Introducing QuickBase at BusinessWeek

When Isaac started at BusinessWeek as the VP of Technology in July of 2007, he first wanted to get a sense for how his teams were working. He asked what systems were being used to manage day to day work – specifically what information was being tracked and how projects were being prioritized. In response, Isaac received a myriad of answers, of which included several spreadsheets.

Some were complex, others were merely wish lists and few had good processes embedded. Immediately, Isaac knew the first thing he needed to do in order to move his team towards success was stop their spreadsheet dependence and really centralize where important data was being managed. In came QuickBase.

“I knew from past experience that QuickBase was a solution that both business users and more technical users in IT could really benefit from.”

Moving quickly away from the mess of spreadsheets, Isaac’s team started out with one of the project management templates. All projects and deliverables were entered into this application and managed from there. Next, he quickly put a process in place for managers to add weekly updates. All information quickly became centralized and easier to access.

As a rule of thumb, if someone is looking for a specialized workflow solution, Isaac suggests using QuickBase first. Whether it’s hiring management, budget tracking, meeting management, portfolio management – QuickBase database applications were used at BusinessWeek to solve a variety of business needs.

When I asked Isaac what he loved best about QuickBase two words came to mind for him: Transparency and Simplicity.

“With QuickBase you can take data or workflows buried on someone’s hard drive or in a set of emails and make it more visible. It all boils down to identifying ways to improve team productivity. Reducing the number of steps and streamlining process is all possible – a project status meeting that once took 60 minutes to review all projects – now takes half the time and only focuses on the projects that are highlighted in yellow or red on the QuickBase dashboard.”

As Isaac transitions to McGraw Hill, he’s planning on taking QuickBase with him once again.
Are you ‘One with QuickBase’ like Isaac? Tell us how you have taken QuickBase with you throughout your career.

Isaac writes a blog, Social, Agile and Transformation and you can follow him on Twitter @nyike.

Tip #4 – Maximize productivity while minimizing IT dependence
A desktop or custom project management solution requires IT assistance for installation, maintenance and support from both a time and hardware perspective. When you turn to your IT department (assuming you enjoy the privilege of having one) to provide you with a project management software tool, you add a burden to its schedule, delays to your implementation and an additional expense to your project.

Customizable SaaS project management solutions deliver the functionality you need without incurring new costs – in time and money – for installing software, adding new features or for maintenance and support.

For maximum efficiency and productivity, your project management software application should provide:

Convenience:
With the right application, your team can access project information over the Web, whenever and wherever they want. They can create and modify reports instantly without IT or developer assistance. And they can update their own task status, fast.

Customization:
Team members can easily change row and column names, create real-time reports, personalize their application dashboard to see just the project information they need, and more – all on the fly.

Speed:
Your project management software should enable you to collaborate right away, without installation or custom development delays or extensive training.

Scalability:
Teams are fluid groups of individuals that form, dissolve and re-form over time. Managing secure access and assigning varying levels of permission for each user should be simple enough for the application administrator (the person who can customize the application and access permission levels) to do without IT assistance. And adding users to the project management software should be as simple as sending an email.

Updates:
Every off-the-shelf software upgrade requires installation on each user’s machine – a time-consuming process. One of the major advantages of SaaS project management solutions is that upgrades are made automatically without imposing any work on you or your IT team.

Coming Tuesday, tip #5 – Automate recurring processes

How about you?
Has QuickBase helped you increase productivity and minimize dependence on IT?

Has QuickBase’s customizable dashboard feature helped your team members focus on the information that’s most important to them?

While commenting on a recent post of mine, one customer, Lou Brothers, shared how “using Dashboards and Notifications has really increased the quality and speed of [project] updates. Since everyone can see the information that pertains specifically to them they can focus on providing updates and ignore the ‘noise’ from everyone else.”