work efficiently and effectively. Finally, a high degree of psychological safety means employees have the freedom to push themselves — without the fear of repercussions for failure. 3. Process-centered Companies that implement total quality management don’t take a willy nilly approach to their work. Instead, there are prescriptive sets of steps and workflows for getting work across the finish line. These processes not only help them deliver more consistent work, but they also make production far easier to plan and monitor. That’s not to say these processes are set in stone. They’re constantly evaluated and improved upon. 4. Integrated system Every company has various teams and departments responsible for different tasks. However, with a total quality management approach, these different groups can’t operate in their own universes. Total quality management emphasizes the importance of the links that connect these different departments and functions. To preserve and improve quality, an organization needs to work as a cohesive, integrated system — rather than a collection of various teams. This requires a high degree of transparency and an understanding of the processes and work of other departments. 5. Strategic and systematic approach Imagine that you wanted to drive to Niagara Falls. Would you set out without any directions? Probably not, because you have no idea how to get where you want to go. The same is true for an organization. Total quality management requires that a company creates a strategic plan. Even more than that, the strategic plan needs to emphasize the importance of quality and quality management. 6. Continual improvement Companies that are invested in total quality management aren’t content to stick with the status quo. They’re constantly looking at ways to be better. This means evaluating processes, products, services, customer experience, employee feedback, and more to identify areas where you could improve. When you spot them, you need to address them and monitor them to ensure those changes actually benefited your work. 7. Fact-based decision making There aren’t many gut decisions made by organizations that implement total quality management. That’s because this approach prioritizes making decisions based on facts and data. Companies need to gather, organize, and analyze data about their performance measurements and use that to make their decisions. Total quality management doesn’t rely on intuition or best guesses. 8. Communications It’s hard to overstate the importance of effective communication on a high-performing team — and that’s why it’s a core principle of total quality management too. There needs to be clear and frequent communication across the entire organization to keep every employee in the loop on changes, operations, strategies, processes, and more. There’s no such thing as over-communicating. How does Wrike help with total quality management? Think total quality management sounds like a lot? It can be. But, rest assured, it’s not something that will be implemented overnight. Even taking small steps in the right direction can help you and your team improve your processes and work quality. Need some help? Wrike can help you satisfy many of the core principles of total quality management for project management, including: Total employee involvement: With clear and automated task assignments, every employee knows what they’re responsible for. Process-centered: Templated workflows allow you to create a process and easily repeat it for similar projects. Integrated system: Wrike provides visibility into what every team is working on (and working toward). Continual improvement: Wrike’s project status report will show you how projects are progressing and make it easy to spot sticking points in your processes. Fact-based decision making: Wrike offers a number of other reports to give you data about how your team is performing so you can make strategic decisions. Communications: With the ability to leave comments, tag team members, attach files, and more, Wrike keeps all of your communication centralized in one place. With a total quality management system like Wrike in your corner, you can help your team deliver top-notch work — without any added stress or hassles. Ready to jump in? Start your free trial of Wrike now.
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The Rules of the Project: Two Strategies for Aligning Means
Aligning the means between individuals, project and organization is a Herculean task for any Project Leader. The means are the rules of the project. The way things are done. Following are two strategies that can be used to align means. To provide you with some ideas on the project baseline. To start the discussion. Patterning – Going Through The Motions In essence, with this strategy the project team is told what the means are; the larger organization knows best. This idea originates from Jeff Sutherland in “Shock Therapy: Bootstrapping Hyperproductive Scrum”. If you have a new team that has no experience with Scrum, you will put a very experienced Scum Master in charge and he will set the rules. Relentlessly. Only a few rules, that make up the basics of Scrum, but they have to be followed with strong discipline. The Scrum Master will make sure this happens. Set the rules first, than, after a while, let go when it becomes natural. This is called “patterning”. Continuous Transparent Feedback A human system always communicates with its environment and based upon the feedback it gets from it, alters its behavior. If a group of animals will drink water from a well and one of the groups dies because of it, they entire group may search for a different well. If a company introduces a new product, and sees its stock plummeting because of it, it might change its strategy. It is therefore essential that the project members get continuous feedback on their own performance and the environment. This is where the use of analytics, metrics, “in-your-face” information visualization and plain old coaching comes in. By providing feedback to the team on how well they perform under the current project rule set, they will adapt to more effective means if needed.
"A Really Cool Project Management System!"
Neil Robinson at Lanzen Strategy analyzed the most prominent updates of Wrike’s new version, which brought the power of social networks into project management. Neil said that Wrike’s rich features “give the project management and the team the opportunity to understand issues without recourse to a lengthy, time wasting and disruptive meeting.” Wrike’s big releases also got the attention of influential tech blogs. Simon Mackie at GigaOM reviewed Wrike’s powerful social features and concluded that Wrike is “a very capable online project management tool.” Later, when we unveiled our API in December, Leena Rao wrote about this news in TechCrunch. Gabriela Warren at About.com named Wrike as one of the best online collaboration tools. Gabriela’s two favorite features of Wrike were the email integration and the Gantt chart: “Once you create a project, you can choose to display the timeline in days, weeks, months, quarters or even years, so reporting for any given period becomes very easy.” By the way, at About.com you can not only read Gabriela’s review, but also vote for Wrike as the best service for project management and collaboration until February 4! Thanks to everyone for all your comments! A lot of great updates are in the pipeline in the next few months, so we hope to read more reviews soon.
How Will the Internet of Things Shape the Future of Your Business? (Infographic)
By 2019, the Internet of Things (IoT) industry will be more than double the size of the smartphone, PC, tablet, connected car, and wearable markets—combined. It’s predicted to become the largest device market in the world, adding $1.7 trillion in value to the global economy in the next two years. But what does this up-and-coming industry mean for your organization's future? Internet of Things technologies will lead to a slew of innovations that will have a significant effect on businesses of all sizes and industries, including: Greater efficiency for business operations: Connected devices will enable companies to harness data to improve their efficiency and effectiveness. New business models and revenue streams: New processes will speed up time to market and respond faster to customer needs. Global visibility: Large enterprises will be better able to track effectiveness across multiple locations, provide remote work essentials, and monitor the entire supply chain. Tighter cybersecurity: More data means a greater potential for cybercriminals to steal sensitive business information. Learn more about practical business applications for IoT devices, the concerns organizations have about adopting these new technologies, how major companies like Coca-Cola have deployed IoT, and what the experts have to say about this growing field in the infographic below. Source: Exigent Networks What Does the Future of Work Hold for You? Learn more about the trends and technologies shaping how we’ll work in the years to come. Read our work management survey report to find out what thousands of today's professionals believe are the most important changes coming to the workplace. Why wait? Get better work results today by starting a free trial of Wrike.
The 7 Deadly Sins of Bad Startup Leaders
Threats to your business don't just come from external factors like competitors or changing markets; internal problems like flawed leadership can be just as fatal. Stay away from these 7 deadly traits that keep struggling startup leaders from succeeding. 1. Arrogance Great leaders are humble. It’s easy to hand off less desirable tasks to employees that are “in the trenches," and focus on high-level strategy instead. But by staying humble, rolling up your sleeves, and working alongside your team, you'll stay connected to both your colleagues and your customers. Making genuine relationships with your team makes them more likely to stick with you, something you’ll be especially grateful for when you hit rough patches (and you will). Staying humble means you’ll have help through the down times, and it also means you won't get so cocky during the good times, leaving room for an underdog competitor to surprise you. 2. Stubbornness Don't refuse to pivot in the name of perseverance. If you're captaining a sinking ship, it won't do any good to insist your team keep rowing instead of scanning the horizon for a new port. Keep an open mind, and a strategic move could turn a bleak prognosis into a million-dollar opportunity. After all, YouTube was originally a floundering dating site. 3. Vanity It’s easy to start measuring your success by the wrong metrics: the number of press mentions and interview requests, the size of your new office, or the number of products your logo is printed on. But don't let surface-level shine distract you from digging deeper to focus on what matters, and insist on the same from your team. Lead by example by prioritizing foundational targets like the number of active users, churn rates, revenue growth, etc. 4. Wrath It’s not that great leaders don’t have high expectations or demand a lot from their employees. But you can’t expect your team to do every task exactly as you want it, every single time. Even if they did, mistakes and miscalculations are an inevitable part of human nature. And when those situations pop up, you can’t fly off the handle. So keep your team happy. Yes, your office should be professional, and so should your relationship with your team. But that doesn't mean your workplace should be cold, or that you should act like a drill sergeant. People are more productive when they're in a good mood. Happy people have more energy, creativity and motivation, make fewer mistakes, and work better with others. They fix problems instead of whining about them. A positive work culture built around your team’s happiness is just as essential to profitability as your product. 5. Selfishness Good leaders need a confident sense of self. Independence and self-reliance are admirable traits, so be driven. Pursue your goals without distraction. But listen as often as you speak. Build relationships that will last — with your team, with investors, with customers. Selfish leaders ignore customer needs in pursuit of their own vision and run with their favorite idea without evaluating or asking for feedback. They refuse to accept ideas that aren't their own, reject constructive criticism, and see themselves as lone geniuses. Just remember: you can't do it all by yourself. Even Tony Stark had Pepper Potts and The Avengers. 6. Laziness Planning, launching, and running your own business takes a lot of hard work, and few people would accuse any entrepreneur of being lazy in the traditional sense. Pushing yourself and your team and taking calculated risks is at the heart of the entrepreneurial spirit. But once you've found success, don't get complacent. Even if your product has millions of happy, devoted users and your brand is a household name, you need to keep moving forward or you'll fade into obscurity. (Just ask Blockbuster, Pan Am, or Tower Records.) Always ask yourself, your team, and your customers: "What's next? What can we do better?" 7. Greed Your vision should go beyond making piles of money so big you can swim around in them like Scrooge McDuck. People want their work to mean something. In a study by The Intelligence Group, 64% of respondents said they would rather get paid $40,000 for a job they found meaningful than $100,000 for a job they didn't. So create a tangible vision for the kind of impact you want your company to have, rooted in something meaningful, and keep it at the forefront of everything you do. You'll not only attract top talent that's dedicated to their work, you'll keep them around. What companies are successfully avoiding these deadly sins? Head to the comments and tell us which startup leaders you most admire! And if you're looking for a good read, pick up some more leadership tips in these 15 Books Every Manager Should Read.
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3 Questions to Make Your Marketing Technology Stack Even More Powerful
Marketing technologies can be powerful assets, helping you automate routine tasks, improve customer engagement, and coordinate and collaborate with your team. But you only reap the full benefits when your tools work together, fitting naturally into your established processes and tangibly moving the needle when it comes to converting customers. Just because a tool seems useful, doesn't necessarily mean you should use it — and adopting too many just gums up the works. So when it comes to setting up or revising your marketing technology stack, ask yourself these three questions to identify where adding a tool might be helpful, as well as where you can easily streamline. 1. "Where does this tool fit into the customer journey?" As a marketer, your customer personas and detailed buyer's journey should always be top of mind. Take a look at your customer journey and list which of your tools contribute to each step. This will help you see gaps where new marketing asset management software could help you out, as well as identify unnecessary or overlapping technologies. 2. "Does this tool help convert prospects?" A popular tool may help you tweet 1,000 times a day, but if your customers aren't on Twitter, what's the point? Look at the data and be realistic about which technologies make a real difference when it comes to conversion rates and team productivity. 3. "What if this tool didn't exist?" Although it’s only a hypothetical, taking this question seriously can help you see other ways of accomplishing the same objective, think creatively, and streamline the number of tools you're using (and paying for). What's Next? Asking these questions will help you be strategic in building an effective marketing technology stack that helps you accomplish — and even exceed — your goals. Free Marketing Tech Map Template Download our free eBook, 5 Steps to Transforming Marketing Operations For Maximum Growth, for a simple template you can use to start building or improving your own marketing toolkit.
Citrix Agrees to Acquire Wrike
I am excited to announce that Wrike has agreed to join the Citrix family to create the next frontier in the digital workplace revolution. This partnership could not happen at a better time, given the market shifts in 2020, the much-anticipated transition to the "Next Normal," and the exponential growth in the demand for work management solutions. Why Citrix? The Citrix mission is to empower people to do their very best work. Wrike’s mission is to help you do the best work of your life. Sound similar? When the missions align, the stars truly align, and there can’t be a better match of the minds. That is why I am extremely thrilled to be embarking upon this journey with Citrix. We are two companies committed to defining the best future for work, and we will make great strides working as one. Better together Being a part of Citrix will enable us to accelerate our mission. Together, Wrike and Citrix will build the workplace of the future to empower employees to achieve their best. Citrix delivers a frictionless experience for employees through unified, secure access to work resources. Wrike brings teams, data, and applications together in a digital platform. By combining the power of a unified workspace infrastructure and collaborative work management, organizations can accelerate business results by enabling employees to focus on the work that matters the most. A market shift 2020 has permanently changed the way we work, and the office as we know it will never be the same. With large-scale remote working and the shift to digital, organizations are facing the pressure to keep employees productive and engaged. This has led to quantum leaps in digital transformation initiatives. Further, organizations are concerned with employee burnout and digital fatigue. To succeed in this environment it is critical to enable employees with the tools they need to be productive wherever they are and whatever the context. We will bring more than a decade of innovation in this space to help the industry ease into the next normal. Unified workspace infrastructure + CWM = The workplace of the future With pioneer investments in AI technologies by Wrike, this is a marriage of innovative leadership that delivers the vision of intelligence and automation needed to build the workplace of the future. Over the last several years both companies have innovated feverishly to drive digital innovation. A leader in multiple categories of workplace technologies, Citrix offers end-to-end offerings to enable and empower the modern workforce. By joining hands with Wrike, Citrix will now be able to offer a complete solution that optimizes productivity across all aspects of work. Win-win for our customers As we step forward in this new phase of our journey I am extremely grateful to our customers who have helped us get here and supported us all along. This is exciting news for our customers for many reasons. First, as part of the Citrix family, we will be able to scale our product and accelerate our roadmap to deliver capabilities that will help our customers get more from their Wrike investment. We have always listened to our customers and have built our product based on their feedback - now we will be able to do more of that, faster. Second, we will now be able to empower and partner with IT departments by enabling cross-functional workflows, connecting with the systems across the organization and becoming the single digital workspace. Wrike has established a strong customer base with business users, and Citrix has built deep relationships with IT customers, enabling us to bring two ecosystems together. As the market moves toward the connected enterprise, the time is ripe for a partnership like this to enable the vision for hybrid workspace. The joint solution brings incredible value to both business users and their IT departments that support this new hybrid ecosystem. The path forward This partnership also brings exciting possibilities for the market at large. More than a decade ago, we saw a huge opportunity in the Project Management space. We wanted to take an innovation that was largely restricted to a few mature practitioners within the organization, and unlock its potential for every single employee whether they were technical or business users. In this endeavor, we created the Collaborative Work Management category that changed the face of work for all types of users across every department and use case. Last year, as we navigated our customers through the transition to remote work, Wrike became the core part or digital workplace. As one of our customers very eloquently put it, “Wrike is our new office.” Now we are seeing an even more powerful opportunity to take the enterprise to the next level by connecting and automating workflows to create an intelligent digital workspace. This next step in our journey is a very promising one for the entire Wrike ecosystem, one made possible through the commitment of our employees, the support of our customers, and the conviction of our investors. We are proud of the advancements made in collaboration with our most recent investor, Vista Equity Partners, who enabled us to accelerate our growth and innovation to advance Wrike’s mission and prepare us for this new chapter. Now, by partnering with Citrix, we want to expand the value of collaborative work management from thousands of organizations to hundreds of thousands. Today, CEOs, CIOs, CMOs, and CHROs are grappling with the second wave of transitions coming up in 2021, and I hear a lot about the hybrid workspace. 2020 was not easy but helped us validate that collaborative work management is indeed the backbone of the future of work, whether that’s in-office, remote, or a mix of the two. As we embark into 2021, we are ready to help the market navigate this next transition and unlock the workspace of the future to hundreds of millions of users. Looking forward to the next wave of innovations as part of the Citrix family.
Working for a Workaholic: 10 Strategies to Save Your Sanity
Ever had a workaholic boss? You're glued to your phone, compulsively checking email notifications at 3 AM, and have long given up making weekend plans you'll only have to cancel last minute. While some people love giving their all to their jobs and thrive off of setting and achieving aggressive goals, that always-on mentality isn’t for everyone. If you’re the type of person who needs a firm separation between office and home, working for a workaholic can be stressful, as you feel obligated to adopt their mindset and habits at the risk of your own sanity. If you're feeling pressured to skip your lunch break, answer emails at midnight, and take stacks of work home with you, skip the Irish coffee and read our 10 tips for working for a workaholic instead. 1. Remember that your work style is valid. Even if you give 100% when you’re at the office, you can start to feel like you’re not doing enough just because you’re not answering emails at all hours, or because you leave your work laptop behind when you go on vacation. Remember that your value is based on the quality of your contributions, not just the quantity, and that you don't need to put in 80 hours a week to be a good employee. 2. Don’t assume that just because your manager is a workaholic, they expect the same from you. Chances are, they understand their work style isn't for everyone. So communicate! Talk about how and when you can be reached when you aren’t in the office and under what circumstances. If your manager knows they can get ahold of you when it really counts, they might feel less anxious about having you available all the time. 3. Decide what your limits are and communicate them. If your boss really does expect you to be available 24/7, you'll need to be proactive about protecting your personal time. A good manager will understand that if the work (and worker) is suffering, a change needs to be made. If you’re taking on so much that you can’t be effective at your job, tell your boss that you're spread too thin, and come prepared with solutions to propose. Have a list of projects you think a teammate would be better suited to handle, or suggestions for how to improve processes and make tedious work less time consuming. 4. Once you've set your limits, stick to them. Even if you’ve had “the talk” about work/life balance, old habits die hard, so you may have to remind your boss a few times about your agreement. If you're still regularly getting assignments on Friday evening that are due Monday morning, don’t be afraid to say, “I’m sorry, but I have a prior commitment this weekend.” 5. Schedule an after-hours commitment. Sign up for a 6 PM spin class, or make it known you have to catch the 5:25 train. By having a definite "hard stop" scheduled, you won't end up staying progressively later because you feel pressured to, or because you keep getting handed tasks to complete. Plus, your co-workers and boss will learn to anticipate and accept when you’ll be off for the night. 6. Consider shifting your hours. Will working 10 AM to 7 PM get you more face time? People are more likely to notice those who stay a few hours late more than those who come in early, even though the number of hours worked is the same. 7. Be willing to step up when it counts. It's good to set healthy boundaries, just don't be stubborn when your team really needs you. Chances are, you'll have a few late nights at the office or a big project that eats up a Sunday evening now and again. As long as it's not every weekend, be willing and gracious about stepping up to help out your team when it's important. 8. Keep track of your achievements and productivity. Every time you cross an item off your to-do list or successfully complete a big project, make a note so you can prove that you’ve earned your evenings and weekends. If you’re committed to your work, efficient, and deliver good results, eventually your hours will become a non-issue. 9. Ask for advice. Workaholics spend a lot of time at the office and have likely learned all the ins and outs of your field, which makes them a valuable learning and mentoring resource for you. Take advantage of their knowledge by asking them for advice, particularly on projects that you find challenging. 10. Focus on the positives. Working for a workaholic boss can be a good thing — it can push you to pick up new skills, give you the opportunity to tackle high-profile projects, and put you in the spotlight for promotions. If you’re willing to buckle up and put in a few extra hours, you could be along for an exciting ride! Reclaim Your Work-Life Balance The good news is you don't have to work 24/7 to impress your workaholic boss. Browse our archive of productivity tips and tools to get more done from 9-5, then check out our Q&A with Overwhelmed author Brigid Schulte for the secret to a healthy work/life balance. Sources: Forbes.com, Fortune.com, TheProductivityPro.com, The Wall Street Journal
5 Reasons Why Your Creative Team Isn't Scalable Yet
Creative teams are constantly under the gun to deliver compelling, innovative campaigns. And it's easy to buckle under that pressure when there's a lack of time and resources. As anxious as you might be to scale, here's why you might not be ready yet.
Why Project Management Tools Are the Key to Great Customer Relationship Management
What is customer relationship management and how can project management tools help you take it to the next level? This post covers everything you need to know about elevating and building client relationships and the benefits of customer interaction management.
Productivity Playlists Guaranteed To Help You Get More Done
Some might argue that music helps the hours go by faster and keeps you focused, while others argue that music is distracting and makes it harder to concentrate. When considering whether music is more constructive rather than destructive for work, it's important to consider the type of work being done.
How to Improve Collaboration With Task Management Software
Collaboration between teams and individuals is the key to success within project management companies. But what is the best task management software and how can PS managers use it to better collaborate? Find out how task management software can help.
7 Eye-Opening Tips to Stay on Top of Your Marketing Projects
Are you tired of having your project information spread out in disconnected files, e-mails and papers around you? Do you feel you are constantly missing something important? Do you believe you and your team can collaborate more productively? "Before Wrike, I had everything written down on multiple sheets of paper. At the end of every week, I spent hours on taking them all, consolidating, reprioritizing, and figuring out if these are the most recent notes or if there are some newer notes somewhere." After adopting Wrike project management software, Dave's entire marketing and sales department productivity increased by 25%! This story is a great example of how project management practices and a team's productivity can be improved with the help of an appropriate tool. Here's a list of 7 eye-opening things to do to help you boost efficiency in the management of marketing projects: 1.Don't get drowned in the data flow It's not uncommon for marketing departments to be overloaded with campaign plans, sales reports, stats and multiple document versions. What a relief to know that the latest piece of data is always at your fingertips! "We ended up with going with Wrike primarily because it had all of our projects in one screen, and we could easily manipulate back and forth between those projects," Dave says. "We just log notes to the tasks, and Wrike sorts it all for us, the most current ones." 2.Ensure you can descend with ease from the bird's-eye view to tiny project details To run a project successfully, you need to have the full overview of it with all completion dates, as well as the ability to drill down instantly to any particular task detail you are interested in right now. "In Wrike, I see everything that I need in one view, not way too much information or not enough information to estimate the progress. It actually ended up a perfect fit that way," Dave comments. 3.Take your office anywhere instantly Trade shows, meetings with customers and partners outside the office, business trips, and working from home in the evenings... Rather than having papers scattered everywhere, now Dave can take his office with him anytime, anywhere: "I can go home or pull up Wrike anywhere in the world and have all the project folders in the same place. On the road, I just pull out my iPhone and plug in new updates and check on the status updates from the team." 4.Collaboration is vital, so share smartly! Marketing hard skills are essential, of course, but soft skills, such as knowing how to collaborate and communicate effectively in a team, are just as important. Some tasks are to be done by a single team member, while others require collaboration. Wouldn't it be convenient to have all of the team's data stored in a central place, while the project view of other team members never gets cluttered? That's easy to do with Wrike's selective sharing! "The thing that I love about the system is that everyone can have their own unique environment within Wrike. Team members have their to-do lists within their own view, and if they are collaborating with other team members, they just easily add other people to these tasks," Dave says. Selective sharing also helps you create a common workspace for a distributed team: "Now with shared folders, remote employees don't feel as remote. They feel like they are a part of the organization," Dave adds. 5.Keep worthy ideas safe for tomorrow Quite often, you may not have enough resources to implement all of the great marketing ideas right away. Store them as "deferred" or "backlogged" in Wrike to get back to them at the right moment! "When we have brainstorming sessions, I add everything to Wrike. It's very easy for us to bring all those ideas right back to the forefront of our mind and to figure out whether now is the right time to implement them, now that we have some freed-up resources," Dave comments. 6.Time is precious, so make the most of every communication! For a busy head of a marketing department, it's important to be efficient in both downward and upward communications. At the meetings with your direct reports, you can instantly filter out the tasks in Wrike by assignee for any given time period and give them immediate feedback on their productivity. "I also have a folder specifically for the president's approval. This way, we are able to save a lot of time, as we don't necessarily need to meet on every single topic of discussion. If a resolution wasn't agreed on at a certain time, the task just stays there, and I don't have to write hundreds of reminder notes," Dave says. 7.Balance work and personal life No matter how busy you are, you shouldn't forget about your personal life. Wrike is as efficient for work projects as for birthday shopping and party planning! "I can mix my personal to-do lists and work in one workspace in Wrike. So whether I'm home or on the road, I find everything in one place from the personal perspective, as well," Dave says. ___ We enjoyed the podcast with Dave and believe it provides valuable, first-hand experience and useful examples of how the right technical solution can significantly improve planning and productivity in marketing teams. If you have helpful tips to share, too, we'd be happy to know about them!
Intelligent e-mail notifications are coming
E-mail notifications about task changes instantly let you stay in the know, but sometimes there are just too many of them. It logically happens when you actively use Wrike with your team. Fortunately it means that your team benefits from Wrike’s collaborative nature in full measure. On the other hand… we are actively working in two directions to make your life easier. 1) Readability and usability We are enhancing the readability and usability of Wrike’s e-mail notifications. We are making them more intelligent. They must to be as human as some of the e-mails from your peers. A bright example: Now, all notifications come from [email protected]. A lot of our users would like to simply press ‘reply’ in their e-mail software and be able to write a message directly to the person who changed the task, but not to the system. This feature is now live. So for any change notifications, which you will receive starting next week, feel free to press “Reply”. 2) Configurability of the system We are also working on making the notification system more intelligent and configurable. We want you to be able to manage which notifications you do receive and which ones you don’t.