How We Leverage Project Management Software
October 18, 2021 - Drew
October 18, 2021 - Drew
Project management is the backbone of any creative agency.
Without the proper planning, tracking, and follow-up, most projects would fail to see the finish line on time or within budget. Like any skillset or task, there are plenty of project management tools out there to help make your life a little easier when juggling multiple projects.
Solution Agency uses Teamwork, excellent software that allows you to track all facets of your projects in one place. It has been vital to keeping multiple projects and team members on target and ultimately the catalyst for hundreds of happy clients.
It’s not uncommon for me to manage 25-plus projects on any given week, and without a project management tool like Teamwork in place, my projects would fall apart from the get-go. Over the years, I’ve found some pretty standard features and setup methods that help me get the most out of this software and keep our projects running smoothly.
Teamwork allows you to set a budget for each project based on billable, non-billable, or all-time. A project budget enables us to communicate the hours associated with the project and provide parameters for all team members according to the executed scope of work related to hours spent. Teamwork shows us a snapshot of the budget in our general project list and provides quick insight into how close we are to be profitable on said project. We can also set up automatic notifications to email us when we have used up specific percentages of the budget. These notifications are beneficial when that project is not necessarily top-of-mind on any given day or week.
Each task in Teamwork gives us the option to send comments and receive feedback on said comments on each specific task. This action allows us to keep important feedback and assets in one place and for other team members to see where things stand to date on particular tasks at any given time within the project. When comments are sent, they show up in the inbox of selected team members, and they can reply directly from their inboxes. These comments are still collected inside of Teamwork for future reference, eliminating the process of searching for multiple emails during a project for important information.
Teamwork allows us to set up reminders on specific tasks to be sent to your inbox ahead of upcoming due dates. Reminders are beneficial when jumping from one project to the next to avoid letting anything fall through the cracks. I suggest setting up multiple reminders per essential task from the get-go when you initially set up the project to ensure the reminders are set in place while the project is top of mind. I like setting at least one reminder to come early and allow enough time to get the task done and on the due date as a reminder to send the actual deliverable.
Teamwork also allows you to create and use Boards in whatever way you feel is beneficial to your project management style. I like using Boards to show the high-level status of a project. I use Requested Task, Need Details, Work In Progress, Ready for Review, Updates Needed, and Completed for my project status Board names. Teamwork displays the Board name next to your task in each task list. Boards are handy when managing multiple projects and allow you to quickly see where things stand on specific tasks in your project at any given time. For this to work the best, team members need to update Boards in real-time throughout the project. The best feature for Boards is the use of automatic triggers to send emails to specific team members based on the status of that task. For example, you can set up the task list so that when a client adds a task to a specific task list, it will automatically be added to the Requested Task Board and send an email to all team members associated with that task. Once a task has been reviewed or started the team member can move the task into either the Need Details or Work in Progress Board and trigger an email to the client to let them know that information is still needed or confirm their request has been received and work has been started.
Our team uses Task Lists named after the actual service line itself. For example, Design, Development, Photography, etc. This comes in handy when you need to have transparent billing containing line items for different services and multiple rates for various service lines. You can quickly sort by task list to determine exactly how much time was spent on a specific service line. Of course, this is most beneficial for large-volume clients when billing at an hourly rate. You can easily export a PDF of your time logs to attach to your invoice each month. Clients appreciate transparent invoices, and this allows them to see and track exactly how much they are spending on specific services throughout the year.
While these are only a few of the countless features that Teamwork has to offer, I find myself using these features repeatedly, having a direct impact on the success of projects time and time again. Hopefully, you can use some of these tips to help you in your next project management as well.
Looking for a creative team, who uses solid project management practices for your next project? Connect with us today and get started on your next web development, branding, digital marketing, or media project today.
