When our team was consulting for clients, had Gantt Chart software and I did use it ‘once’, okay maybe twice or three times. But I found it was too time cumbersome and really never used it after that. We paid $50 a month for years and just never used the software.
Don’t get me wrong Gantt Charts can be very useful, if you’re building a Freeway!
So what is my point exactly apart from bagging out Gantt Chart software? My point is that for most people and teams that need to manage and ‘do’ work, especially client work, Gantt Charts really don’t cut it and won’t achieve what you need. Gantt Charts can be well suited for planning and predicting future events and to visualise elements of a project such as resources but when it comes to actually ‘doing tasks’ and executing a project you need a tool to – get it done!
Managing teams, client, projects and tasks is about communication. It is about record keeping, knowing who is doing what now, what questions they have about the work and in some cases knowing who did what for whom in the past – in case you need to refer back it to.
Managing work is also about speed. Managers and staff need to be able to get their thoughts, ideas and questions into a system fast and they need it to be stored in a hierarchy that reflects their business. This is why Kitovu comes with the ‘Client’ object. Most businesses have clients and most consulting type businesses manage work for clients, so doesn’t it make sense to be able to assign your work to clients. Doesn’t it make sense to be able to see how many open tasks need to be done on a per client basis?
Simple and informative workflow is also key to this puzzle. If you are a manager and you ask someone to do some work for you, you want to know when the work has been ‘completed’, or at least when the task is completed – in the eyes of the assignee. This way you can check the work and mark it as done (closed) or send it back to the assignee (reopen) for further work to be done. This is why Kitovu notifies you when all the work you have delegated is marked as completed – all in one easy to see list.
Communication is key to effectively managing work and email is fine for some situations. But email can also be very limiting, very disorganised and very difficult to find things. Just think about the last tricky task you had, it might have involved lots of input from other people and or feedback and iterations from a client. How did you go with finding all of those emails (10, 20, 30, 40 plus…) when they were scattered all over your inbox or in different folders? I know from experience that can be a nightmare sometimes.
So if you don’t want to spend hours managing Gantt Charts and if email is not really working for you then what can you use to manage your team, clients, projects and tasks? Well if you want to make your workplace more productive and better organised we believe Kitovu is your best option and will provide major improvements for your organisation.
Kitovu is simple task management for teams and people to manage client work. This includes Freelancers, Agencies, Consultants, Contractors. Try it today and see how it can improve the management of work in your organisation.