And bzzzt… it’s coming up to 6 years?! What an extraordinary journey it’s been. We’re thrilled by the amount of support and engagement we’ve received so far. We know we are just at the beginning and are just as curious about the future of information technology as before. 

Since the launch of Zenkit Base in October 2016, we have released a variety of other productivity apps fundamental to the development of the Zenkit Suite. With our latest release of Projects, suited for multi-project management, we’re geared up for plenty of enterprise trips to Mars. 

But before embarking on any trips or upgrading products with another toolkit, here are some snippets from the diverse online publications that have featured Zenkit over the years: 

Zenkit Base

“I want to point out what I love most about Zenkit: the fact that you can visualize your tasks in a variety of helpful ways. I love the flexibility that it gives me with respect to how I can view my data. For former Trello fans, I can think of no better alternative.” – The Next Web

“Zenkit isn’t the first project management solution to enter the market, but it could be the most beautifully simple one to date… With Zenkit, you can manage anything you’re working on with unlimited collections… Zenkit also offers real-time collaborative tools, which allow you to keep an eye on a project, regardless of your location.” – App Advice

“Some tools force you to adapt to their features. Zenkit does the opposite. With its highly customizable modules, you get to forge the tools exactly the way you need them to be. So personalize your calendar and inbox to improve performance. Use to-do-lists, kanban boards, and labels to optimize your workflow. Configure activity tracking and notification to keep you primed not only to meet deadlines and budgets but to surpass expectations — even your own.” – Go Skills

“Zenkit… helps users manage tasks, allocate resources, and budget effectively during the project life cycle. The solution facilitates communication and collaboration for team members and improves productivity.” – GetApp Lab

“You can create your own Apps via Collections and visualize data using List, Kanban, Table, Calendar and Mind Map views. Zenkit is fast and easy to use.” – Hackernoon

“A simple yet powerful project management tool” – Webbiquity

“Zenkit is a project management platform where users can choose the way they like to work… Users are able to use the best tool for the task at hand.” – Alternativoj

“This to-do list manager is easy-to-use clutter-free and yet feature-rich. It also includes nice mind-mapping and collaboration features.” – Search Engine Watch

“[Zenkit] provides different tools for different teams to fulfill their overall business needs. Whether it’s project management, CRM, support or any other business solution, Zenkit caters all.” – nTask

“Zenkit – Interview with the developer of a fantastic app.” – App of the Day

“Zenkit is the app which is aimed to make teamwork as feasible as possible for project managers and their teams” – App Pearl / Android Apps for Me

“…all those principles of work make Zenkit great organization and collaboration software, and even people who aren’t friendly with technologies will handle this app.” – Free Apps for Me

Zenkit To Do

“Zenkit To Do is a beautiful and feature-rich simple task management application for individuals, small businesses, and enterprise-class organizations. It enables users to focus on day-to-day tasks based on priority and using smart lists… And because Zenkit To Do is part of the Zenkit family, users can enjoy all of the deeply integrated products from a single data platform. [The Zenkit Suite] is an all-in-one solution for collaboration and project management best known for its flexibility and ability to fit any workflow.” – FOSS Mint

“Zenkit is a Kanban board, a mind map, a to-do list, a spreadsheet, and a calendar. Confused? It’s perhaps better to think of Zenkit as a database of things that you can view and organize in all those ways. That is the flexible power that the service offers… but if you find yourself always switching between one type of to-do list to another, then Zenkit is pretty [much] your only option.” – Slash Gear

Zenchat

“Zenchat aims to simplify chat and task management for remote teams. Zenchat was created to address the problem that most enterprise teams are facing in 2020: remote work is actually really hard to pull off successfully.” – 9TO5MAC

“Zenchat is a chat app mixed with a to-do list app. It basically merges the two into a single idea. Any message can become a task with a due date, reminders, notes, and whatever else you need.” – Android Authority

“Amid the pandemic or any other state of emergency, apps of such nature have become a necessary part of an online office suite. In Zenchat, the users can easily transform any message into a task, and they can assign or edit it within the chat… Zenchat is minimizing the redundancy issues and subsequently enhancing the productivity for collaborative projects.” – Tech Engage

“Forget sticky notes, texting, and in-person requests, time to move on to the next-gen of messaging with Zenchat, Superstar of the day. From direct messages to group conversations, Zenchat is one of the best applications in space that brings team chatting and task management app together.” – Mobile App Daily

“We highly recommend you to try this app out and see how it will improve your business communication.” – AppPearl

“…its built-in chat feature allows focusing on the project only, escaping the mess of switching between messengers and apps during project discussion – and therefore, significantly boost the productivity of the team.” – Android Apps for Me

Zenkit Hypernotes

“Hypernotes addresses [the] need for intuitive knowledge management in distributed teams. Hypernotes achieves this lofty goal (increase “read:write” ratio) with a number of features that have become the gold standard for personal and organizational knowledge management in recent years” – Mac Sources

“Zenkit’s new Hypernotes app is like Notion for businesses.” – Mobile Syrup

“Hypernotes uses a connective model to link your notes into relevant categories so all of your reference materials are available at a glance, as well as the interdependent web between them. It was created for large organizations to do their project management, but that means it’ll work just as well for your individual needs.” – KnowTechie

Zenkit Projects

“Projects provide teams and workplaces with a complete set of features that help manage and save time, meet deadlines, and delegate and track tasks to stay on schedule with projects.” – 9TO5MAC

“Perfect team management and smooth multitasking are almost like superpowers. And a great project management app for iOS, like ZenKit Projects, can help you achieve that.” – igeeksblog

Zenforms

“Zenforms is new and a powerful way to improve your business’s feedback. You can use the Zenforms online form builder with database for personal or professional use.” – mostlyblogging

“While several platforms help create forms, a few offer a rich feature set alongside working with multiple people on a certain project seamlessly. That’s where Zenforms comes in and sweeps you off your feet.” – igeeksblog

“Until now, as with other special tasks, it was mainly necessary to resort to products from US companies that are problematic under data protection law. That will change with Zenforms.” – ebblogs

“The app conforms to GDPR standards and integrates into Zenkit’s existing suite the same way Google Forms integrates into Google Drive.” – Android Authority

Foreign Language Press

“Zenkit ist die perfekte Wahl für Unternehmen, die ein benutzerfreundliches und attraktiv gestaltetes Tool für einfaches Team- und Aufgabenmanagement suchen und nicht an umfassenderen Projektmanagementfunktionen wie Zeiterfassung oder Budgetierung interessiert sind.” – Capterra

“Zenkit’i herhangi bir proje için kullanabilirsiniz! Projenizin mutlaka bir yazılım projesi olması gerekmiyor. En karışık projelerinizde veya en basit projelerinizde dahi Zenkit’i kullanabilirsiniz. Örneğin, bir yemek daveti verecekseniz dahi Zenkit’i kullanabilirsiniz.” – startupnedir

“Au-delà de son positionnement d’alternative à Trello, Zenkit devient une robuste solution de gestion de projets en équipe. Les modèles permettent de démarrer rapidement avec des structures efficaces. Et l’intégration avec Zapier ouvre des horizons énormes vers votre écosystème applicatif.” – Outilsnum

Image from AbsolutVision on Unsplash

The post The Zenkit Suite in the Press appeared first on Zenkit.

During the first months of studying at University, I often asked myself whether I should find a part-time job in Karlsruhe, the city where I am studying. I constantly drove back to Ulm, where I’m from, to work at my old mini-job, which made adjusting in Karlsruhe complex. However, this was to change with my new working student job.

I began my search by writing down a few criteria, points, and questions that were the most important to me. Is the workplace easily accessible via public transport? Is the working atmosphere hierarchical or more familiar? Would I learn skills at this job needed for my future? Does the employer allow me to work from home, since I travel home often? Am I able to improve my English language skills at this job? 

I applied for various jobs that fit my criteria. Then came the first invitation from Zenkit.

Due to the circumstances of the pandemic, I had a telephone interview. This was challenging to me since my previous interviews were always conducted face-to-face, and I couldn’t gauge how to leave a lasting impression via telephone interview. 

Despite the circumstances, I was soon notified that I had received the job. Following that, I received very good onboarding in my area of responsibility, my tasks, and to the team in general. I have now been working at Zenkit in the Customer Service department for almost two years.

In my job I help and advise interested parties and customers with all product inquiries. I try to process and solve customer problems independently as best I can. In this way, our users are always informed and can carry out their work with our products in the best possible way.

By working in customer service, I was able to expand my knowledge and skills in the area of customer service and customer contact. Since I have many inquiries in English, I was also able to expand my vocabulary in the area of technical and business English.

In addition to my regular tasks and duties, I maintain the Reddit page for Zenkit. There I advise, help, and discuss with customers and other Reddit users who are interested in Zenkit.

Since I work at home and remotely most of the time, I can’t tell you much about working in the office. However, sometimes there is cake, for which, of course, I make an exception to my usual routine and come to work at the office. Even though I’m not in the office that much, I enjoy the camaraderie-feel when working in the small community at Zenkit. Everyone is friendly, always courteous, and helpful.

Does the work help me with my studies? Yes, it does. The insight into IT and, to some extent, business activities, are very relevant both in my degree program and outside my studies.

Personally, I am happy with my choice. The fact that Zenkit has more of a startup atmosphere makes it more pleasant and direct in my opinion. This makes it easier for me as a working student to take a step into the working world.

If you’re interested in working at Zenkit, we’ve got spots open! Send an email to jobs@zenkit.com for more info

The post Internship Insight: Customer Service appeared first on Zenkit.

As a growing company, we’re always on the lookout for talent. With plenty of room to gain hands-on work experience, our door is open to students and graduates alike. To give you a glimpse of the variety of jobs needed to make your favorite project management tool sparkle, we had a chat with our product management intern on his experience working at Zenkit.

Name: Alex

Role: Product Management (Hypernotes)

Explain what a product manager is. What kind of tasks do product managers typically handle?
As a product manager you are the contact person between the product and the different departments in the company. I mainly focused on online marketing and PR tasks during my internship, but the beauty of product management in combination with a small company is that you will get a look into a lot of different areas.

Tell us one thing you found challenging during your internship.
I was working on various tasks from day one. Within the first month, I was responsible for various projects. For example, creating and handling the social media accounts for Hypernotes.

Tell us at least two things you have learned while working at Zenkit.

1. 1. How to effectively handle online marketing strategies without spending a ton of money on ads.
   2. How the release of a new product is handled internally.

What brought you to this role?
I was searching for internship opportunities and uploaded my resume to the website Cyberforum. Zenkit reached out and scouted me for the position.  

When you’re not working, what are you doing?
Different things: Playing online games with friends, following Esports leagues, and enjoying time with the family.

If you could have one superpower, what would it be?
Teleportation, because walking is boring.

What is your next step?
Finishing my bachelor’s degree. I start writing my thesis next semester.

Cheers, Alex. We wish you all the best!

If you’re interested in working on Zenkit, we’ve got spots open! Send an email to jobs@zenkit.com for more info

The post Internship Insight: Q&A with Alex appeared first on Zenkit.

The Japanese manufacturing industry is renowned for its methods of process improvement. It introduced us to methods such as Kanban and Lean. Another approach that’s proven to be popular amongst businesses that want to improve how they operate is Kaizen.

In this article, we’ll discuss what Kaizen is, and how it can steer your business towards continuous improvement.

What Is Kaizen?

Kaizen is an approach that encourages an entire company to work together to achieve continuous improvement. It believes that change happens iteratively instead of in big, drastic moments. 

Contrary to popular belief, the word itself does not mean “continuous improvement”. Continuous improvement is actually a result of Kaizen. A better translation would probably be “change for the better” as it advocates making a change that has an effect instead of change for change’s sake.

The History of Kaizen

The concept of Kaizen was developed in the Japanese manufacturing industry after World War II. Although many companies implemented this approach to their businesses, it was at Toyota that this way of working really stood out.

The Toyota Production System (TPS), the very system that brought us Lean manufacturing, highlights Kaizen as one of its main principles. TPS is a set of management practices and philosophies developed by the car manufacturer that stresses continuous improvement in quality, technology, processes, company culture, productivity, safety, and leadership.

Kaizen’s aim is to improve standardized processes so as to eliminate waste. By eliminating waste, not only can you achieve a more efficient workflow, but also reduce costs and enhance customer value.

In 1986, Masaaki Imai, an organizational theorist and management consultant, introduced and popularized Kaizen to the Western world. Both through his book, “Kaizen: The Key to Japan’s Competitive Success” and the consulting institute he founded called Kaizen Institute Consulting Group (KICG), Imai familiarized companies outside of Japan with the concepts, systems, and tools of Kaizen.

Key Elements of Kaizen

According to the KAIZEN Institute, there are five fundamental principles of Kaizen. They are:

1. Know your customer: this is about establishing customer value so you can give them an improved experience.
2. Let it flow: the primary aim of everyone in your company should be to eliminate waste. 
3. Go to Gemba: “Gemba” translates to “the actual place” and this principle highlights that value is created only when things actually happen.
4. Empower people: this is self-explanatory, you need to provide the right resources to your team so they can succeed.
5. Be transparent: you need concrete evidence to demonstrate performance and improvements.

   

As previously mentioned, a result of Kaizen is continuous improvement. By introducing your company to the concept of Kaizen and taking on board its principles and values, it can steer them towards adopting the approach of continuous improvement in their day-to-day operations.

Understanding the Benefits of Continuous Improvement

Developing a culture of continuous improvement can be beneficial. Here are some examples of how it can help your business operate on a higher level:

1. Customer Satisfaction

As one of the key elements of Kaizen, knowing your customer can lead to providing them with a better experience. The nature of continuous improvement challenges workers to always look for ways to enhance their workflows. This can result in better product alignment which helps to better recognize customer values.

2. Better Engagement

Customers aren’t the only ones who benefit from a continuous improvement culture, businesses themselves will find that it can also engage employees better. The basis of continuous improvement encourages all workers to identify flaws in processes and assess how to make it better, and if successful, share and implement it throughout the entire company. This can motivate workers to engage more in what they’re doing and create a culture of proactive learning.

3. Improved Efficiency

It comes as no surprise that incremental improvements can add up to improved efficiency. Not only will processes become more streamlined, but it can enhance the distribution of resources and reduce costs. If one of your primary objectives is to eliminate waste, your production costs can go down as well. Waste in processes is costly, and even the smallest of improvements can influence the overall cost of a business.

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Creating a Culture of Continuous Improvement

There are various ways you can create a culture of continuous improvement. Here are some of the more common ways of implementing it as according to the Kaizen concept:

1. PDCA

PDCA stands for Plan → Do → Check → Act and it is a method used in business to spur continuous improvement of processes and products. Also known as the Deming circle or the Shewhart cycle, it follows a sequential order of stages which are:

• Plan: Set up goals and requirements that can deliver the desired outcome.
• Do: Carry out what was outlined in the planning phase and collate data to see whether the change has made an impact.
• Check: Evaluate the data that was collected from the do phase and make changes or improvements to the process accordingly.
• Act: Take measures to improve the process.

2. 5 Whys

5 Whys is a problem-solving technique that gets to the root cause by asking the question “why?” five times. It proposes that by asking the question five times, you can get to the solution of your problem and it should ideally direct you to a process.

Here’s an example of how it works. The problem: There is no coffee available in the office.

1. Why? → Because the coffee machine is not working.
2. Why? → Because it hasn’t been properly maintained.
3. Why? → Because the person who usually does it is on vacation so no one has been doing it.
4. Why? → Because a replacement person was never allocated.
5. Why? → Because the person in charge forgot to allocate a replacement.

Here we found out that the root cause was because managers forgot to assign a replacement for a vacationing employee. To avoid future mishaps in this area, we now know to ensure that there should always be someone responsible for the maintenance of the coffee machine.

3. Kaizen Event

A Kaizen event, also known as a Kaizen blitz or Kaizen burst, is a workshop-like event that focuses on process improvement. Often facilitated by someone in the implementation team, it includes training, analysis, and design of an area of business that requires enhancement. An event can take up to 10 days and tools such as process mapping are involved.

While these one-off events can be beneficial, it should be noted that they should only be part of an overall continuous improvement strategy for true effectiveness.

Final Thoughts

Even if your business is doing well, there’s always room for improvement. One of the biggest gains of continuous improvement is that it can achieve a huge change over time. But it doesn’t come easily. Whichever method your business decides to implement, remember that it takes time, practice, and consistency for it to have a true effect.

Does your business practice continuous improvement? If so, let us know which method you use!

Cheers,

Dinnie and the Zenkit Team

The post A Culture of Continuous Improvement with Kaizen appeared first on Zenkit.

Briefly explain who you are and what you do

I’m a productivity blogger and virtual consultant. I grew this business “on the side” while working full-time and now consult to companies all around the world helping them with tools like Asana, Pipedrive and Zapier. I also sell a few of my own courses and my website now receives over 100,000+ visits per month.

You earn a living by helping people be more productive, what inspired you to get into this field?

I’ve always been passionate about productivity ever since I was at school. For me, productivity is a vehicle to get more out of life, not just at work but in everything that you do. I love helping others to be more productive so we can live our best lives and achieve great things.

You’ve managed to turn your side-hustle into your full time job, what are your top tips for people out there trying to achieve the same?

Be patient and persistent. For me, it took a few years of learning and figuring things out. A lot of people give up too quickly because it’s hard or because you can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel. Stick at it, work hard and keep trying new things and I guarantee you will find the success you’re looking for.

When you’re not busy blogging and consulting, what can we find you doing?

CrossFit! My wife and I love keeping fit and we’ve made some amazing friends at our local gym.

What trends in productivity do you see happening in the next few years?

More automation. Tools like Zapier make it easier than ever to automate processes and I only see this trend continuing. It will also be interesting to see how AI starts to play a role and do more of our work for us. I’d love to have my own Iron Man style Jarvis assistant one day but I think this is still pretty far away.

Interested in learning more? Go to PaulMinors.com to discover more on how to be effective with your time and how to optimize your workflows.

Alternatively, you can find further tips and insight on productivity on our very own blog! We also cover topics such as task management, team collaboration, and project management methodologies.

Who would you like to see interviewed next? Share your suggestions in the comment section and we’ll try our very best to get them on here!

Cheers,

Dinnie and the Zenkit Team

The post Productivity Pros: An Interview with Paul Minors appeared first on Zenkit.

As you may have already heard, Wunderlist is due to shut down on the 6th of May, 2020.

What’s significant about this shutdown—compared to other app shutdowns—is that Wunderlist’s discontinuation isn’t because of a decline in sales or poor user count. It had 13 million users and more than 1 billion to-dos at the time of the acquisition.

The popular list and task management app was acquired by Microsoft in 2015 and while many were hoping that the tech giant would somehow incorporate Wunderlist into their Office repertoire, it seems that after years of a “will they? Won’t they” scenario, they’ve decided to shut it down.

I get it, if I were a tech heavyweight with lots of cash and wanted to eliminate the competition, I’d have done just the same. And if I were a startup who created a product so successful that someone was willing to give me literal millions for it, I’d also have done what the Wunderlist founders did. After all, for some, the point of creating a startup is to eventually have the product or service sold for squillions, is it not?

While the acquisition was a happy day for the Wunderlist team, it was a sad day for many to-do list enthusiasts, as those who were familiar with Microsoft’s habit of buying small successful products and then discontinuing them feared that Wunderlist would suffer the same fate. And they were right.

So, to honour one of the most successful apps to come out of Germany, let’s take a look at how it all began and how it came to be.

The History of Wunderlist

“We launched it and literally had overnight success with it,” said 6Wunderkinder CEO Christian Reber on Wunderlist’s initial release. “We grew faster than we ever dreamed of and from then on, it became a serious product.” (source: Tech.eu)

Wunderlist was created in 2011 by Berlin-based startup 6Wunderkinder, fronted by founder and CEO, Christian Reber. The idea for the task management app came from the desire to “reinvent project management”.

You see, Wunderlist wasn’t what the six “wonder kids” (rough translation of the company name) first sought to create. What they wanted to develop was an all-in-one productivity app which merged workplaces, notes, profiles, and other collaborative tools to help with efficient teamwork. That app was Wunderkit.

During Wunderkit’s development, Reber realized that it was going to be a while until a fully-fledged app would be available. So, in the meantime, they released Wunderlist, the to-do list part of the all-in-one app, to keep customers interested.

And interested they were. Wunderlist turned into an overnight success. It took the app only nine months and two days to reach one million users! (For comparison, that’s a faster initial growth rate than huge companies like Twitter and Foursquare.)

The success can be attributed to the app’s simplicity and cloud-based flexibility. It is essentially a to-do list app that allows you to keep a record of your tasks, but its cross-platform and sharing features make it an excellent tool for collaboration.

Once Wunderkit was released in 2012, the young startup found it difficult to balance the two products. Later that year, Reber made the difficult decision to cease the development of Wunderkit so they could focus solely on Wunderlist.

“We were lost in perpetual discussions about how features should work and what they should look like. Unfortunately, we were never fully satisfied with the result. That was when we understood we had to make a decision, it’s either the one or the other. Either we focus on Wunderkit or Wunderlist — both would be too much of a challenge. In the end, the decision was pretty obvious, but it was still hard to make.” – Christian Reber

The decision wasn’t made in vain, as Wunderlist went on to enjoy many accolades including App of the Year in 2013 for their Mac app and Google Play’s Best Apps of 2014. Then, in 2015, it was acquired by Microsoft for a rumoured $100 million to $200 million.

The Journey to Microsoft To Do

If you’re a Wunderlist user, you’d know that the journey to Microsoft To Do hasn’t exactly been smooth sailing. Microsoft planned to take the best features of Wunderlist and implement them into their very own list app called Microsoft To Do. But due to technical complications experienced during the transition, Wunderlist remained available online while Microsoft was getting itself together.

A lot of the issues were due to technical porting challenges. As Reber explained, “Wunderlist’s API runs on Amazon Web Services, and should then be ported to Azure. But that was extremely time-consuming, so everything had to be rewritten.”

There was a lot of uncertainty surrounding the future of Wunderlist. While it was known that Microsoft would eventually retire it, an official date or announcement hadn’t been made, and the bumpy transition into Microsoft To Do left users very disheartened. It even reached a point where Reber offered to buy the app back to keep it running.

Considering Microsoft’s reputation for buying successful apps and then discontinuing them, fans and commentators said that Reber should have foreseen the fate of Wunderlist once he accepted their offer.

Since the official Wunderlist shutdown date was announced in December, new users are unable to register for an account. Existing users, however, will be able to work on the web, desktop, and mobile platforms until the 6th of May, 2020. What access users have after then is still unclear, but the apps will no longer sync across platforms. This signals Microsoft’s seriousness in discontinuing the beloved task management app.

Wunderlist’s Impact

At the time of its launch, Wunderlist was a hit with many users. In comparison to what was on offer on the market, it had an intuitive interface and a collection of impressive features. The list-sharing feature, especially, was a favourite. It turned the app into more than just a to-do list, but a tool for collaboration. Since then, many apps have followed suit and the collaborative productivity software market is still on the rise.

The success of Wunderlist didn’t just affect the productivity software market, but it also placed Berlin on the map as a credible place for starting a successful international business. 6Wunderkinder was the first Berlin startup to raise funding from Sequoia in California. Now, if you go to Berlin, you’ll find that there’s no room to swing a cat without knocking over someone who works for a startup.

Final Thoughts

Wunderlist’s story is inspiring, especially for German startups trying to make their mark (hi ). Perhaps the best thing about it is that Reber and the wonder kids didn’t try to recreate the wheel, but instead, gave customers what they wanted. They took an everyday tool and made it better. And in thinking about what customers wanted, they took their dream of “reinventing project management” and turned it into a multi-million dollar product that will be missed by many.

Cheers,

Dinnie and the Zenkit team

The post What Happened to Wunderlist? appeared first on Zenkit.

This blog post was written by a Zenkit partner. If you have an app that you think would make a great integration with Zenkit, get in touch with our partnerships team.

Why Dashboards?

A dashboard is a business intelligence tool (BI) that allows you to connect, aggregate, and visualize your data. One of the most valuable properties of a dashboard is its ability to build indicators based on how you want to aggregate your data. You can dig deep into your data and turn it into actionable insights, whether it’s for your project team or for your stakeholders. 

The best dashboards use data visualization indicators that keep users engaged, informs them quickly, and provide the metrics they’re seeking.

Pictures Tell the Story Best

Data visualization graphics and indicators offer ways to present data in picture, graphic, or infographic form. Transforming raw data into easy-to-understand graphical representations helps you see patterns in your data you wouldn’t otherwise see. They help you connect the dots from one metric to the next so you can make more-informed, more accurate, and more effective business decisions.

Of course, data visualization isn’t a new concept. It has been around since someone sketched the first pie chart in the 1800s. If you consider the maps that have helped us navigate the world, data visualization has been around for a very long time. 

But with the invention of the computer and the development of its profound ability to crunch large volumes of data, data visualization has become absolutely essential to make complex data easier to grasp, its trends more accessible, and its insights more valuable. From pie charts and bar charts to gauges, graphs, and pivot tables, visuals can deliver the bottom line of the data instantaneously.

Best Practices to Get Started with Dashboards

Here are the principles behind building the most effective dashboards:

1. Know your audience

There’s simply no point in spending time creating a dashboard if no one uses it. It’s critical to the success of your dashboard project to start with a conversation with your audience to set clear goals and define requirements: 

• What questions do you want to answer?
• Who is going to use the dashboard?
• How much experience do your users have with the presented KPIs?
• What result do you want to achieve with this project?
  • Make better decisions?
  • Increase awareness?
  • Responding to opportunities that are otherwise missed?

2. Don’t overdo the KPIs

The human brain is a wonder, but it has its limits, especially when it comes to processing data. We can only process four information chunks at the same time, according to the data visualization expert, Stephen Few. For that reason, too many indicators on the same dashboard will sabotage the very purpose of the dashboard—to get a clear understanding of project status, for example, or to monitor productivity. Bottom line: Limit the number of indicators to 10 or fewer per dashboard to maximize your results.

3. Explain the indicators

It is sometimes very valuable to add text to your dashboards—beyond the legends below the charts—to make things crystal clear for your users. Text can improve everyone’s understanding of your dashboard, for example:

• A glossary of indicators on the dashboard 
• A formula or description of how they’re calculated 
• Contextual help for certain graphics, for instance, describing where the data comes from, the period of time they’re looking at, or the filters that have been applied to the data can help users understand exactly what they’re looking at.
• Data refresh date. Help your users quickly see if they need to refresh the data in order to make reliable decisions based on it.

Project Management and Productivity Tracking

Let’s say you want to track your project status and team productivity in a single dashboard, you’d need to import data from a project management tool such as Zenkit and data from your time tracking tool to your BI tool.

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The dashboard categorizes your data by the department to identify overload or underutilization of resources. You can compare goals against achievements to identify if your projects and workers are on course to meet their targets and how efficiently they’re getting there. 

Project Resources and Costs Tracking

Now, let’s say you want to monitor your project status and costs. Here’s an example of a dashboard that lets project managers track monetary and resource budgets.

Data visualization indicators offer insight into the quickly and intuitively. They help people quickly compare actual performance metrics against pre-defined goals and compare demand and capacity over the timeline of a project. Gauge indicators provide clear and concise visualization of a metric’s progress to an endpoint. 

Collaborate Better with Online Dashboards

Accessible by anyone you choose, anytime

Cloud-based tools have proven themselves to be easier to use in both our personal and professional lives. Dashboards are no exception to this rule. 

When your dashboards are available online, important data and insights no longer need to be pushed by the product manager to the team or stakeholders during meetings, calls or conference calls.  You can distribute them to whom you want, when you want. Display them on your office television screen, check them on your browser, via a link or on your mobile, via an app, or even embed them into your own application. 

Online dashboards make it possible for everyone to check in on the data whenever they need to. They can prepare action plans, questions, or remarks for the following meetings. With everyone empowered and informed, project teams are more efficient.

Real-time data reporting and faster decision-making

When a dashboard tool is automated, it saves everyone in project management precious time. Start by setting data refreshes at the frequency that works best for you. Don’t spend any more time extracting data, creating static charts for PowerPoint decks, or doing manual data management in Excel. Besides, Excel is error prone and can cost you big time!

By connecting your dashboard tool directly to your data sources, you can automate data refreshes. You’ll never have to care about exporting the data, the version of the data, conflicted files, or errors in formulas again.

Automation will also help to keep you instantly informed whenever a critical threshold has been reached. You can set customized alerts for project spending, deadlines, resource benchmarks, underuse or overuse, etc. Stay informed like never before.

Getting Started with Zenkit and ClicData

If you don’t have an account with Zenkit or ClicData, you can sign up for free trials for both applications today. 

To get started with Zenkit, you can watch a short tutorial here.

Create your collection and add tasks to your to-do list, as in the example below:

In ClicData, create a data connection with Zenkit using our WebService connector. You will be able to select which data from Zenkit that you want to import to build your dashboard. 

Then, set up your data refreshes using the Schedule features.

Repeat these steps with any other data sources you want to incorporate into your dashboards.

Here’s a quick tutorial to get started on ClicData. 

In conclusion, the data visualization capabilities of great business intelligence dashboards give you and your team the ability to leverage the insights your data offers you. ClicData lets you combine data from multiple data sources into a seamless data warehouse, so you get the big picture like never before. With your Zenkit data, you can deepen, enhance, and streamline your project tracking and market reporting all at the same time. You’ll wonder why you didn’t get started sooner!

Guest author: Axelle Seifert is a Marketing Manager at ClicData where her job is to make sure every team makes smarter and data-driven decisions with their fully automated Business Intelligence platform.

The post Project Tracking and Business Intelligence Dashboards appeared first on Zenkit.

Welcome to 2020!

Not only is it a new year, but it’s an entirely new decade. With new beginnings, there’s always a desire for a fresh start. That’s why New Year’s resolutions are so popular among the masses.

However, New Year’s resolutions are a fickle topic. While making them isn’t an issue, it’s the whole “sticking to them” part that gets a bit tricky. We’re only midway through January and it would come as no surprise if more than half of your resolutions have already become unstuck. If this is the case, don’t be disheartened as 80% of new year’s resolutions fail anyways.

While I understand that a new year seems like the ideal time to get yourself into gear, there’s always an added pressure that comes with New Year’s resolutions, which is probably why so many of them fail.

This article isn’t going to be about tips on how you can stick to your resolutions (we did that last year). It will merely serve as a reminder to not worry if you do belong to the 80%, because self-improvement and being more productive shouldn’t be exclusively reserved for the beginning of the year.

Instead, we hope that providing you with a list of tried-and-tested productivity methods will give you more value.

Productivity Methods for Any Time of the Year

1. Getting Things Done®

Getting Things Done®, or GTD® for short, is a popular time management technique created by David Allen. The framework focuses on organizing and tracking tasks by forcing you to add context and structure to them.

GTD® banks on a collection of lists that you use to organize anything and everything that comes to your mind. The idea is that you capture and process these things following a workflow of 5 steps:

1. Capture: write down the things that have your attention. You can use anything from a note-taking app, an actual notebook, or even your email inbox.
2. Clarify: process what it means – is it actionable, do you have to do something about it?
3. Organize: arrange where it belongs, whether it’s adding it to your calendar or filing it away.
4. Reflect: review your lists regularly and make changes to accommodate your current situation.
5. Engage: now’s the time to do. The last step simply encourages you to take action of the task.

So, whether you need to improve task management in your personal or professional life, GTD® is a method that can help get you on track.

Want to get started with GTD® in Zenkit? We’ve got you covered.

2. Eat That Frog

If procrastination is your undoing then perhaps metaphorically eating a frog can help you. Brian Tracy coined the term “eat that frog” in his book, Eat That Frog! 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time.

The term can be traced back to Mark Twain’s famous quote, “if it’s your job to eat a frog, it’s best to do it first thing in the morning. And if it’s your job to eat two frogs, it’s best to eat the biggest one first.”

The idea is to tackle your biggest task first, as anything else that comes afterwards won’t seem as bad. The feeling of accomplishment you’ll receive once you complete your “frog” will spur you on to tackle all the other tasks in your list.

3. Don’t Break the Chain!

‘Don’t break the chain’ is a technique said to be recommended by comedian and actor, Jerry Seinfeld, to programmer and aspiring comedian, Brad Isaac who published it in Lifehacker in 2007.

How it works is pretty simple! Grab yourself a calendar and place it somewhere visible. For every day you complete the task you set for yourself—in Isaac’s case it was writing jokes—mark it on the calendar.

“After a few days you’ll have a chain. Just keep at it and the chain will grow longer every day. You’ll like seeing that chain, especially when you get a few weeks under your belt. Your only job next is to not break the chain.”

The reason this approach works well is due to the effect of habit. When you repeat something over and over again, it becomes a habit. As they say, consistency is key. Also, the visibility of your progress (the marks on your calendar) serves as motivation to help keep you going.

Final Thoughts

That’s all for our first post of 2020. We wanted to keep it short and sweet. In the coming weeks, you can expect an assortment of articles including more project management methodologies, how to best use Zenkit, and an introduction to all the incredible new features and tools we have coming out this year!

As always, if you have any topic suggestions or questions, don’t hesitate to leave us a comment.

Cheers,

Dinnie and the Zenkit Team

The post The Productivity Methods You Can Use All-Year-Round appeared first on Zenkit.

Productivity is the idea of doing more in less time. It’s about working efficiently but also effectively, and there are plenty of claims of how you can best achieve this.

After a year of reading our productivity insights, we thought ‘what better way to wrap up 2019 than to hear what others had to say on the topic’. So, without further ado, here are 10 predictions we should look out for in 2020.

Productivity predictions for 2020

1. AI becoming an office staple

“I believe 2020 may be the year when AI finally becomes a staple in increasing productivity in the workplace. AI is already capable of speech recognition, machine learning, as well as data processing. I think there will likely be a step up in AI virtual assistants that cover a large multitude of tasks. Even more administrative tasks will be eliminated, recruiting and onboarding will become easier, and processing and storing data will become faster. 

As a result, we’ll be able to focus our own attention solely on immediate, crucial tasks – without worrying about mundane, repetitive side-tasks of any kind.” – Marija Kojic, Productivity Researcher & Writer, Clockify

2. Extended use of self-service tools

“Today’s customer prefers to use self-service tools wherever possible, rather than having to get in touch with a business. This means that creating intuitive and accessible self-service tools can not only help improve customer satisfaction, but it has the potential to improve the productivity of your customer service team by reducing the number of inbound inquiries a business receives.

In 2020, I believe we’ll start to see extended use of self-service tools and articles – that is, the knowledge base behind these platforms – to help democratize information across the business and support the productivity of each agent.” – Ulrich Hoffmann, Director EMEA Central, Zendesk

3. A resurgence in analogue

“I see a resurgence in analogue and a reduction in the use of technology. Productivity isn’t about doing more in less time, but about knowing and doing the right things. Smartphones are incredible. They do things you could never imagine in the past. But more apps don’t mean you’ll become productive.

With a reduction in smartphone and technology use, people will start returning to analogue. By analogue, I mean paper. Journaling, index cards, etc. are back. I’ve never used any to-do apps myself, and my daily to-dos are written on a folded piece of paper.” – Si Quan Ong, Marketing Manager, Ahrefs

4. Single-tasking

“I think—or at least hope—that 2020 will be the year that it becomes normal to tell a colleague that you’re going offline for a while so that you can do some clearer thinking about an important piece of work. Research has long shown that we are smarter, faster and calmer when we are not continuously scattering our attention, and it’s been nearly 10 years since I first wrote about the productivity hit that comes from always-on multitasking at work.

I’m delighted to see more and more professionals now being thoughtful about ways to do more focused “single-tasking”, and being bolder about agreeing on team norms to enable people to look away from their devices occasionally. It feels as if we might finally be at a tipping point where this goes mainstream. Fingers crossed.” – Caroline Webb, Author of How to Have a Good Day

5. Having an organized digital life

“I think app usage—along with a greater focus on business automation—will continue to rise as CEOs and their teams search for ways to boost productivity and more effectively manage their time. Having said that, make sure you have your digital life in order. Delete any apps that you haven’t used in the last three to four months because if you haven’t used them yet, you probably never will.” – Deb Lee, CPO®️, Digital Productivity Coach, DAllisonLee.com

Organize your daily life with ease.
Get started with our easy-to-use project management software for free today!

6. Remote work making more of a notable impact

“Remote work is a trend that isn’t going away anytime soon. With more and more people expressing the desire to work remotely and research being done to prove its efficiency, I expect the impact of remote work to expand further than in the tech industry where we tend to see it the most.

In the year ahead, companies who offer remote work as an option must embed inclusive practices, like video conferencing and remote advocates, to foster a sense of belonging and set their teams up for success.”  – Anastasia Nelson, Senior Product Manager, Sprout Social

7. But also cementing traditional benefits to keep staff motivated

“Some of the best ways to retain employees and boost productivity is by offering traditional benefits, such as vacation days, pension plans, and insurance. This is in stark contrast to the employee motivation trends we have seen over the past decade, which have tended to focus on perks like office lunches, games, pets, and flexible hours.

These perks are attractive to job-seekers, but they aren’t long-lasting. There’s no longevity in lunches and gaming consoles. As a result, employees feel replaceable and demotivated. Traditional benefits not only promise employee retention but give people the impetus to work better and longer for a company.” – Ronita Mohan, Content Marketer, Venngage

8. Morning routines

“While the idea of having a three-hour-long morning routine in which you work out, meditate, work on your side-project, read, and do just about anything else you want to do in the morning may seem like an ideal way to spend the morning (for some!) for others the trick is in having a morning routine at all.

Being able to carve out five, ten, or fifteen minutes in the morning just for you is a huge accomplishment for many, and it is the platform from which a more engaged morning routine—which some may say is the best productivity ‘hack’ there is—will come from.” – Benjamin Spall, Writer & Co-Author of My Morning Routine, Benjamingspall.com

9. Being conscious of our access to info

“Thanks to the cloud, access to information has never been more convenient. We can access information from just about anywhere at any time. But this kind of privilege can be a double-edged sword. If we’re not careful, it can get distracting and divert our attention away from the tasks at hand.

As more and more people are becoming more aware of this, I think we’ll see, in 2020, people being more conscious of their information accessibility. They’ll learn which kind of information has value and which should be disregarded.” – Martin Welker, CEO, Zenkit

10. Not anticipating any changes at all

“Nothing is indicating that 2020 will be any different for the way we work and live compared to this year. Every year, we have to deal with more distractions, not less. Hence, the ability to focus becomes even more important.” – Darius Foroux, Author & Blogger, Dariusforoux.com

Do you agree with any of the 10 predictions? What kind of productivity trends do you expect to see in 2020?

Cheers,

Dinnie and the Zenkit Team

The post 2020 Vision: What Productivity Experts Are Predicting for the New Year appeared first on Zenkit.

Project vs process – many people confuse one for the other, or may even be unaware there’s a difference! For many people, there is an unaware mix-up between a project vs a process. While they do share commonalities and are both popular practices implemented in everyday business, they are in fact, two very different methods of operations.

This article will help you understand the two practices better by describing what they each entail and their distinct purposes.

Here are some of the things you’ll learn from this article:

• The 5 phases of project development
• Key differences between projects and processes
• What task development tools are best used for projects and/or processes

Project vs Process

Simply put, a process is a set procedure that involves a sequence of steps that need to be taken in order to produce a result, whereas a project is a temporary course of action that aims to deliver a distinctive product, service, or result.

Further details to know whether something is a project vs a process:

What Is a Project?

Led by a project manager and conducted by a project team, a project is a collection of tasks that have to be accomplished in order to achieve a goal. It includes a scope, fixed timeline, project plan, and resources. It’s something that generally hasn’t been done before within an institution and is often implemented to administer change.

Project management is the practice of organizing and delivering a project. Project procedure is reflected through the project life cycle, which is comprised of five phases:

1. Project initiation

The first phase is the conception stage, where the ideas get explored, the research gets done, and possibilities are decided. This all helps to determine whether a project is feasible enough to actually happen.

2. Project planning

The second phase is where you consider stakeholder concerns and requirements, come up with a goal, bring a project team together, and create a project plan.

3. Project execution

This phase is where the project team start to create deliverables and attempts to achieve the objectives set out in the project plan. Processes are implemented, resources are allocated, and tasks are assigned.

4. Project monitoring and controlling

The fourth project management phase focuses on performance and progress tracking. Measures are established to ensure everything is on track to meet the deadline and keep within budget.

5. Project closure

The final phase is where all activities across the project come to a conclusion. Both successful and failed projects must close. Administration tasks are resolved and finalized and an evaluation is conducted to improve future endeavours.

What Is a Process?

A process is an established, repeatable procedure used for internal business purposes. It involves a series of tasks that are related to one another and are required to be carried out in order to achieve a result. 

An important element of company knowledge, processes make up a lot of day-to-day business operations. For instance, the HR department has a process in place for hiring new candidates and the development team have one for prioritizing feature requests. A flowchart is a common way to visualize a process.

The purpose of a process is to serve business objectives that provide customer value. They should be regularly evaluated and improved so that business standards can be refined. 

Different Types of Processes

In his book, High Performance Through Business Management: Strategy Execution in a Digital World, Mathias Kirchmer describes three types of processes:

• Operational process: centres on correctly executing the operational tasks of a business/entity. In other words, when employees “get the things done”. An example of this is when the customer service team provide support to a customer.
• Management process: makes sure that the operational processes are performed fittingly. This is where the management team “ensure efficient and effective work processes”. An example of this is when a project manager oversees the tasks and activities of a project.
• Governance process: ensures the business/entity is working in full compliance with required regulations, guidelines, and shareholder expectations. Namely, where executives make sure the “rules and guidelines for business success” are understood and being followed. An example of this is the responsibilities of a board of directors for a company.

What Is the Difference Between a Project and a Process?

The difference between a project and a process is how often you repeat it. Projects are one-off instances, whereas processes are regularly repeated. If a certain project template is repeated a few times over, it should then warrant process status.

Another varying factor is the goals that are set. A project’s goal is for it to succeed. You want to get it over the finish line on time and within budget. Because projects are usually one-time endeavours, a lot of planning has to go into them and there is often a huge risk involved. Project teams spend their time ensuring the project gets delivered while minimizing the risks.

In comparison, when undertaking a process, the focus is more on optimization. There is little to no risk involved in processes (after all, there’s a reason why it became a standardized process), which is why the main objective is usually to refine it. The more you work on something, the easier it is to fine-tune. There is always room for improvement when it comes to factors such as cost and time.

As mentioned at the beginning of the article, projects and processes share commonalities. Perhaps the biggest is that they are both comprised of tasks that need to be achieved. The fact that both create and comprise of tasks is probably the main source of confusion for this topic. I get it, if you’re assigned a task, your aim is to simply get it done. Whether it’s part of a project or process doesn’t always affect what you personally have to do.

You can also find projects and processes within each other.

If you think about it, a project itself is a process. The phases of the project management life cycle follow a series of stages that are required to be completed. Project management methodologies are also akin to processes. A methodology is a system of practices and rules used to carry out a project with popular examples being Kanban, Waterfall, and Lean practices.

Processes may entail mini-projects. For example, an opening of a big branded store, let’s say Apple, is something that has happened more than a few times, so it’s assumed that the company follows a process when doing so. However, setting up a shop in a new location can be considered a project as leasing property in different locations requires various procedures and regulations to follow. Quality, time, and cost come into play, and there’s risk involved.

Project vs Process Tools

Here’s a look at popular task management tools to see where they fall in the project vs process space.

Kanban board

Kanban is a scheduling system that visualizes the workflow process, and a Kanban board is its main attraction. It highlights all the work passing through and helps to identify bottlenecks so that they can be rectified early on in the process. Its aim is to help produce a high-quality product or service.

A Kanban board is a tool that can be used for both projects and processes. A popular instrument in delivering agile projects, they can help establish efficiency through visual cues that signal various stages of the development process.

As vital as they are in certain projects, Kanban boards can also be useful in representing processes. In a project, using a Kanban board usually indicates the last part of the project. Because a lot of planning has to be done prior to the project start, when it comes to using the Kanban board, project teams would have already planned and coordinated the backlog.

To-do list

Also known as a task list, a to-do list is a tool that can be used for organizing just about anything in life. Whether you’re using a software application or simply using pen and paper, they can alleviate the stress of having to remember what needs to be done.

To-do lists are helpful assets in projects. They document tasks in prioritized order and highlight the things that have been done as well as the things that still need to be done.

While they can seemingly do the same for processes, a more fitting organization tool would be a checklist. A checklist sets out the required steps developed for a process with the objective to reduce error by compensating for the limits of human memory. It emphasizes “how to do” something as opposed to a to-do list highlighting “what to do”.

Gantt chart

A Gantt chart is a bar chart that visualizes a project schedule. It represents the work breakdown structure of a project and the relationship between the activities in a vertical task list against a horizontal time scale.

The ideal tool for project management planning, Gantt charts can help you determine important details such as the duration of each task, who will be responsible for what, and anticipate any problems that may arise. Gantt charts can help project managers visualize all facets of a project, including setting up the task dependencies and determining the project’s critical path.

But Gantt charts have a place in processes, too! Creating the work breakdown structure is essentially a process, project managers have to follow a standard series of steps to coordinate tasks into the Gantt chart.

Final Thoughts

After explaining each concept and their benefits, as well as describing their differences and similarities, I hope you now have a better understanding of projects vs processes. Both are practices that essentially provide structure to tasks that aim to add customer value.

So the next time you are assigned a task, keep in mind whether it’s part of a project or a process. It can help determine how you approach it and what objectives to strive for.

Do you know if your current task is part of a process or a project?

The post Project vs Process: How to Determine the Difference appeared first on Zenkit.