Here at Web Courses Bangkok we have so many projects going on and this number grows everyday. Ranging from meeting deadlines, organising schedules, to simply tracking how long we spend doing certain tasks. We some how needed to manage all these projects and that’s where Teamwork Project Manager comes to our rescue.
Teamwork Project Manager
Here at Web Courses Bangkok we have so many projects going on and this number grows everyday. Ranging from meeting deadlines, organising schedules, to simply tracking how long we spend doing certain tasks. We some how needed to manage all these projects and that’s where Teamwork PM comes to our rescue.
How it helps keeping a companies soldiers in line?
- Project Management
- Milestone tracking
- File Management
- Time Tracking
- People & Contacts
- Notebooks
- Calander
Now we’re past the key features. How about I give you a more useful explanation of how it works in a real life busy design agency? Well your in luck, here’s what the various team members and management at Web Agency Bangkok have to say about Teamwork Pm and how it works and serves its purpose specifically for them.
Carl Heaton- Founder and Instructor
“When we started our design agency I knew that we would need a Project Management software solution that was easy to use but powerful enough to be useful. I tried bascamp and a lot of the free options but they seems either limiting, clunky or just plain horrible UX.
I was recommended Teamwork PM through a blog post I read and I signed up and it just seemed very easy. I added some test projects and some of our team and they all liked it.
Personally I like the Tasks and Miletones. We them a lot and we created a project template which we copy and re-use for each new project. On that template I have all the links, plugins, software, checks and documents we need for each new project through our web design agency.
I have not used the Ghantt chart stuff but I am sure it will come in handy once we grow even more.
Problems I found were not with TeamworkPM but freelancers not updating their work status and timesheets on the system. If you can help us figure that out it would be awesome.”
Mike Dando- Project Manger
“I use Teamwork Project Manager software to assist me in my daily role as a Project Manager at WCB Design Agency. Amongst other things Teamwork PM allows me to co-ordinate projects with team members, set tasks and milestones, store project related files, helps me ensure that we meet deadlines and also allows higher management to keep tabs on each project and our overall performance. One of the most important features of Teamwork PM for me is the ability to set privacy settings on files and restrict who can view individual files. That means I can allow anyone, even clients, to login and contribute if necessary without them seeing confidential files related to a project.”
Pete Gregory- Instructor and Project Manager
“I use it for storing masters and basically as a way for tracking high level milestones. It allows me to store high level files for projects however I have had some issues with stored files vanishing. It’s crucial for me to have stability when we store files on the PM as I rely on this as a solution for me not having to store them locally.
It would be great to be able to view gantt charts for each individual project. At the moment the gannt chart shows me all projects including ones I am not personally involved in which for me are irrelevant.
Matt Rennie- Intern
Even as an intern I find it so useful to be able to monitor my progress in completing projects. Along side using dropbox it serves as the ideal place to store links or files I need or if anyone else working on the project may need quick access to. I can use the activity option to give me a very visual record of any particular areas that have taken perhaps to long so that maybe on my next project I know this is an area I need to allocate extra time for.
Working to Deadlines
The balancing of many projects can lead you into the troubled path of landing in murky waters of failing to meat deadlines. We don’t believe that’s an acceptable way in which to operate, thus we give our clients realistic time-frames and keep them fully updated with stages of progress. With Teamwork Project Manager, any late projects are highlighted straight away so it would be very hard for anyone to claim they forgot or didn’t notice it was late.
Out of the office
As well as a great desktop solution if your an ios device or Android users Teamwork PM have a mobile solution for you. A beautiful app is available for those out of the office and on the road but still needing to keep track of whats going on. Even better its free so if your out and about but want to see how well the office is getting on in your absence it’s very useful.
Size matters
If your thinking your only a small company and maybe can’t afford a project management system or even worry that your might be too big to consider Teamwork PM thankfully they have various price plans to suit. I’d suggest even just trying out the free trial to see what improvements it can make to your office project management and hopefully better keeping to deadlines. Teamwork PM client list is pretty impressive including the likes of Walt Disney and EA Sports.
Oops, How long did I spend on that task.
It’s quite easy to loose track of time, you get distracted by an urgent project, someone sends you a funny youtube video or worse you forget to invoice something and can’t remember how long you spend on a clients website several weeks ago. I highly recommend trying out the desktop time app. This gives you a fantastic way to track how long you are spending on tasks within your project so that when it comes to billing for work. It just sits unobtrusively on your desktop you can even pause tasks and resume them later you have easily accessible and accurate data which i’m sure your managers will love.
Keeping it safe
Privacy is obviously a major concern in this day and age. If your going to store anything online you want to be fully confident that no unwanted eyes will see it. With that in mind you are thankfully able to set privacy settings to lock out individuals from being able to access individual tasks, files notes and messages. The servers used Amazons AWS and Teamwork PM has SSL encryption. There is also the option to force all users into only using a high security password to combat the guy who always uses his birthday for his password.
Project Manager – Do I really need it?
Ideally it should at least help relieve the stress of trying to track progress via 100’s of emails or lengthy phone calls when all you asked is when should a task be ready.My advice is with a 30 day free trial I would say you have nothing to loose. Implementing a project management system will quickly highlight weak areas in the way your company is running its projects. Hopefully you can then see where and how you can improve to be more efficient and make those vital deadlines. Also you will have a good way to see what team members aren’t pulling their weight and causing the biggest hold ups.
If you are looking for more information on project management, read this interview with Dejan Cancarevic, project manager of manageWP.com, a dashboard for handling multiple WordPress sites.
