What Is an Information Silo?
According to CMS Wire, workers, on average, spend 36% of their day looking for and consolidating information. But 44% of the time, they can't find the information. This wasted time and effort are caused by information silos. Information silos are costly, but they are also fixable. Although they’re often thought of as unavoidable, the truth is solving them can lead to more productivity, improved work culture, and better use of resources. Keep reading to learn more about information silos and why people such as Steve Jobs and Elon Musk chose to ban them from their companies. What is an information silo? Silo is a management term that has been around for many years. It is often used to describe a lack of organizational cohesion. This issue has become a recurring theme in most organizations. Many executives may dismiss their department's shortcomings as mere department inefficiencies. They may also dismiss the importance of cross-functional solutions and the need for employee training. This perspective is often referred to as a silo mentality. A silo mentality is a mindset that prevents certain departments or sectors from sharing information with their peers. It can lead to decreased efficiency and employee morale. The silo mindset does not appear to be an accident. It is, however, a reflection of the complex dynamics within an organization. One common misconception is that the silo mentality is the root cause of these behaviors. In reality, it is the result of assumptions that are based on flawed logic and correctable issues that are often wrongly perceived as irreversible. It’s the leadership team’s job to step up and create long-term solutions that are sustainable and can be easily implemented. What are the problems associated with information silos? A silo mentality occurs when department or team communication is lacking, and there are no common tasks. In this scenario, the team derives its power and status from its group. They are less likely to collaborate with other teams or departments if their efforts are not shared. It is the owner's responsibility to create a culture that discourages silos within their business. They set a tone and values for their organization and approve employees seeking to maintain a silo mentality. If they do not, they run the risk of: Limiting collaboration When employees aren’t clued in on bigger picture ideas and information, they often operate in a bubble. This individualism leads to issues connecting with goals. It also limits an employee’s ability to see beyond their own role and how it affects others. Decreasing communication Information silos hold back important facts, data, and decisions from key employees. Not only does this make projects more confusing, but it can also dissuade employees from sharing valuable feedback. Creating hostility Miscommunications and lack of collaboration can lead to interpersonal conflict among colleagues. When someone feels left out or makes a mistake because they lack information they believe they should have access to, it breeds a culture of contempt. This is yet another reason why communication management skills matter among leadership. Inhibiting creativity Information is empowering. It can inform decision-making, but it can also spark creativity. Without the right information, teams may feel as if they can’t think outside the box or risk making choices without the right facts in front of them. Derailing progress It is not uncommon to need a large amount of ramp up to keep the momentum going. When teams waste time looking for missing information, waiting on access approval, and flipping through virtual files, their inertia is taken away. Lost data Knowledge is power. It is the key factor that enables a team to thrive and be productive. When important data is lost, teams lose that power and consequently the ability to perform at a high level. Examples of information silos Missing, out of date, or messy data in a CRM A broken integration between one or more tools Forgetting to loop key decision-makers into important email conversations Using too many tools at once, so information is spread out and hard to look for Slower quote-to-cash workflows as a result of process complexity How to break down information silos with Wrike A strong leadership team is built on the understanding of the company’s long-term goals and key initiatives. It must also have the ability to communicate effectively with teams and motivate them to reach their full potential. Once the leadership team has agreed on a unified vision, it is important that they identify the root issues that may be causing silos to form. This team then needs to work with the other members of the organization to develop a strategy and implement it. That’s where Wrike comes in. Wrike is a project management tool that simplifies the process of communicating and organizing important information. Here’s how: Create structure The structure of a business can foster a silo mentality if employees do not get along with one another. Wrike uses visual tools for project communication such as color-coding, task owner photos next to assignments, and Gantt charts that lay out the entire project grid for maximum visibility. Maximize collaboration To maximize collaboration, management should establish a culture where meetings are regularly scheduled — yet project planning is designed to reduce unnecessary meetings. Wrike solves these issues with a fully transparent project planning dashboard that is personalized for individual users and creates a single source of truth for the entire organization. Measure progress Once a common goal has been established, it is important that it is measured accurately. Leaders must also establish a timeframe to complete it. This goal should also be communicated to all employees. Wrike shows progress across all tasks simultaneously so team members can see where they stack up. It also shows them how their work factors into big-picture goals. Establish workflows The owner or manager sets the rules and routines that define the organization's structure. This process helps preserve the culture while ensuring that the rules are followed. Wrike allows managers to create repeatable workflows that make rules and routines easy to follow for project phases and tasks. Takeaway A business owner must develop strategies that help employees understand what they’re working to achieve. They also need to establish an environment where employees can collaborate and communicate. Wrike helps support these initiatives and more through advanced features that foster productivity and keep everyone on the same page at all times. Start your free trial today.
5 Features Your Work Intake Process Tool Should Have
The right tool can help refine a work intake system for how you and your team accept project requests without additional headaches and hassle. Sound good? We thought so, which is why we’re sharing what to look for when starting your search for a work intake process tool.
Why Visibility is Critical to Improving Your Team's Workflow
At any one time during a project, do you know who is doing what? What happens when your team experiences delays in turning work around, or mysterious bottlenecks in production? Can you figure out how to solve these problems?
Collaboration to Configuration: How Connecting Workflows Impacts the Customer Experience
Behind every successful cross-functional relationship is a set of tools to advance communication and productivity. Here are 3 workflows every company should connect to optimize the customer experience.
5 Workflow Mistakes That Plague A Fast-Paced Marketing Team
You're busy staying on top of the latest and greatest marketing technology, generating content, building out campaigns, identifying buyer personas, or being a resource for your team (the list goes on and on). All of this activity makes it difficult to worry about how work is getting done, as long as it gets done.
Why Smart CMOs Are Making Workflow Automation Their Top Priority
Imagine this: You’re sitting in a meeting, discussing progress on a new campaign. The creative director, Julie, says she’s still waiting on final approval for the design budget. "Oh, finance approved that last week," you say. "Didn’t you see the email?" Then Mark, the Head of Product Marketing, announces, "I’ve just heard from Sales that they want all new collateral, including an updated PDF. Who has the time to work on that, and how will it affect our schedule?" Crickets. You head back to your desk, only to find three emails asking you to approve new campaign assets. But you have no idea who on the team has already looked at it or what edits have already been requested. And should you be reviewing the attachment or the slightly different version provided in the body of the email? Scrolling through the message thread doesn’t help either— it’s just a mess of edits and revisions. Wish things could be simpler? Workflow automation isn’t just for boring business processes. Automating your creative workflows is a smart way to make creative collaboration run smoother, and finding the best professional services automation software for you can boost your processes for maximum productivity. Top reasons to automate your marketing team's workflow Less busywork How much of your team’s day is spent updating spreadsheets, generating reports, and adjusting campaign schedules? Automating these routine tasks can be a significant time-saver, freeing hours in the day for them to focus on CMO responsibilities that are value-adding creative work. Automation also ensures reports and updates are based on accurate, up-to-date information, so you have all the details you need to make smart, timely decisions. Fewer errors and inconsistencies You know that sinking feeling when your website redesign tanks your SEO rankings? Or the headache of launching a campaign with outdated pricing information? As CMO, your job is to make sure your marketing initiatives go off without a hitch. But it’s all too easy for important details to get missed, with costly results. With automation, creative briefs are standardized, contain all the details needed to get the job done, and are automatically assigned to the appropriate party. No important details are miscommunicated, left out, or overlooked. Processes and policies are consistent, fewer tasks fall through the cracks, and everyone is clear on responsibilities and deadlines. Automation also makes it easier to provide a consistent customer experience across all your channels. Tools like Hootsuite and Buffer, for example, automate your social media publishing schedule so that prospects and customers always see an active page and your brand identity stays true across your networks. Wrike Requests Faster reviews and approvals Has everyone signed off on the final version? How long should you wait for someone to leave comments before moving on? If two people leave conflicting feedback, whose edits are implemented? Automating the review and approvals process can eliminate all the last-minute scrambling and second-guessing. Reminders, alerts, and notifications keep reviews moving forward since everyone can see the status of each asset. It's easy to stay up to date, a clear process is followed, and nothing gets mistakenly published without the proper approvals. Try Wrike's Proofing & Approvals for Free Fewer process headaches You can’t fix what you don’t know is broken. Automating your workflows makes it easier to see where tasks get stuck, which tasks eat up the most time and resources, and where you can make some simple changes to help work run more efficiently. And automatic notifications that alert colleagues when they can begin work on a task make handoffs faster and easier, so work keeps flowing. Higher revenue All of these benefits add up to one thing: a boost for your bottom line. By automating your creative workflow, your team is able to spend more time on high-value creative work instead of routine administrative tasks. Collaboration is more efficient, with fast hand-offs and requests that contain all the context necessary for work to begin. Teams avoid the frustrating cycle of rework and revisions due to miscommunications. Costly errors are caught in an efficient and thorough reviews and approvals process. If you're in the market for a new collaboration tool, download our free collaboration software buyer's guide. It includes questions and features you should think about carefully before you purchase. Start automating your marketing team's workflow Give Wrike for Marketers a try to see how it can help relieve your biggest work headaches — all you need is an email address.
6 Steps to Managing the Marketing Chaos Using Workflows (Video)
The chaos is real: your marketing team is working on complex, long-term plans while new requests keep streaming in. Meanwhile, a global conversation is happening online involving your brand and your industry — yet another thing to track. In addition, your team must be constantly learning new strategies and integrating new tools into what is marketing management for your organization. On top of everything, you need to interface with a variety of internal groups and outside vendors to make it all work. So how do you tame this mess? Watch the video below to discover how to best control the chaos using repeatable workflows: As you just saw, marketing workflows can help your team by making internal processes predictable and easy. What are Workflows? Workflows are repeatable steps that your team members follow each time they start a routine project. It's a formula, a tried and tested recipe. Here are some examples of things that could be turned into standard workflows: Creating a new infographic Launching an email campaign Developing a new web page or section of your website Running a paid marketing campaign Planning and developing a new feature Setting up a customer event See our Marketing Workflows Infographic for a list of workflows and common steps for each. So How Do Workflows Help You? Workflows allow you to: List the standard steps, timing, and approvals needed for each deliverable Know who's responsible for each step Stay up-to-date on the status of the project It's the same process every time. And because of this, you know the handoffs, approvals and timing of each step. This allows your team to focus less on the process and more on being strategic and creative. Setting Up Workflows in 6 Steps To set up workflows for your team, follow these steps: List the major processes that your team completes regularly Document the steps, responsibilities, and approvals Set up those steps in a tool like Wrike (using custom workflows) Manage each process in your project management tool Get status updates within the tool and via notifications Eliminate the extra status request emails and meetings, and focus on getting work done within your project management tool Does Your Marketing Team Have Workflows in Place? Does your team have standard workflows in place? If so, how has it saved you time? If not, which process would you turn into a standard workflow first? Read next:5 Essential Marketing WorkflowsAccelerate Your Business With Custom WorkflowsWrike for Marketing Teams
Task Dependencies vs. Custom Workflows: When to Use Each in Wrike
Wrike is an incredibly flexible tool, offering several ways your team can set up your projects, track your progress, and reach your goals. But have you ever had too many options? Using Wrike can be like walking into an ice cream shop with 20+ flavors and wanting to try all of them. One of the most common choices Wrikers deliberate over is "Should I track project progress using a Custom Workflow, or should I rely on a chain of task dependencies?" We're here with some helpful tips to help you decide. And keep in mind: this isn't solely an either/or case — you can leverage a combination of these methods to effectively manage your work. When to Use a Chain of Task Dependencies in Wrike Creating a chain of separate tasks linked together using dependencies allows you to show which tasks are happening at what times, by whom, and in what exact order. It's of enormous importance and value to any project-based and deliverable-oriented team (and if you think your team doesn't have projects or deliverables, spoiler alert: you're wrong). There are two reasons you should consider setting up your work in this way: 1. Auto-adjusting timelines Dependencies in Wrike tell you the order in which tasks need to happen. For example, you could have 5 tasks that must happen in a specific sequence (Task 1, then Task 2, etc.). Auto-adjusting timelines helps you automatically update due dates on linked tasks when plans move forward or backward. If Task 3 ends up taking a few days longer than planned, you can update its due date accordingly, and the start and end dates for Tasks 4 and 5 will be pushed back in kind. Alternatively, if we realize that Task 2 can be finished more quickly than anticipated, shortening its duration and moving its due date forward will automatically shift Tasks 3-5 earlier as well — no point in sitting around waiting to start your next steps! 2. Up-to-bat emails One of the biggest bottlenecks in a project is not realizing you're supposed to start on your piece of the project puzzle. Because unless you're keeping a close eye on your colleague's progress (which they won't like, promise), or they came to you immediately to tell you that they finished their task (which they won't do, pinky swear), you'll be waiting until your next status update meeting to learn that you could have started your part three days ago. Instead, you could use a chain of linked tasks in Wrike to get notification emails when someone completes the task you've been waiting on. Set up dependencies between the tasks and make sure you're assigned to the task you're responsible for in the workflow; as soon as Jack hits 'Complete' on Task 1, the assignee for Task 2 will get an email saying it's time to start work. Now your team won't have to hawk over everything to make sure work is getting done as quickly as possible. Just remember, setting up a chain of dependent tasks may be overly rigid for your team. If you aren't married to your original timeline, it's not as easy to manipulate your workflow as using the Custom Statuses & Workflow method. Anything non-standard that gets thrown into the mix (an extra step, unforeseen time off, etc.) will impact your timeline and need to be factored into your chain of dependencies, which can require some re-work. We strongly recommended that anyone employing this dependency-driven methodology spend some time taking at least a rudimentary course in formal project management to learn about things like critical path, scope creep, and risk management. Advantages of Task Dependencies: Laser-focused timelines with easily anticipated due dates and delivery milestones Crystal-clear delegation of responsibilities — everyone knows who is working on what, when, and in what order Layered visibility allows PMs to oversee complex initiatives, while individual contributors only have to focus on what they're personally working on that week Baseline Chart will show you how the team delivered on your project compared to the original estimation Great for linking just two or three dependent tasks when you want to get the up-to-bat email notifications Disadvantages of Task Dependencies: Reliant on strong project management practices and team agreement on timelines and responsibilities Requires ongoing monitoring by the project owner to ensure no changes to the plan are needed Does not easily accommodate projects with unforeseen back-and-forth such as approvals, reviews, or multiple rounds of edits When to Use a Custom Workflow in Wrike With Wrike Enterprise, you can leverage Custom Workflows for more flexibility in your workflow. There are two rationales behind moving a single task through a series of unique statuses in a Custom Workflow: 1. Preserving information If you're producing content and the final outcome relies on input from multiple people, you would hate wasting time using a chain of tasks. You'd attach your version of a file to a task, mark it complete, and notify the next person in line; then the next person would be forced to go back to the previous task, download your file, edit it, attach it to their own task, mark their task complete, and notify the next person, ad infinitum. Instead, by only changing the custom status and assignee of a single task, you can use Wrike's file versioning feature to consolidate all files and versions in a single location, thus streamlining your team's workflow. Similarly, any notes taken in the description field that need to pass from person to person will be easier to find, modify, and collaborate on when they're preserved in a single task, instead of being moved around and duplicated between tasks. You don't want people to spend (i.e. waste) time scouring through tasks looking for the most recent version of the information when you can easily consolidate it in a single task. 2. Non-linear processes When getting from A to Z, sometimes you hit A, B, C, and all 26 letters in order just once before finishing your project. More often, that isn't the case at all. You need to square dance around and switch back and forth between steps, people, etc. before reaching the final Z. That can be a perfectly normal and productive workflow, but if you've set up your chain of tasks to follow a prescribed path, it makes work messy. Instead, by relying on a Custom Workflow you can bounce between statuses, moving 'forward' and 'backward' with ease, passing off the "next step baton" to individuals as necessary. A great example is, again, generating content. Often, content generation will begin with an idea, then copy will be drafted, edited, designed, approved, and published. However, each piece of content can go through any number of revisions, edits, and designs, so it's nearly impossible to determine ahead of time how many 'Review' steps you'll need. If you use a Custom Workflow instead of a chain of tasks, your content can easily move from 'In Draft' to 'In Review' and back again as many times as needed, each time changing who is assigned and responsible for the current stage. Advantages of Custom Workflows: Amazing flexibility (as shown above) In-depth reporting, especially with Dashboards, shows exactly where a task is in a certain process, and managers can easily glean what is currently 'In Review' or 'Needs Approval' Color-coding to make task progress easier to ascertain at a glance Fewer tasks cluttering your workspace Clearer progress markers mitigate the need for extra status update meetings Disadvantages of Custom Workflows: Due dates are not tied to status changes, meaning that you need to continuously change the task's due date to reflect when the next step must begin Very minor, but worth noting: Assignees are not tied to specific statuses, meaning that if someone is responsible for writing and someone else is responsible for reviewing, you either need to (1) both be assigned to the task and know who is responsible for each stage, or (2) switch assignees every time you switch a status. Learn More on How to Use Custom Workflows & Task Dependencies That's why we built them! Relying solely on managing a long chain of task dependencies can be complicated without proper project management training. Don't forget that these two methodologies can always be combined for incredibly effective collaboration! Certain steps along a project timeline may need specialized statuses to best manage their progress, and they can sit within a longer chain of tasks connected by dependencies. Ultimately, different projects will have different needs and we are here to support however you work best. If you still can't figure out the best way to use Custom Workflows and Task Dependencies for your team and you'd like to learn more, reach out to our Support team or talk to us in the comments below! We're standing by to answer all your questions.
Accelerate Your Business with Wrike's New Custom Workflows
Your teams all have their own specific workflows. You need a platform that supports all of them. Today we're excited to introduce Custom Workflows, letting your teams structure their work so it moves faster and everyone knows where things stand. Now you can create workflows for everything from approval processes to bug tracking to content development and more. "Custom statuses have helped us streamline our development workflow and allow us to track tickets through our development pipeline." —Jeremy Rose, Vice President of Operations @SimpleRelevance Getting Started Setting up workflows is quick and easy. Account admins can create and edit workflows from the Account settings page. After you save changes, the new workflow will be available to your team in their workspace. Here are some common workflows to get you started: Once created, users can assign workflows to a team or project by right clicking on a folder and changing the workflow setting. Then, tasks in that folder will reflect the new workflow in the status menu. Now that you've implemented your workflow, build dashboards for real-time visibility into where everything stands. "The custom statuses help make the workflow much simpler, and allow us to create dashboards to capture tasks with this "Review" status. Thanks for a great feature!" —Andrew Hartman, Senior Director of Product Management and Platform Operations at CastNet Group Custom Workflows are now available to all Wrike Enterprise customers. Not yet on Wrike Enterprise? Sign up for a free trial today.
The Ultimate Creative Process Checklist
Creativity is no mystery, rather it is a series of stages. This ultimate creative process checklist is a step-by-step procedure for engaging in creative work. And is based on the 4 stages of the creative process outlined by English social psychologist Graham Wallas, namely: preparation, incubation, illumination, & verification.
