Another really good article from Terry Starbucker, on teamwork and project management. He stresses on leadership training for supervisors who are managing the team and hence also the project.

All too often I see new supervisors struggling mightily with the idea of actually “managing” a staff – setting priorities, communicating the company vision, motivating,  holding people accountable,  and delivering the necessary coaching and corrections. Delivering such training can be expensive, because this is typically the largest management group in most organizations. Read More.

Even though the training may take time, it would however enhance the work a lot more afterwards. Its always great to work with a person who knows how to go about stuff and what to expect, rather than someone who is just fiddling around without having the necessary know how.

One of the ways we tackle this at DeskAway is by having frequent meetings where the work processes are walked through, thus if any particular step seems onerous or too difficult then solutions can be sought for that. Through these meetings we can also figure out if someone is struggling over something.

How do you’l ensure that the people in your team know what their job responsibilities are and that they have the necessary skills to manage the work?

WiderFunnel Marketing Inc. is a full-service marketing company and the developer of the industry-first Kaizen Method(tm) for continuously improving your online conversion rates on landing pages, microsites and web sites.

The app itself is straightforward enough. ~ Samadra Dametto

Their casestudy,

How are you using DeskAway and what value is it providing your team?
File management, collaboration, signoff, task assignment, project timeline.

Were you using any other tool before DeskAway?
Not since I’ve been with this company.

Was there a learning curve associated with DeskAway? How did your team adapt to a new application?
The app itself is straightforward enough. It’s adapting processes that have taken longer - so “how” we use the tool.

What features does your team use the most?
Files, tasks, messages.

Are you emailing (sending tasks, attachments etc.) less because of DeskAway? How has DeskAway helped in lowering project costs, profitability or improving efficiency?
It improves efficiency to have files and comments on files centralized. That is a great benefit in a collaborative environment and also to manage workflow/approvals.

Are there any other thoughts that you would want to share with us regarding our service, product etc.?
Yes. It would be a HUGE improvement to your product/service if the task lists templates were editable. We are constantly improving our process and making changes to our standard task list. It would be good to be able to access a template, and then edit and save changes so that the next time I select the template, the new changes would be included. Instead, how it works now is that I have to create a new project and new task list from scratch - just so I can add a new task to the list.

Thanks @widerfunnel!

Do tell us how You use DeskAway @ priyanka.d(at)synage(.)com

Conscious Web Solutions provides business consulting and web solutions. Some time back they had recommended DeskAway to their users.

“Some of my contract staff prefer working together on DeskAway instead of via email or Skype.” James Welsh, Owner.

Some insights into how they use DeskAway.

How are you using DeskAway and what value is it providing your team?
Team collaboration for project planning and completion.

Were you using any other tool before DeskAway?
Yes. Dotproject and Storm for Drupal.

Was there a learning curve associated with DeskAway? How did your team adapt to a new application?
Very intuitive, however still learning about how to streamline my business using this system integrated with FreshBooks.

What features does your team use the most?
Trying to use it all to realize it’s power.

Are you emailing (sending tasks, attachments etc.) less because of DeskAway? How has DeskAway helped in lowering project costs, profitability or improving efficiency?
Still training my clients to use this system. Conversely some of my contract staffs prefer working together on DeskAway instead of via email or skype.

Are there any other thoughts that you would want to share with us regarding our service, product etc.?
Yes, I am wondering if it is possible to add two fields to tasks. Task status field with options such as: requested, estimated, approved, in progress, complete, archived. the second field would be estimated time to complete task.

Thanks CWS!

Do tell us how You use DeskAway @ priyanka.d(at)synage(.)com