Month: February 2023

February 24, 2023

Gantt chart: an excellent tool to manage tasks

Collaboration

Productivity

The Gantt chart is a widely used project management tool due to its effectiveness in planning, scheduling, and tracking projects. The usefulness of this methodology lies in the fact that it allows a clear and simple visualization of the tasks to be done, the time required and the period in which it has to be carried out. In this blog we will tell you how it works and what are the advantages of using a Gantt chart.

The Gantt chart was first created in the mid-1890s by Polish engineer Karol Adamiecki, who called it a harmonogram and developed it as a method of graphically presenting interdependent processes in order to improve the visibility of schedules. Fifteen years later, an American engineer, Henry Gantt, created his own version of the chart and popularized it into the chart we know today, which bears his name.

Its popularity increased because of the efficiency it provides throughout an entire project development process. The advantages that stand out the most about its implementation are:

1. Planning: Helps project managers plan the tasks required to complete a project and establish a realistic and achievable schedule.

2. Scheduling: Allows PMs to schedule tasks and resources efficiently,avoiding task scheduling conflicts and maximizing the use of available resources.

3. Follow-up: Allows continuous monitoring of the progress of the project, which allows possible delays or deviations from the original plan to be detected in time.

4. Communication: Excellent tool for communicating the project plan to all stakeholders, including project team members, project sponsors, and clients.

5. Decision Making: Helps project managers make informed decisions, including resource allocation, task rescheduling, and potential risk identification.

How does a Gantt chart work?

As we mentioned, the diagram is generally used for project management, since it allows visualization of how tasks and projects progress over a certain period of time. Its visualization is usually structured by: projects, tasks, month, year and weeks of work. Now, we will show you an example of this chart in Workdeck’s platform:

In the left side of the image, there are the tasks or activities that are part of a project.

Using Workdeck’s Gantt chart, you can see who are the employees assigned to each task, the time scheduled and the time already worked on each task.

At the top, there is a timeline that spans the length of the project. In this case, the project can be viewed by month, but if desired, the project can be analyzed by day or week.

Each task is assigned a time frame and then a bar is built to delimit the start and end of the task. There are many variants of this diagram, and in the case of Workdeck, it was created to make project and task management even easier. Each color has a meaning , milestones and problems can be also marked in order to have a holistic vision of each project.

As we can see, the Gantt chart has the ability to show in a single image the duration of projects and tasks, the relationship between them, objectives to be completed and possible risks.

Workdeck’s Gantt chart is synchronized with the Kanban chart (you can read more about this tool in the article: The Kanban methodology: a tool to optimize work) and with the calendar. In this way, any change or modification made to the platform will always be reflected in the diagram.

Finally, Workdeck also provides the ability to attach files, have conversations and leave comments, all from the Gantt chart so that each user can have full knowledge of the status of projects and tasks.

As we mentioned, there are many variants of the Gantt chart and it is important to use one that fits the needs of the company and allows employees to be more efficient and effective. If you want to try Workdeck’s Gantt chart, feel free to request your free trial of the platform here!

February 13, 2023

11 tips to work from home and be more productive

Productivity

It is not a secret that in the last three years, home office has increased considerably. Currently, there are many companies that have put this dynamic into practice, achieving excellent results. For employees, virtual work gives the possibility of achieving a better work-life balance. However, there are multiple challenges that can affect this. In today's article, we give you 11 tips that will help you stay organized with your work-from-home routines.

Working from home has increased due to the pandemic, the appearance of new platforms and the need of having a balance between life and work. The benefits of working from home are:

  • Schedule flexibility: employees can adjust their work schedule to suit their personal needs.
  • Time and cost savings: By not having to travel, workers can save time and reduce transportation costs. This will result in an improvement of quality life.
  • Greater efficiency: Many companies have discovered that home office can improve the productivity of their employees.

However, there are also different challenges and routines to modify when an employee starts to work every day from his home. They must know how to deal with work and personal life. Loneliness and lack of interaction between coworkers can become a problem if it is not managed properly. For this reason, it is essential to implement a work routine that helps us not to lose motivation and make remote work a great experience. Having established schedules, a place that avoids distractions or writing things down are just some of the habits that help us work effectively.

These are our tips in order to improve the working from home experience:

  1. Take advantage of the time you save from traveling to start working earlier: It is not advisable to wake up ten minutes before turning on the computer, rather, ideally a person has to be active an hour before starting work. Therefore, waking up early and taking time to eat breakfast, read the news and change clothes is a good strategy to start working more focused.
  2. Set your working hours: Deciding when to start and finish working allows us to have a balance between work and personal life.
  3. Organize the day as if you were in the office: Set your schedule in order to rest, eat and have meetings. Being at home means a benefit as long as you are not distracted by household chores, family or other things.
  4. Have your own workspace organized: Avoid sitting on the sofa or with the TV on, you must have a workspace clean and where you can spend several hours per day working without distractions
  5. Look for other spaces to work: Choose a nearby cafe to continue working from there and not shutting you down at home.
  6. Avoid social networks: It is known that when we are in the office, we do not use social networks in the same way and with the same frequency as at home. Therefore, when working from home, it is advisable to avoid the temptation to access Facebook, Instagram, Tik Tok or any other social network.
  7. Work on the most complex activities at the time you feel most productive: Detecting the moments of greatest inspiration to dedicate them to the most difficult tasks or those that take the longest is a great strategy for your day to day. Therefore, it is important to define these hours based on personal productivity (either morning, afternoon or night).
  8. Hold regular conversations with your work team: This allows everyone to be aligned and feel like you are working as a team. Being part of a team makes us work harder to meet goals and increases personal work performance.
  9. Work with music: If it does not affect your concentration, music can help you focus and avoid the feeling of loneliness.
  10. Take breaks between tasks: At the office, we usually stop working to have a coffee or connect with our colleagues. Being at home, we must maintain these habits, get up from the chair and spend ten minutes doing laundry. This helps to rest your head and return to work even more focused.
  11. Use all the tools that your company offers you to stay connected: organize your time and increase your productivity: Make regular calls with your coworkers, assign responsibilities, define tasks, follow-up meetings, etc. You will see that the positive energy of work becomes an ally.

Currently, there are software that have multiple tools to manage projects, organize teams, monitor tasks in real time and facilitate remote work, both for companies and workers. At Workdeck, we offer all of these implementations and more. An integrated platform that allows you to manage projects simply and efficiently. It has various tools, for example: own communication channels, calendar management, expense and purchase management, and much more.

If you are interested in starting your free trial or learning more about Workdeck, feel free to contact us here!

 

February 3, 2023

Kanban methodology: a tool for optimizing work

Innovation

Technology

In order to have a better working experience while working from home, different tools are required. Today we will talk about the Kanban methodology, a process that allows us to visualize the status of projects, the stage of development they are in and who is responsible for each task. All this info is presented in an easy to understand structure where everything is connected and concentrated in one place.

If your company works in communication, marketing, software development, engineering or any industry that involves project management from a digital platform, surely you have heard of this efficient and popular method, since the Kanban board offers an overview of all projects and allows us to better understand and plan resources. In this article we will discuss what Kanban is, what its functions are and how it is organized.

What is the Kanban board?

The Kanban chart is a project management tool that helps to visualize the workflow and monitor the progress of a project. It was originally developed in the year 1940 in Japan to improve production efficiency at the Toyota factory. It is based on the idea of ​​limiting the work of each employee and making visible any component that can slow down the performance of projects. It is a method that helps teams achieve a balance between the actual tasks and the future ones.

The Kanban system was initially created for physical work environments, such as a car factory. However, today this system has been adapted for virtual environments where software, service or IT companies plan all their workloads to have better predictability and avoid possible delays. In this way, each employee has a more specific job that allows him to improve the quality of it and reduce errors.

How does it work?

This technique uses cards, categories and columns to drive continuous improvement for technology and service teams. In this way, the total amount of work is planned to accomplish the tasks in a given period of time. Currently, it is used in work methodologies such as Scrum and Agile.

According to David AndersenKanban boards have five components: visual images, columns, clear limits, commitment and delivery point. The three fundamental principles of this methodology are: visualize the workflow, limit the work in progress and make visible any potential delay in the process.

Some of the benefits of using the Kanban methodology are:

  1. Efficiency improvement: By making workflow visible, possible delays can be identified before they occur..
  2. Greater flexibility: by not having a set plan in advance, they can easily adapt to changes in the project.
  3. Continuous collaboration: By having an overview of the workflow, all team members can see the progress of the project and collaborate to complete it.
  4. Quality improvement: ​limiting work in progress makes this work become more efficient.
  5. Transparency: By visualizing the workflow, you can easily see the progress of the project and spot any issues.

This type of work methodology seeks the democratization of leadership, in order to quickly progress in each of our tasks, and making people feel autonomous. You must constantly focus on the needs and expectations of the client in order to manage the work and allow each employee to organize their work. Kanban methodology is used to improve efficiency, flexibility, collaboration, quality, and transparency in project management and resource management.

How to organize your board in Kanban?

1.Visualize the workflow

To visualize all the workflow, you must have a board with cards and columns. Each column represents the state in which a task is, therefore, to each one, you must assign the corresponding task with all the possible specifications and risks.

Remember that as a project progresses, the tasks will move between columns, which are usually ordered by the following categories:  assigned tasks, To do, In progress, Done

2. Limit work in progress

Kanban is oriented towards the early delivery of tasks that must be moved quickly in order not to stall the work process. In this way, it is possible to empty the “in progress” column by setting work limits so that managers focus on finishing individual tasks and do not accumulate many at the same time.

3. Manage the workflow

Managing the workflow makes it easy to control the time spent on each task. With this type of control, it is possible to reduce the delivery time of each task.

One of the goals of the Kanban board is to build a smooth workflow. Rather than focusing on the working hours of each employee, it focuses on the workflow and delivery time of each task.

4. Implement explicit process policies

The most important thing about this whole process is that the work team understands, assimilates and becomes familiar with it. For this reason, the work processes must be well defined and assigned, so that people see the benefits of this methodology and the objectives pursued by each project.

The requirement to implement policies in the work processes lies in the care of communication, so that everything advances in coherence.

5. Feedback loops

Within Kanban, it is essential to collect feedback from both the work team and customers. In the case of workers, asking questions about the work process and its completion can be projected as an opportunity to strengthen professional ties at all levels and gradually improve the dynamics.

Gathering customer feedback on the quality and effectiveness of the service produced by the team serves to recognize internal strengths and weaknesses that will allow us to do a better job in the future, enhancing strong points and improving weak ones.

6. Improve by collaborating and evolve by experimenting

Kanban suggests constant improvement and if it is linked with other project management tools. There are many management tools for Scrum and Agile methodologies.

One of them is Workdeck, which among its multiple integrated tools, offers the Kanban board. We invite you to discover the all-in-one platform to have your virtual office. Start your free trial and find out how to work with Kanban boards and much more!