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Talking to Project Shrink about Project Management 2.0
News 3 min read

Talking to Project Shrink about Project Management 2.0

, Wrike. I tried to briefly explain my view on what the new trend in project management is about. My opinion may seem controversial to some of you, but I think it’s only natural. Project Management 2.0 is an emerging trend, and it constantly evolves. As always, I’d like to say that I do appreciate you and your participation in the ongoing Project Management 2.0 discussion. Your comments are welcome.

Why Project Management 2.0 Is a Different Ball Game
Project Management 5 min read

Why Project Management 2.0 Is a Different Ball Game

that I attended in October, I met many project management practitioners. Some of them asked me about my views on Project Management 2.0. One of the questions was “How is Project Management 2.0  different from what many organizations have today?” I decided to summarize my answers and came up with a short list of key factors that distinguish Project Management 2.0 from traditional project management. They are: Environment. Manuel Castells, the author of "The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture (v. 1-3)" and a visiting professor in 15 universities around the world, states that we are currently experiencing an IT revolution, just like our predecessors lived through an agricultural revolution and an industrial revolution. According to Castells, there is a shift from industrialism (mass production) to informationalism (flexible production), and this new type of economy is empowered by the development of technologies— first of all, the Internet. As the world shifts from an industrial economy to an information economy and big part of the workforce becomes information workers, the importance of innovation, creativity and productivity rises. In traditional project management, people are often managed like any other resource, just like bricks and machines. In the present economy, people cannot be managed the same way, as it will simply be counterproductive. In Project Management 2.0, people are encouraged to participate in project planning, to introduce their ideas on project development and to give their feedback on other team members’ jobs. Environment as the main differentiator drives the other distinctions listed below: Collaboration and collective intelligence. In an information economy, only organizations that are flexible enough, so that people and capacity can be rearranged and recombined quickly without major structural change, will be able to thrive. Quick access to information and rapid data-sharing become critically important in this environment, as they help companies minimize expenses, innovate, make better decisions and make them faster. Project Management 2.0 emphasizes the importance of leveraging the collective intelligence of the whole team, no matter where the team members are located, at the same office or on different continents. At the same time, Project Management 2.0 stimulates collaboration and catalyzes the change in processes. Here I’d like to paraphrase Andrew MacAfee’s quote about Enterprise 2.0 and apply it to the new trend in project management: Project Management 2.0 technologies are “trying hard not to impose on users any preconceived notions about how work should proceed or how output should be categorized or structured. Instead, they’re building tools that let these aspects of knowledge work emerge.” Emergent structures, one of the basic principles of Project Management 2.0, empowers people on the team level to easily share information and make changes to their part of the project plan. This way, bottom-up field knowledge makes its way into a project schedule, and the schedule becomes more realistic. Comparing this approach with the one represented by most current project management platforms, wiki inventor Ward Cunningham highlights an important shortcoming of the traditional way. He says: “For questions like ‘What’s going on in the project?’ we could design a database. But whatever fields we put in the database would turn out to be what’s not important about what’s going on in the project. What’s important about the project is the stuff you don’t anticipate.” The Project Management 2.0 focus on collective intelligence stipulates the next differentiator. Shift in the project manager’s role. Traditionally, the project management role is focused a lot on tight control of the budget and schedule. This part of the project management job becomes more subtle in a talent economy. Organizational agility requires a more flexible approach to budgeting and deadlines. At the same time, the importance of leveraging the human talent becomes more prominent.  Therefore, other parts of a project manager’s job, such as leadership skills, become more important. It's no longer enough for project managers to possess good people skills and to be fluent in project management best practices, tools and methodologies. To succeed today, project managers need enhanced leadership skills. They need to be flexible and focused on business value, writes Forrester Analyst Mary Gerush in “Define, Hire and Develop Your Next Generation Project Managers.” Productivity. Web 2.0 tools allow an unprecedented productivity increase when it comes to information-sharing and communications. There are many examples spanning from the consumer arena to the enterprise space, from Wikipedia and Facebook to GE’s corporate collaboration system. Project Management 2.0 focuses on taking advantage of this productivity to achieve better results in shorter periods of time. Have I enumerated all the distinguishing traits of Project Management 2.0? What’s your take on the main differentiators of Project Management 2.0? Please share your thoughts in the comments.

Open Innovation and Its Success Stories: Sneak Peak at My E2 Innovate Presentation
News 3 min read

Open Innovation and Its Success Stories: Sneak Peak at My E2 Innovate Presentation

. He has a lot to share on how open innovation helps his company be the global leader in scientific and healthcare equipment. Instead of limiting your innovation process to just a few dedicated professionals in-house, you can engage talents from outside the department, outside your organization, even outside your industry and your country. The open innovation model is one of the areas where collective intelligence is leveraged in the most prominent way. In our presentation, Damon and I will observe how open innovation can make your organization more competitive. More revolutionary ideas, increased cost efficiency, new paths to market - these are just a few of the advantages you can gain. In addition to Thermo Fisher's experience, we’ll highlight case studies from different industries, including software, FMCG and others. Whether you're only considering adopting the open innovation model, or you already have your own success story to share – you're more than welcome to join us at the Santa Clara Convention Center! If you plan to attend, drop me a note, and I'll provide you with a promo code for a discount on the conference pass or a free expo pass. If you are a Wrike customer, I also have a limited number of session passes that I could distribute.

What Is Open Innovation and What Are Its Benefits? Find out at E2 Innovate Conference!
Collaboration 3 min read

What Is Open Innovation and What Are Its Benefits? Find out at E2 Innovate Conference!

What is open innovation, why do organizations (including Wrike) turn to it, and how does it help them get ahead of their competitors? Join E2 Innovate Conference in Santa Clara, CA, on November 14 to find out! Wrike's CEO, Andrew Filev, and Damon Gragg, global project manager at Thermo Fisher Scientific (we're proud to say that he's our customer, too!), will co-present a session where they'll answer these questions, share their own experience with open innovation and highlight examples from other industries. Here's a sneak peak of the presentation. To put it in simple words, open innovation means involving external partners in your research, development, design and other activities, rather than relying solely on your direct project team. You can collaborate with other companies from your industry, customers, universities, labs, individuals and more. So open innovation is a model that lets collective intelligence shine in its full glory. Andrew and Damon will cover both the concept and the practical side of making it work. Damon's organization, Thermo Fisher, embraced open innovation both internally and externally, and today it's a global leader in scientific and healthcare equipment. For Wrike, the core of open innovation is collaborating with you, our customers. Your ideas and feedback help us constantly improve the product and be a leader in the project management space. We invite you all to the session, no matter if you're a devotee of open innovation, or if you're just familiar with the basics of the model. As a bonus, we have some discounted conference passes, free expo passes, and a limited number of session passes. Email us for details at [email protected] if you decide to join the event. November 14. Santa Clara Convention Center. Hope to see you there!

Agile Collaboration in a Virtual World: Takeaways from PMI Global Congress North America
Collaboration 5 min read

Agile Collaboration in a Virtual World: Takeaways from PMI Global Congress North America

With over a third of projects being agile and more work being done by virtual teams, we aimed to look at how project managers can successfully combine the two. Having combined our expertise in managing distributed teams, we came up with a few practical, battlefield-tested tips in the area of communication practices, Web 2.0 tools and beyond, which can help bridge the gap for agile teams working across geographic boundaries. In the first part of the session, Cornelius started with a case study of his own team, spread across 6 countries on 3 continents, and shared which tools and practices help them the most to collaborate efficiently. For instance, according to the experience of Cornelius' team, the best architectures, requirements and designs emerge from self-organizing teams. There's no doubt that virtual teams have some very strong benefits, but there are certain serious bottlenecks, too, like the risk of miscommunication, limited visibility, etc. In my part of the session, I highlighted 5 pain-relievers that help me overcome the most common challenges in managing my team. Some additional tips came up during the Q&A. For example, when your team members speak different languages, don't let accents influence your perception of a professional. This is especially critical in the initial conversations, when team members don’t know each other yet and haven't yet built social and professional trust. Make sure that you give your team members "trust credit" in this initial phase, and always remember that behind that email ID is a real person, who likely works as hard as you do and is as professional as you are. It’s also crucial to remember and respect the cultural differences, and while keeping this in mind, work toward building a shared culture. Last but not least, as with everything else, it’s hard to create an ideal collaboration pattern right from the start. However, if you keep your eyes and mind open, constantly communicate and gather feedback from your team members, you can continuously iterate and improve. Eventually, you'll find your secret sauce for efficient remote teamwork. I believe that one of the main prerequisites for the success of a distributed team is to make sure that everyone is on the same page – not only in terms of the assigned tasks, but also the general vision, applied processes, cultural awareness, information sharing and trust. It’ll be extremely helpful for team members to know not just what to do, but why and what lies ahead. This will help a lot in asynchronous communications, when you’re not immediately available to answer all of their questions and course correct. You have to think and communicate proactively in distributed teams, making sure you’re your team shares the same mission and vision, and understands the goals. So meetings in virtual teams are very important. Not only are they important, they are different, and in the final part of our session Elizabeth named some important techniques for making virtual meetings productive. I’ve posted our joint slide deck on Slideshare, so that you can adapt some of these practical takeaways to your team: Agile Collaboration in a Virtual World: Harnessing Social Media, Web 2.0 and Beyond View more presentations from Wrike com To learn more details about our session and other ones, too, you can also check out recent tweets with the hash tag #pminac. Here are a couple of them: @pm4girls: "Don't just give them tasks, give them reasons to help them understand vision and goals" @wrike talking about empowering teams at #pminac @LewisCindy: From @wrike don't let accents influence emotional feelings about the person. Nice reminder #pminac By the way, Wrike has just opened an interesting survey about remote work and the way workers see its benefits and challenges. I would really appreciate if you could spend a few minutes to have your say in this survey. As soon as we get enough responses, I’ll analyze the results and share them with you.

Digging into the Value of Collaboration 2.0 with SDForum
News 3 min read

Digging into the Value of Collaboration 2.0 with SDForum

SDForum, the organization behind the conference, is well-known for its successful efforts to foster innovation, entrepreneurship and leadership within Silicon Valley with the help of educational and networking events. The Collaboration 2.0 Conference is one of those events, aiming at exploring the opportunities offered by the innovative Web-based technologies.  “Online collaboration has augmented current knowledge patterns in corporate environments, improved mindshare, boosted transparency and added a sense of community among coworkers,” state the organizers of the conference.  This is just the beginning of the upcoming discussion of this topic, and we’re looking forward to taking part in it. If you’re interested in finding out more about the business benefits offered by the innovative collaboration technologies, or if you want to share your own opinion on how Collaboration 2.0 influences the business environment, then we hope to see you among the conference participants on October 30.

Wrike CEO Andrew Filev Speaks About the Future of Remote Collaboration at PMI Global Congress This Weekend
Productivity 3 min read

Wrike CEO Andrew Filev Speaks About the Future of Remote Collaboration at PMI Global Congress This Weekend

PMI Global Congress, a large get-together of project management professionals from North America, will take place in Vancouver on Oct. 20-23. We are happy to announce that Andrew Filev, Wrike's CEO, is going to be one of the speakers at this event. His presentation is dedicated to the future of remote collaboration, how to manage remotely, the opportunities and challenges it brings, and, of course, the role of the project management software in this process. Want to learn more details?PMI Global Congress, a large get-together of project management professionals from North America, will take place in Vancouver on Oct. 20-23. We are happy to announce that Andrew Filev, Wrike's CEO, is going to be one of the speakers at this event. His presentation is dedicated to the future of remote collaboration, the opportunities and challenges it brings, and, of course, the role of the project management software in this process. Want to learn more details? We bet you agree that numbers are always better when combined with practical advice. That’s why in the second part of his speech, Andrew will share 7 efficiency tips, based on his 10-year experience of managing global teams. How can you strike a balance between unification and personalization in your team’s work? What are the best ways to keep remote team members in the loop about what their colleagues are doing? How can you make sure people don’t get “siloed” in tasks while not becoming a micromanager? Any leader of a remote team faces these challenges at some point in his or her work, and we hope that the Wrike team’s experience will be valuable to help you successfully overcome them. We look forward to this great event and will share the best practices discussed in Vancouver in our blog later!

And the Free Netbook from Wrike Goes to…
News 3 min read

And the Free Netbook from Wrike Goes to…

Jürgen came all the way from Australia to give a speech on the role of communications and leadership in project management. We bet he didn’t expect to get a free netbook as a pleasant side benefit. The winner of the drawing held by Wrike is a passionate project management innovator and an advocate of a new management approach focused on conversational leadership. He travels a lot, bringing his knowledge, experience and insight to global audiences. No doubt that Wrike’s prize will be a useful addition to his traveler’s tech kit. We’d also like to thank all the participants for taking part in our giveaway. We hope to see  you all next year at the PMI Global Congress 2010!

Join in! Free Webinar: Marketing in the Age of the Customer
News 3 min read

Join in! Free Webinar: "Marketing in the Age of the Customer"

  More leaders are turning to marketers for answers to their burning business questions: Why are (or aren't) we growing? What's working and what's not? Whom should we be targeting? As companies adopt higher expectations for the speed of business growth, marketing teams become more critical for company success. That's why it's absolutely vital for marketers to buckle down now. You must be continually researching, learning, and updating your strategies to stay on top of the game in the years to come. Do you know what your marketing team needs to do next? Join Sheryl Pattek, Principal Analyst for CMO professionals at Forrester and acclaimed "CMO Whisperer" by DMN, and Andrew Filev, Founder and CEO of Wrike, for a free webinar on Tuesday, October 20 at 9 A.M. PDT. They'll be talking about: - Marketing strategies in the age of the customer - What's forcing marketers to change how they work - How marketing teams can reinvent how they think about customers - The essential steps to setting your marketing team up for future success Don't miss out on this free opportunity to learn how you can update your marketing strategies for more success! Become a top marketer in the age of the customer. Click the banner below to join us! If the time doesn't work for you, sign up anyway and we'll send you the recording later.

Theory and Practice of Building Productivity Habits: Join My Session at the PMI Global Congress
News 3 min read

Theory and Practice of Building Productivity Habits: Join My Session at the PMI Global Congress

"Successful people are simply those with successful habits," said Brian Tracy, a popular motivational speaker. A lot of highly productive people reveal that it's not rocket science behind their performance, rather, it's a benefit they reap from a set of small, yet powerful habits that help them day-to-day. In addition to personal efficiency, a high priority for a project manager is to help his team build the right productivity habits so that everyone reaches the best of their potential. I’ve already covered certain aspects of this topic in my previous posts, but now I invite you all to take an in-depth look. Join me at the PMI Global Congress in New Orleans on October 29 at my session titled "Forming new productivity habits in project teams: theory and practice." Last year I really enjoyed speaking about remote teams in front of the great audience at the PMI Congress, I'm looking forward to an interesting discussion this year as well! Here's a synopsis of the presentation: Your team's productivity habits are one of the magic ingredients of your project's success. If you have the right recipe, your team will complete projects on time and within budget, collaborate effortlessly and feel connected. On the contrary, if the ingredients are stirred wrong, it might end in procrastination, unproductive meetings, inaccurate schedules and continuous delays. Supported by neuroscience, behavioral research and practical examples, I will discuss which productivity habits will make your project team more efficient, and how to make those habits part of your team’s everyday life. As a brief teaser, among other things, we'll discuss elephant riders and how to tackle boring tasks. If you have your favorite anecdotes on the topic, or want me to cover some questions, please, post in comments. After the talk, I'll share a summary. See you in New Orleans!

Wrike Collaborate, Day 2: Disruptive Growth, AI and Automation, and Wrike’s Product Roadmap
News 7 min read

Wrike Collaborate, Day 2: Disruptive Growth, AI and Automation, and Wrike’s Product Roadmap

Driving disruptive growth, automation, and Wrike's product roadmap: Day 2 of Collaborate, Wrike's first user conference, was full of surprises.

Networking, Education and Project Management Resources at the PMI Global Congress
Collaboration 3 min read

Networking, Education and Project Management Resources at the PMI Global Congress

Though my view of project management is not canonical and sometimes generates hot debates around it, I do believe that PMI is doing a good job at building connections between project managers and allowing them to share their experience and skills with each other. PMI events play a significant role in moving the whole industry forward, and I’m happy to take part in one of these events this October in Orlando, Florida. If you’re still thinking about whether you should go to the Global Congress or not, here are 3 major reasons to attend it: Networking: The organizers and past attendees do a good job at promoting the Congress as a fabulous opportunity to meet 2,000+ project management professionals. Education: The event will feature more than 150 educational sessions. There are a number of great speakers lined up, and learning from them would be useful for your future career. The question of Project Management 2.0 also will be discussed at the event. I know that one of our fellow bloggers, Dave Garrett of GanttHead, who has his own blog focused on Project Management 2.0, will be presenting there.  By the way, I’m working on a Project Management 2.0 guide that I’ll be giving away during the Congress, so come visit Wrike’s booth. Resources: If you are on the lookout for valuable project management resources, I believe that PMI Global Congress is just the right event for it. The exhibit hall will feature 100 companies, including Wrike. PMI Career Center promises to hold helpful discussions about project management career paths.  And last, but not least, PMI Bookstore will offer great attendee-only discounts. If you have already registered for the Congress, I’ll be more than happy to meet you there and discuss innovations in project management. Drop me a note at [email protected] or connect with me on Twitter via @andrewsthoughts, and we'll set up a meeting. By the way, it’s great to see that the Project Management 2.0 topic has become the focus of hot discussions lately. I see it as a positive sign, since “the truth is born of arguments.”  I’m also working on a big post about what Project Management 2.0 is and what it is not, in which I’m going to elaborate on my initial Project Management 2.0 definition.

10 Reasons Customers Love Attending Collaborate
News 5 min read

10 Reasons Customers Love Attending Collaborate

Here’s what customers find most valuable about Collaborate and why they recommend it to other Wrike users.

Join Wrike CEO Andrew Filev for a Webinar on Building Virtual Teams
Leadership 3 min read

Join Wrike CEO Andrew Filev for a Webinar on Building Virtual Teams

We're excited to announce that our CEO Andrew Filev will be the guest panelist on the upcoming webinar "How To Build Effective Virtual Teams For Startups" hosted by The Founder Institute. Andrew will share his experience from years of getting big results from virtual teams in fast growing businesses. Founder Institute CEO Adeo Ressi is hosting the webinar, which will cover topics including: How to efficiently manage virtual teams Collaboration techniques to boost productivity Common mistakes managers make with virtual teams and their remote working policy How to track progress with virtual teams How to overcome communication obstacles for virtual teams and working from home advantages and disadvantages We hope you'll join us on September 29th at 9am PST. It's a fun opportunity to hear from Andrew and ask questions. You can register here now: http://bit.ly/wfivirtualteams See you soon! Follow them on Twitter:Adeo Ressi | Andrew Filev | Founder Institute | Wrike

Q&A with Errette Dunn, Principal Consultant at Wrike
News 7 min read

Q&A with Errette Dunn, Principal Consultant at Wrike

A common question we hear from new Wrike users is: "How do I maximize my ROI when I implement Wrike?" The answer is Wrike's consultation services. With our own in-house specialists, we can help take you from problem to sustainable solution in less time than ever before. We spoke to Wrike's Principal Consultant, Errette Dunn to learn more about the challenges faced by digital teams, and how Wrike's Consultation Team can help. Why does Wrike have a Principal Consultant? The reason I’m here, and why my team of consultants is here, is that we want our mission of making teams insanely productive to extend beyond just building software. Teams who come to Wrike aren’t necessarily looking for project management software. They’re looking for a solution to a problem that they can’t quite pinpoint on their own. So our job is to help them visualize their workflow, identify the problems, coach them through implementing a better version of that workflow in Wrike, and — through adopting Wrike — to sustain the improvement. Why do you think there are so many challenges in the digital workplace? Online tools allow us to do something that was never possible before, which is visualize our flow of knowledge. Since the traditional tools used by teams are fragmented within companies, we see that the flow is broken for a lot of workers. The reason is that internet-based knowledge work is very new. To put it in context of the industrial revolution, we’d still be in the Cotton Gin age. Manufacturing has had over a century to focus on process and efficiency. For digital workers, we’re still in the early stages. Wrike is part of a movement to fix digital work. What are some of the problems? Put simply, I think it boils down to keeping track of our commitments to others. That includes colleagues, customers, and managers. A significant amount of day-to-day work is about providing visibility into our commitments, which a lot of organizations do very inefficiently. Ever prepared a report for management? A report is a way to give higher-ups visibility. Ever attended a status meeting? That’s just a way to give a team visibility. Ever sent someone an email to ask for an update on a task? That’s you trying to gain visibility. So, by improving visibility into work, we can reduce the need for all of those time-consuming activities dramatically. So, how do you solve those problems? Like everything, we first have to admit that we have a problem. If you’re here with Wrike, you might be at that stage. A tool like Wrike, one that gives you status visibility and a searchable database of your company’s knowledge, is a huge step forward. But software isn’t a silver bullet. Anyone who has bought Rosetta Stone and never gotten around to opening it (guilty) knows what I mean. We need to implement software in a sustainable way that makes sure users are active and enthusiastic, and simultaneously make sure we’re not just using the software to replicate our existing problems. Workers need to ask themselves: Where does my work originate and where does it end? By mapping that process (even in simple pen and paper) we start to understand how others play into our work, where waste enters the process, and where we can make improvements. That’s the part I specialize in from my time at Toyota and Airbus — and that’s what our consultants do here at Wrike. If a customer uses Consulting Services at Wrike, what should they expect? In the spirit of what I’ve said so far, they should expect some introspection. We want to know what you do, why you do it, how you do it, and who you do it for. If you can’t answer those questions, don’t worry, you’re in good hands. This is especially valuable for anyone who has never worked with any sort of outside process consultants. Once we learn that about your work, it's time for goal setting. We’ll hone in on exactly what improvements you want to make, and work with you to decide how you’re going to quantify your success with Wrike. This helps you determine if the deployment was successful, and it also helps us measure if we’ve done a good job for you. Once goals are set, we help you configure Wrike in a way that will make sure you meet those goals. This may mean building project structures, designing templates, getting integrations in place, and making sure that what we set up together is scalable over hundreds of projects. Finally, we spend some time training your teams on the new procedures, because the human element is the most important in making sure you meet those goals. "Teams who come to Wrike aren’t necessarily looking for project management software. They’re looking for a solution to a problem that they can’t quite pinpoint on their own." What’s your favorite part about the consulting process? My favorite part, and the most rewarding part for all our team members, is when you see in a client’s eyes that they are having an “A-ha!" moment about a better way to work, and when they become confident that they can sustain the improvement in the long term. Imagine someone who has worked in a job for years, and has experienced the same challenge for years. They may have felt a little defeated, and had the mentality, “That’s just the way we do things here.” When you leave their office and know that you haven’t just changed their one work day, but you've really changed their attitude about work and reduced their stress - that’s rewarding. If people would like more information about Consulting Services, where can they go? Your Account Manager or Account Executive on our sales team will be the best place to turn. They’ll be happy to give you information and help connect you with a consultant. Interviewee Bio: Errette Dunn is Principal Consultant at Wrike. Prior to joining our team, he worked in process improvement for companies including Toyota and Airbus. He holds an MBA from the IESE Business School, and has studied Management at Stanford and MIT, as well as Engineering at Universidad Panamerica at his home town of Guadalajara, Mexico. He currently lives in Silicon Valley with his wife and 4 kids. If you're interested in using Wrike for your team, start a free Wrike trial today and contact us at https://www.wrike.com/contact-sales/.

Meetup with Wrike in Palo Alto!
News 3 min read

Meetup with Wrike in Palo Alto!

We love engaging with you, our customers, via email, live chats, our voting forum, feedback forms, regular phone and Skype calls. But what about real-life, face-to-face meetings? Inspired by this idea, we invite all of you, Wrike’s customers, friends and fans, to meet us for some drinks, food, and good discussion about Wrike. Inspired by this idea, we invite all of you, Wrike’s customers, friends and fans, to meet us for some drinks, food, and good discussion about Wrike. Hosted by your favorite Wrike Customer Success team members; we want to take the time to get to know you better, hear what’s on your mind about Wrike, and give you the inside scoop. It will be a great way to unwind after the workday – this one’s on us! Everyone is welcome to attend! So if you happen to be in the northern California area in late September, join us at Vino Locale on Wednesday, September 26th at 6 p.m. Register now and bring along your teammates for drinks, appetizers, and fun.  Along with your RSVP, you’ll be entered into a drawing for a prize at the end!

Get a FREE Netbook from Wrike at PMI Global Congress!
News 3 min read

Get a FREE Netbook from Wrike at PMI Global Congress!

We’ve already mentioned that Wrike will be one of the PMI Global Congress participants this October. This grand project management event will be a perfect chance for us to meet people who are passionate about innovations in project management. PMI Global Congress attendees who are interested in accelerating their project team’s productivity with Web 2.0 technologies will receive a free Project Management 2.0 Guide by our founder and the author of the Project Management 2.0 blog, Andrew Filev. As a pleasant side benefit, those who will come to Wrike’s booth (#933) will be able to enter an instant drawing to get a FREE NETBOOK from Wrike! All the rules of the giveaway will be announced during PMI Global Congress.

Learn about Project Management 2.0 at the PMI Global Congress
News 3 min read

Learn about Project Management 2.0 at the PMI Global Congress

The biggest event in the project management world is coming soon, and we’re excited to announce that Wrike will be presented there. PMI Global Congress, North America, organized by the world’s most influential project management organization (the Project Management Institute), will be held October 10–13, 2009. The Congress promises to be electrifying and fruitful. It will feature over 150 educational sessions, offer useful project management recourses and, most importantly, provide unique networking opportunities for project management professionals. To match the educational spirit of the event, Wrike will share its knowledge of innovations in the project management space with the Congress attendees. Wrike's CEO, Andrew Filev, a well-known Project Management 2.0 expert, will provide his insight into the next generation project management practices and give away FREE Project Management 2.0 Guides. So if you want to find out how you can make you project management practices more effective with Web 2.0, join us for a cup of coffee and a thought-provoking conversation at the booth #933.

Slide Deck and Paper from the UTD Project Management 2.0 Presentation
Project Management 3 min read

Slide Deck and Paper from the UTD Project Management 2.0 Presentation

on August 18. The audience was terrific. I was pleased to find out that many project managers who attended my presentation had previous experience in using wikis and other Project Management 2.0 tools in their work. We had an interesting 30-minute Q&A. Those of you who missed the fun can download the Project Management 2.0 presentation, read the Project Management 2.0 paper and post your questions in the comments to this post. By the way, as a true proponent of agile methods, I’ve already updated the slides and the paper after the conference, so expect new posts about traditional versus 2.0 approaches in the near future. Related articles across the web Man Utd Target Mats Hummels' Girlfriend Is Magnificent

Office 2.0 Big Expectations
News 3 min read

Office 2.0 Big Expectations

I was invited to give a speech at the Project 2.0 panel of the Office 2.0 Conference, which will take place in San Francisco on September 5-7. The conference is established by Ismael Ghalimi, author of the popular IT|Redix blog. He together with a group of other bloggers managed to make the conference a significant event for the IT world.This conference will be focused on product demonstrations, adoption of Web 2.0 technologies in the enterprise and mobile productivity arenas. Presentations, discussions and debates aim to improve companies’ comprehension of how apply Office 2.0 in their activity. Another goal is to make organizations realize the benefits they get even at the early stage of new-generation technologies adoption. The Office 2.0 conference is announced to be a collective experiment aimed at discovering the future of online productivity and collaboration. That’s why all of the participants are so excited to be there, debate and finally see the results of the event. This conference also will most likely be a source of inspiration for many people connected with the next-generation office productivity tools and enterprise solutions. I’m definitely looking forward to panel discussions where I will share my point of view on the project management 2.0 approach. Hope to see you there.  

PMI NJ’s Seminar at Sea Was Organized with Wrike's Help
News 3 min read

PMI NJ’s Seminar at Sea Was Organized with Wrike's Help

PMI is the most influential and popular project management organization in the world. It helps thousands of project managers globally to gain valuable knowledge, network and exchange their experience. That’s why we’re so proud that PMI NJ’s team chose Wrike to be the primary system for managing the Seminar at Sea project. “We are happy that Wrike helped a distributed team of the seminar’s organizers collaborate more efficiently than before and complete this big project on time,” said Andrew Filev, CEO of Wrike.com. “Our focus has always been on reducing the project manager’s routine jobs and maximizing the productivity of the whole team. It’s great that PMI NJ professionals recognized Wrike’s benefits for collaboration and project management.” The seminar is be a unique opportunity to enjoy the comfort, enjoyment and excitement of cruise travel with a special educational and networking project management experience.  The event is held from Aug. 29 to Sept. 3, 2009. We’ll be happy to see you among the participants! 

Project Management 2.0 is Featured on the SlideShare Home Page
Project Management 3 min read

Project Management 2.0 is Featured on the SlideShare Home Page

As always, your feedback is welcome in the comments.

See Wrike in Action at the Office 2.0 Conference
News 3 min read

See Wrike in Action at the Office 2.0 Conference

We will be presenting at Office 2.0 Launchpad. It is a good chance to show Wrike in action, discuss my approach to PM 2.0, and hear the feedback. Once again, let me invite you to the conference, it should be very interesting and dynamic. By the way, if you did not know - if all goes according to the plan, all conference attendees should get a nice gadget as a gift.

Q&A with Nic Bryson, Director of Customer Support at Wrike
News 5 min read

Q&A with Nic Bryson, Director of Customer Support at Wrike

When did you join Wrike and what was customer support like back then? It was 2009, and the best word to describe the company back then is, “small.” There were only a handful of us, and on the support side of things, our CEO Andrew was replying to a lot of cases himself. Andrew was committed to providing great support, but by this point we were acquiring new customers very rapidly, and needed to scale the support organization to keep the experience great. What’s the philosophy behind support at Wrike? Our philosophy is that support should be easy to reach and quick to respond. What that means is, whether you’re a trial, free, or paid user of Wrike, you can contact support for help at any time. Our target for email support is to reply within an hour, and to get your issue resolved within one or two exchanges. For phone and chat support, we hope to get everything resolved by the end of the session. An hour? Is that realistic? It's important that we set aggressive goals. There are times when we are able to respond as quickly as 20 minutes. Whatever the case, we're monitoring trends and when needed, can adjust schedules to give the best coverage to the busiest times. What kind of questions does the support team answer every day? Most of them are “How-To” questions, like "How do I add a user?" We have a great online Help Section and so a lot of questions can be answered with links to tutorials there. Then there are more advanced questions, like “How can I use Wrike to plan a conference?” Our support agents are product experts and they will go really in depth to give suggestions and tips. There are also technical questions, and the great thing about the Cloud is that it’s a controlled environment, so it gives us the ability to test and release fixes very quickly. In the cases where we have users writing in about a bug or a feature that seems broken, we can verify and pass directly to QA for a test and fast fix. How can customers contact support, and what can they expect? Our channels for support are phone, email, and live chat. When you contact us, first and foremost, expect a human. If you’re used to automated support, it’s a little surprising when a real person answers the phone. You should also expect to speak with product experts. We use homegrown talent who can give you very good, contextual help. There are no scripts, so expect a unique and empathetic experience. What do you look for when you hire support agents? There’s no one secret ingredient, but the biggest thing is probably attitude. We want to have a great relationship with our customers, and support agents are often the first line of contact. Interest in technology is important as well. A healthy curiosity about software is going to position an agent to dig deep to answer questions. Writing is also huge, given the amount of email and live chats we handle. We also really like people who want to stick around and take this journey with us. I’m personally very proud that our first three support hires ever are still with the organization in leadership and training roles, and our customers also really benefit from their ownership and pride in providing a positive experience for support. What do you see as the future of Wrike support? We’re putting an emphasis on being more predictive with the product so that we can identify issues in our user base before people contact us. We’re also doing a lot of work with Customer Effort scoring to make sure we make support an easy experience, because we don’t want getting help to be an ordeal. As we grow, keeping our people well trained and processes tight is a priority, so we're continuously evaluating and looking for areas to improve. How can users provide feedback on their support experience? 24 hours after the resolution of a support case, you'll receive a customer satisfaction survey. Please complete this. I review them personally, and I always want to hear your stories about how our service was great, or how it could have been better! If you had a great experience with a specific agent, please share it with the world. Customer service is not an easy job and your tweets and social media mentions keep our team motivated! Your business is in good hands with our service professionals. Start a free trial of Wrike today to see what sets our team apart.