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Reach is a marketing strategy firm in Kissimmee, Florida (USA) that utilizes HubSpot’s Marketing Automation Software to create brands people love by transforming how organizations attract, engage and delight customers. Since opening in January 2014, Reach has been known for an exceptional work environment and a professional experience the team members love.
Reach’s chief strategist, Kelly Trace, needed project management software that could help drive efficient workflows and pinpoint exactly how her team was spending its time each day. She chose Teamwork Projects for its large range of accessible features, but didn’t expect it to transform her agency.
“Using Teamwork Projects as our project management system has allowed us to focus our time creatively instead of clerically. We are grateful, our clients are grateful, and we look forward to added efficiencies in the future.”
The Challenges
Reach launched using task management software that was similar to other software of the time: it helped organize many aspects of projects, but the team needed additional features for communication, simple reports, easy updates, and more. They patched together a passable system, but it never seemed exactly right. As time went by, they compiled a list of tools they really wanted in their ideal software, and at the top of the list was a built-in time tracking feature. They couldn’t have an accurate assessment of hours logged on each project or even certain phases of each project, which greatly reduced their ability to make their processes more efficient.
“Our previous software let us communicate with one another and generally keep tasks organized within the system, but without the ability to track time, all reporting aspects were more complicated, which meant lost time.”
As their client list grew and they took on more projects, they realized that checking one or two outside apps wasn’t really a big deal, but their app collection was growing. Checking in on those other apps was not only impossible to coordinate, but it was distracting for team members. Both the loss of focus and the inability to collect data quickly were slowing down project completion dates.
The Solution
Kelly started looking for a better solution with in-depth research on the top project management software available. There were a lot of choices, and they were deliberate about sorting through the options to find the right fit.
“Since we are inbound marketing junkies, we scoured blogs finding opinions and views about different offerings, did our own comparisons of softwares, and landed on Teamwork Projects. It seemed to offer the best match for our needs and at the right price.”
Reach began their onboarding process with the leadership team, and after a month, they started rolling it out to the rest of the team. A leadership team member created a quick-start guide of introductory videos, and then dedicated a weekly team meeting to getting acquainted with Teamwork Projects. This included a few personal pointers, a tutorial from the Teamwork.com channel on YouTube, and a Q&A session. Time management was the primary reason that Reach started looking for new software, and right away, the team put the built-in task timers to work. Suddenly everyone is now able to have a better sense of how they were spending their days or how resources could be allocated differently.
“Teamwork Projects has truly helped the Reach team with our time on task analysis. It has provided us with opportunities to see which activities require the most time, what areas could be more efficient, and when we turn into workaholics, like logging hours of time on the weekends.”
Once Kelly’s team started becoming more familiar with Teamwork Projects, they discovered task templates, which allowed them to build out an entire project — or sections of projects — using efficient task workflows that they created for other projects. They’ve also benefited from the ability to add links for Google Docs or Dropbox files to individual tasks, which has drastically reduced time spent hunting for collateral. Integrations with other apps like Gmail have made a big difference in the team’s efficiency. Now they can create tasks directly from Teamwork Projects without having to copy and paste or manually re-enter information.
The Benefits
Kelly started the search for new project management software in order to have better analysis of her team’s time, but she didn’t expect to get attached to other features, too. The time tracking features are giving the team the insights they needed, and they are helping them save time each week. Team members review their logged time against the time estimated for the task and adjust if they see they’re spending too much time on one item. Bottlenecks are also greatly reduced because the whole team can see where a project is stalled, and everyone can pitch in to help move things along.
Task templates have reduced the time needed to create projects, and now team members are able to invest that time on the project instead of data entry. From new hires to long-time managers, each person on the team is finding ways that Teamwork Projects is making their workloads easier.
“This project management system has become our lifeblood. We joke that we live in Projects, but it’s true. We have utilized our Teamwork boards in such a way through templates and tasks that it drives us through our day, week, month, and beyond.
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