Category: Productivity

April 27, 2023

Working with agile methodologies: Do you know Scrum?

Collaboration

Productivity

The Agile work methodology is an iterative and incremental approach to project management and software development. It was designed to help teams become more flexible and efficient, and to quickly adapt to changes in project requirements and customer needs. In this blog, we will tell you about this type of methodologies and we will describe the Scrum process.

The Agile methodology focuses on collaboration and communication between team members, rather than following a detailed and rigorous plan. Agile work teams are organized into sprints, which are short periods of time (usually 1-4 weeks) during which new project features or functionality are developed and delivered.

Some of the key principles of the Agile methodology are:

  • Close collaboration between team members and with project stakeholders (customers, users, etc.)
  • Continuous delivery of project functionalities, with special attention to the most important elements for the client
  • Adapting to changes in project requirements and environment, rather than following a fixed and rigid plan
  • Self-organization and empowerment of teams, allowing members to make decisions and assume responsibilities

Some of the most used agile methodologies are: SCRUM, Kanban, Lean Software Development, Design Sprint, Extreme Programming XP, Crystal, Dynamic Systems Development Method, Design Thinking, among others. In this blog, we focus in Scrum and will tell you everything you need to know about this methodology.

What is SCRUM?

Scrum is an agile framework used in software development and project management in general. It was developed to help teams work together more efficiently and effectively to achieve goals in a dynamic and changing environment.

Scrum is based on the concept of short, frequent iterations, called sprints, during which the work team focuses on creating a specific product or set of features. Each sprint has a predefined duration and begins with a planning meeting, in which the team determines what work will be done during that sprint.

During these sprints, the team has daily meetings to review progress and coordinate the work. At the end of the sprint, the completed work is presented and a retrospective is held to reflect on what was done well, what could be improved, and how it can be applied in the next sprint.

Scrum also uses a set of roles to help teams work more efficiently and effectively. These include the SCRUM Master, the Product Owner, and the Development Team.

How should the SCRUM methodology be applied to work with projects?

  1. The project is divided into short iterations called sprints, which typically last between 1 and 4 weeks.
  2. At the beginning of each sprint, the Scrum Team meets to set up the sprint goals and priorities. This meeting is called Sprint Planning.
  3. During the sprint, the team works on the tasks necessary to achieve the sprint goals. The team meets every day for about 15 minutes in a meeting called Daily Scrum to discuss the progress of the work and any issues that may appear.
  4. At the end of the sprint, the team meets in a meeting called Sprint Review to revise the results of the sprint and receive feedback from stakeholders.
  5. After the review meeting, the team meets in a meeting called Sprint Retrospective to evaluate the sprint and determine how they can improve their work going forward.
  6. Once the sprint is complete, the team prepares to start the next sprint, and the process starts all over again.

Scrum is a very effective project management methodology for development teams looking for a more agile and flexible way of working on complex projects. It encourages transparency, collaboration, and the consistent delivery of customer value, which can help improve product quality and increase customer satisfaction.

Workdeck is software that allows you to manage project work and is ideal for working with agile methodologies since each user has access to: a Kanban chart to be clear about their activities and tasks, a Gantt chart for project monitoring, and communication tools to be constantly interacting between teams.

We invite you to learn more about Workdeck by starting your free trial here!

March 20, 2023

How to be a good leader? 10 tips to lead your team to success

Collaboration

Productivity

Barcos de papel blanco y uno rojo al frente
Being a good leader is not the same as being a good boss. Although both roles are directly related, the leader guides his team through the use of soft skills that encourage teams to feel stimulated, motivated, with a sense of belonging, and therefore, more efficient. The leader is a figure that allows to improve the organizational culture and performance of the company, because, if the employees feel happy, listened to and with an inspiring reference, from the professional and the human aspects, success is assured. In this blog, we give you some tips to become the leader your team needs.

The figure of a good leader implies having skills and characteristics that allow you to guide, motivate and support a team to achieve goals and objectives. Effective leadership is not just about personal skills and characteristics, but also about learning to adapt and apply your knowledge and experience in all contexts. Here are some qualities that are often associated with a good leader:

  1. Inspiration and motivation: A good leader must be able to inspire and motivate his team to give the best of themselves. This involves setting clear goals, acknowledging team accomplishments, and providing constructive feedback.
  2. Clear and honest communication: It is important to be transparent with the team and clearly communicate the situation and the challenges that are being faced. It’s better to be honest from the start and address issues openly and transparently.
  3. Keep calm and perspective: It is important to keep calm and perspective during difficult times. It’s no use panicking or allowing stress and anxiety to take over. You must maintain a positive and focused mentality, always with the focus on the objectives.
  4. Set an example: As a leader, you must be a role model for the team. This means staying positive and showing how to face challenges with courage and resilience.
  5. Emotional support: In difficult times, it is important to be available to emotionally support your team. Listen to their concerns and fears, and try to provide support and encouragement to help them through challenges.
  6. Encourage collaboration: Instead of facing challenges alone, encourage collaboration and cooperation in the team. Working together can increase creativity, innovation and find solutions that might not have been possible otherwise.
  7. Planning and organization: During difficult times, it is important to have a plan and stay organized. This helps ensure that the team is focused on important goals and is working effectively toward them.
  8. Effective delegation: A good leader must be able to delegate tasks and responsibilities effectively, ensuring that each team member has the necessary skills and resources to do their job.
  9. Recognition and celebration of achievements: As the team overcomes challenges, it is important to recognize and celebrate achievements. This helps maintain team morale and increases motivation to keep working together to achieve goals.
  10. Adaptability: A good leader must be able to adapt to changes in the environment and in the organization. This involves being flexible and willing to change direction and goals as needed.

Leading correctly is an opportunity to grow and strengthen the team, and therefore, the company. Maintaining a positive attitude and working collaboratively are the keys to overcoming challenges. This is achieved not only with the development of soft skills and experience, but also with tools that help plan projects, organize work teams, and correctly distribute resources. Workdeck is a platform that can accompany this process, as it offers multiple functions such as:

  • Gantt diagram
  • Kanban board
  • Project, task and activity management
  • Calendar management
  • Purchases and expenses
  • Time control and timesheet management
  • Internal chat

If you don’t know Workdeck, we invite you to live the experience starting a free trial here

February 24, 2023

Gantt chart: an excellent tool to manage tasks

Collaboration

Productivity

Software Workdeck en notebook
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.

Plataforma Workdeck

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.

Sección trabajo de plataforma Workdeck

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.

Plataforma Workdeck

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

Mujer con notebook y celular
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!

 

January 23, 2023

9 benefits of working from home with your pet

Collaboration

Productivity

Technology

If you are a pet owner and work from home, this article is for you. We will tell you about the benefits of virtual work for you and your pet and we give you some tips so that you can organize your tasks and spend more quality time with your best friend.

One of the great changes that the COVID-19 pandemic brought was the migration to start working from virtual spaces. Since 2020, home office is a growing trend and it has proven that it provides important advantages for both companies and workers. We`ve already explained the positive aspects of remote work in “The Digital Workplace boom: A trend that is here to stay“, but now we want to talk about the benefits of working from home when you have a pet.

From the moment we decide to dedicate part of our lives to a pet, we know that it will bring with it a lot of joy to our houses. However, having a pet demands time that sometimes we lack due to the schedule that we carry between work and other things. Since companies began to establish home office as a modality, pet care not only became easier, but also gave way to multiple positive changes in the owner-pet relationship.

Working from home with a pet can have a lot of benefits for mental and physical health. For example:

  1. Stress reduction: Spending time with our pet is really comforting and helps reduce anxiety and stress. This can improve the ability to concentrate and increase productivity.
  2. Improved mental health: Physical contact with a pet can release oxytocin, a hormone associated with  well being and relaxation. This can help reduce stress and improve mental health.
  3. Improved physical health: Interacting with a pet can help improve physical health. Walking or playing with your pet can help improve physical condition and reduce the risk of inactivity-related diseases.
  4. Reduced loneliness: Working from home can be lonely, but having a pet around can provide company and reduce feelings of loneliness.
  5. Improved emotional well-being: Caring for a pet can help develop a sense of responsibility and grant a purpose in life that transcends the tangible.
  6. Greater flexibility: Working from home with a pet can provide a greater level of flexibility in terms of hours and the place of work. This helps reduce the problems that come from leaving your pet alone for long periods of time.
  7. Increased creativity: Spending time with a pet can help inspire new ideas and increase creativity. Animals can provide a fresh and different perspective on work problems and challenges.
  8. Improved productivity: Working from home with a pet can help establish a regular routine and schedule, which can improve productivity and efficiency.
  9. Enhanced Teamwork: While working from home with a pet can make you feel lonely, it can also help improve teamwork by enhancing communication and support among team members who are also working from home with pets. The similarities between peers facilitate a  fluid communication and more collaborations.

However, it is important to keep in mind that working remotely with our pets at home can present new challenges in addition to those that already exist on a day-to-day basis, such as distractions and organizational problems. A new dynamic must be adopted in terms of planning work and free time. Therefore, it is very important to establish a specific place of the house to work in which pets cannot access so as not to generate interruptions and establish clear limits during work time and breaks.

As we’ve mentioned before, it is proven that living with pets at home helps us to release large amounts of stress and by playing with them, we can forget about our problems and at the same time make them happy. Pets are very special members of the family since they are the ones who are with us at all times and always give us pure and unconditional love.

You have to be flexible, and willing to adapt to changes and find what works best for both of you. Walking your dog during meetings can be an efficient strategy to clear your head and have new and renewed ideas.. Also, with all the remote work tools that exist today, we can walk our pet and continue reading emails or answering chats.

It is important to be able to plan the work and have a routine in which you eat breakfast, walk the dog, have lunch and take breaks. It is useless to be working all day without taking breaks because you run the risk of burnout. You must take advantage of the planning tools of your company, so that each person manages their work and their times in the best way. Platforms like Workdeck offer a virtual workspace that facilitates organization and work performance.

In case your current company does not have this type of management tools, we invite you to discover Workdeck, a platform to have your virtual office and manage your projects, expenses, purchases and much more.

 

October 18, 2021

Workplaces are at an impasse: slide back to normal or proactively design new enduring work models

Productivity

Hombre con notebook y celular con paisaje de bosque
Pre-pandemic, digitalisation was already beginning to spark some shifts in how we work. The coronavirus (COVID-19) crisis accelerated this beyond anything we could have imagined, catalysing a global ‘working from home experiment’.

In the play out of this radical shift to remote working, numerous benefits have been reported. For example, a recent BCG’s “Workplace of the Future” survey cites 15-40% increases in productivity, 40% reductions in absenteeism, 10-15% reductions in staff turnover, 20% potential cost reductions in real estate and resource usage.

As we emerge from the pandemic and as society and workplaces return to normal, there is a window of opportunity to secure a competitive advantage by actually preventing a slide into a ‘return to normal’. Never before have we been at the threshold of such a golden moment to shape a work model that strikes a triple win for flexibility, productivity, and environmental sustainability; and this triple win all combined delivers resilience. Resilience is not just about getting through this crisis; it’s about being ready for whatever crisis might be around the corner. It’s about being built for minimizing the impacts of disruption, adapting quickly to change, and having the agility to pivot as needed. It’s about ‘prepared-by-design’.

To win in the new reality, business leaders need to be proactive and dedicate effort towards the process of designing their Future of Work strategy.

This could involve establishing the overall strategic position of the company in relation to the post-pandemic work model to be followed. Businesses should reflect on what they learned during the pandemic and integrate those lessons into their operating models and ways of working. There may be a valid decision for a full return to on-site operating models. A business may decide to officially continue with remote working. Or a business may opt for a hybrid working model.  According to a new McKinsey survey of 100 executives across industries and geographies in the post-pandemic future of work, 9 out of 10 organizations will be combining remote and on-site working. Such a hybrid approach could be the winning formula for competitive and agile companies going forward. Whatever the strategic position, it should be formulated. In the event that full remote or hybrid models are to be adopted, these should then be further defined in the specific organizational context of the company. Managers throughout the organization need to be engaged. A gap analysis needs to be performed in terms of management approaches, technology adoption and business processes to ensure that there is an operational readiness to thrive in the new model. Steps to bridge these gaps need to be planned. Finally, there needs to be a robust communication plan to the employees. Ideally, where feasible for the business, employees could even be brought in earlier in the process to cocreate or codesign the new work model.

The take home is that companies need to dedicate time and effort to reflect on their Future of Work Strategy. The opportunity cost of passively ‘returning to normal’ is too high.

January 26, 2021

Sustainable Digitisation: a digital strategy that can go the distance

Productivity

Personas remando
In 2020, amid the massive flurry of ‘going digital’ that was occurring across Europe (and indeed the world), The European DIGITAL SME Alliance- the largest network of the small and medium sized ICT enterprises in Europe, representing about 20,000 digital SMEs- proposed the coining of a new term: sustainable digitalisation.

Digital SME defined sustainable digitalisation (or sustainable digital transformation), as the ‘process of digitalising the economy in a long-lasting, green, and organic way by building on its key strength: innovative SMEs and their business ecosystems’ and with the long-term goal of strengthening European digital sovereignty.

We would like to bring our reflections to the concept of sustainable digitisation at the individual company level.

First of all, we would like to differentiate between digitisation of the running of the business (i.e. the internal operation of the business), versus digitisation of the business model (e.g. e-commerce, servicification, etc.). We strongly believe that the digital transformation of a business needs to occur from within. In the quest to design digital strategies for innovating their business models, companies should not overlook the digitisation of how they run their workplaces and their operations.

Secondly, while the word sustainability is increasingly associated with the environment and the Green movement, in its most generic sense, sustainability is the ‘ability to continue at the same level for a period of time’, i.e. the ability to go the distance at a continued pace. This is very important when we talk about workplace digital transformation. So let’s consider the massive wave of ‘digitisation’ that occurred as a result of the COVID-19 crisis, whereby overnight companies made the lightening move to adopt digital tools to ensure that they could keep their teams up and running in the new remote working scenario that was the consequence of lockdowns and restrictions. Is this sustainable digitisation? We certainly feel that it is the beginning of the wave: so most companies have finally gotten into the Digital race. But will they last the course? Well, The European DIGITAL SME Alliance themselves made a poignant observation when they said: ‘Companies, but also society as a whole, need to understand that ‘going digital’ does not stop with a Zoom subscription.’

We feel that a massive opportunity now exists for progressive companies to step off the track for a moment, to pull into the Pit Stop, and draw up an enduring digital strategy, that focusses first of all on using technology to improve business performance thanks to increased automation, optimisation and the ability to process internal workplace data and to convert it into actionable information and insights for fact-based decision making and planning, recommendations, and predictions. The digitisation of the processes that enable us to get work done ultimately give us a Workplace Advantage, and this is an ideal front- runner for moving on to define a strategy for creating new market and competitive advantages with technology and innovating our business models.

Just one final reflection on sustainability; another important aspect when we consider workplace digital transformation is that of worker ‘buy-in’, and company-wide, sustained use of the digital tools that are central to the transformation. It needs to be an ‘all-in’ approach; this is vital if we are shifting manual and offline processes on-line and if we are moving to a data-driven organisation. To really reap the power of ‘data-driven’, data needs to be complete and robust. Everybody needs to be using the tools systemically and systematically. Data holes lead to blind spots and distortions. For Digital to work its magic in enterprises, it needs to be, just that: sustainable.