Guest Blog Post

Adam Smith | March 17, 2015 | Leave a Comment

How Did Public Speaking Class Help Me to Be More Productive In Meetings? – Ott Jõgi

This is a guest post from Ott Jõgi. He is currently working as a Marketing Manager at a Start-up called Weekdone, an employee progress reporting platform. He is passionate about time saving hacks and productivity in everything he does. That’s why he is especially pleased that he has the chance to introduce managers across the continents smart ways to save time with innovative tools.

Try to imagine this. In the year of 2009 I was a 21-year-old Estonian exchange student in Georgia (US) and it is my first day at school. I had previously signed up for an Introduction to Communication Class thinking that this would be a good start for the year to ease into the world of communication. Sounds reasonable, right?

I was driving to school in my old red Chrysler Sebring that my host parents got me, windows down, music blasting and I was feeling like I was on the top of the world. I find the right classroom and sit down thinking, “Ok, Ott. This is going to be an awesome year and a great chance to practice my English and meet some new friends”. My thoughts were interrupted by the teacher who walked in head held high and said, “Welcome to the Public Speaking Class”. Wait….WHAT??!!!

“According to most studies, people’s number one fear is public speaking. Number two is death.” – Jerry Seinfeld

Adam Smith | July 24, 2014 | 2 Comments

Three “P’s” to Unleash the Power in Team Collaboration – Külli Koort

[box]This is a guest post from Külli Koort. She is the marketing director of Weekdone, a start-up that builds team collaboration and employee progress reporting tools based on popular management methodologies like PPP and OKR. You can connect with her and the Weekdone team on Twitter, Facebook and Google+. [/box]

If you lead a team, you probably have imagined or even observed teams that work together seamlessly, always smiling and bursting of excitement to be working together. These teams look something like this:

Yes, this is just an illustrative picture, but it doesn’t make our illusion any smaller. What’s important is that every team wishes to have this picture in real life. A team that is efficiently collaborating and enjoying each others’ companionship is one that thrives. In order to build great companies, we need to build great teams first. We need to find ways to manage our greatest resource, employees, in a respectful, but efficient way.

Have you ever wondered how Skype, eBay and Facebook manage to cope with big teams and even bigger objectives? They all have used a simple management technique for recurring status reporting called PPP (3Ps) – Progress, Plans and Problems. The goal of the PPP reports is to enhance team collaboration and bring everyone on the same page regarding what is going on in the team. Since the method itself is simple and flexible, it could be used in different industries and in various companies.

“It works great because it keeps everyone on the team informed.”

– Emi Gal, CEO of Brainient, on Progress, Plans and Problems

In general, each team member needs to report 4-5 achievements, goals and challenges from the reporting period. This period could be a quarter, month, week or even a day. For the maximum benefit, I recommend to report weekly, so the team and the team leader is constantly up to date with what gets done, what is planned and what causes troubles. This will speed up the learning process and give continual overview on how your team is achieving the defined goals.

What exactly stands behind each of these “P’s”?

Progress. This is all about the question, “What have you done?”. Whether it is in a week or in a month, it makes your team think about their achievements. Each team member needs to reflect on the past period and list key achievements that were accomplished. As a side effect, it will improve the reflection process, which in turn will help make better decisions in the future.

Plans. The question, “What are you going to do next?” is necessary to answer this. Think about the next reporting period and list the goals and objectives that need to be achieved. Hopefully, these are the same items that are going to move to progress in the end of the reporting period. Listing the key plans gives a great overview whether or not necessary steps are taken in order to come one step closer to the team or company objectives.

Problems. This answers to the question, “Are you facing any problems?”. Ideally, these are the items listed under the plans that the team member can’t finish. Instead of tackling these task alone or putting in long hours, it is more efficient to get help from someone else. Writing down problem areas will signal the whole team and prompt quick action towards solutions.

So, hop on the train and realize the full benefit of the PPP methodology. It is easy to implement and takes only a few minutes a week to carry out this process. You could use e-mail or a simple spreadsheet to make PPP work for you or use the online team collaboration tool, Weekdone, which compiles all of the information automatically.

Adam Smith | June 29, 2014 | 3 Comments

How To Maintain Office Relationships During Business Travel

[box] This is a guest post by Lucinda from DNS. She has a passion for helping small and medium sized businesses through offering advice and solutions. In particular she likes to focus on using new technology and software solutions to save businesses time and money and is a contributor to document network services limited. [/box]

It is often said in the business community that it is not necessarily what you know, but who you know. Whether you work in a small office or a massive cubicle farm with more than a hundred co-workers, this statement holds true. The more you connect with your co-workers and the more time you invest in relationship building with the people in your office, the greater your business success is likely to be. A simple thing such as saying hello to the people you share an elevator ride with every morning, and exchanging simple pleasantries on your way to the morning meeting will help you connect and improve relationships with your co-workers on a deeper level than a standard memo or email chain will allow.

Bringing the Relationship on the Road

While maintaining a strong work relationships with your business team may seem challenging when you are in the same office, it becomes even more challenging for those who work from home, travel regularly or have multiple offices that they work in. Business travelers are far more common than you may think.

Resourcefulness is a key when it comes to building and maintaining relationships with people you don’t see on a regular basis. Luckily, we live in an era filled with technological developments, which ensures that it is easier than ever to connect with your co-workers wherever you are in the world.

Here is the short list of the greatest tools for keeping in touch on the go:

Skype

In the world of web-cams and chat functions, Skype is pretty much old faithful. The great thing about Skype is that it is free on a basic level, but for a small fee can be converted into a really versatile and reliable tool. You can access Skype on a regular phone, a mobile phone or via the internet. The ability to chat face-to-face with someone enhances the conversation by allowing for meaningful looks and eye-contact, both of which are essential for camaraderie and togetherness at the office.

Google Hangouts

This tool offers similar functions to Skype, but is often preferred over its predecessor simply because of how well Google has integrated the service into already commonly relied on Google products. In fact, this is just one of the Google products to make this short list of helpful tools to keep in touch! Google Hangouts allows you to hold a regular conversation via chat, but also has the option of turning it into a quick video chat should the conversation need that.

Google Drive

There is nothing better for building a strong office relationship than a feeling of camaraderie and productiveness that comes from effective collaboration. Google Drive is an online document management system which gives Google account holders of your choice access to it. Multiple users can have a document, spreadsheet or presentation open at once and everyone can do their part to add, edit and make changes as you please.

What’s best is the function that allows other users to actually see where your cursor is so that you can coordinate your editing efforts. Couple this with Google Hangouts and you will forget that you aren’t working in the same office. There are a variety of alternative online document share programs available for those who do not have a Google account.

While these tools will help you stay productive with your team, they won’t do all of the work for you. There are a few healthy practices that are good to follow when you are traveling, working from home, or collaborating with a team from a different office location.

Business Travel Top Tips to Maintain Office Relationships

Check in regularly to update your team on your whereabouts and check for any issues that the team is facing back home.

Always collaborate with your team back home and avoid making decisions without consulting your team.

Make yourself available using the programs and software listed above, either regularly during the day or at certain hours (this should be agreed on before traveling), so that your co-workers don’t feel alienated.

If possible, split the burden of traveling to allow another teammate benefiting from the experience and/or training. This shows a willingness to share and collaborate and will most certainly improve the atmosphere in the office.

Don’t micromanage from the plane! Trust your team to take care of business and set regular times at which you will be checking in so that everyone feels trusted, and business can carry on as usual. All-in-all, it is essential to be collaborative and get your teammates as involved as possible. We do agree that it can sometimes be difficult, especially if you like things being done in a certain way, and even more if you are a perfectionist.

Just a few changes in your attitude and actions will change the atmosphere in the office and make it into a more pleasant place to work.