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?

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

The Singapore International Foundation is a non-profit organization aiming to build a better world through shared ideas, skills and experiences, so as to uplift lives and create greater understanding between Singaporeans and world communities.

“Even a 50 year project member who’s not so IT savvy says she has little problems navigating around the DeskAway interface. ”

~Farihan Bahrin, Web Content Manager

They have been using DeskAway for sometime and we just got an insight into how they use our tool!

How are you using DeskAway and what value is it providing your team?
I am using DeskAway to manage internal and external projects but that’s just a nutshell description. What it helps is to provide a platform to track milestones and synchronize the updates from the different project members. It’s a centralized location and that is useful because our organization’s intranet is not very accessible from home and does not provide functions for interfacing with external parties.

Were you using any other tool before DeskAway?
I tried Basecamp and and ClockingIT.

Was there a learning curve associated with DeskAway? How did your team adapt to a new application?
I must say it was pretty straightforward. Even a 50 year project member who’s not so IT savvy says she has little problems navigation around the DeskAway interface. So the learning curve in general, for me and my team, is rather low.

What features does your team use the most?
Mostly file uploads, task function and the doc/wiki feature for exchanging of ideas.

Are you emailing (sending tasks, attachments etc.) less because of DeskAway? How has DeskAway helped in lowering project costs, profitability or improving efficiency?
Most definitely. My inbox was flooded with content from my project members and it became very annoying with Outlook’s reminder telling you to keep archiving your inbox. I’m not sure about lowering of costs but it has certainly improved the efficiency since now it is now easier as a project lead to coordinate between project members and allocate resources.

Are there any other thoughts that you would want to share with us regarding our service, product etc.?
It’s been a good and responsive service so far, which is very surprising for me. My concern as always is security and options for exporting data should one day, we decide to switch platforms.

Thanks SIF.

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

You can navigate to any section of a Project from the “Project Listing” page.

1. Go to the “Project Listing” page by clicking either on the “Project” Tab or on the “Project Listings” link on the main page.

2. There are a number of icons on the right side of the Project Lists for all the projects. Using these icons you can navigate directly into a particular section (e.g. Task, Issues etc.) within a Project.

Not everyone can see all icons as they are permission-based.  If a user does not have access to the “Team” section he cannot see the “View Project Team” icon and similarly he will not see the “edit/delete” link if he does not have permission to edit or delete the project.

Sometimes it does not hurt to save a click or two!