Page 68 – Official Teamly Blog – Official Teamly Blog

December 27, 2021November 21, 2023

The Definitive Guide on Administrative Process Improvement For Every Business

Do you have admin tasks casting a cloud over your business? You know they need to get done but the motivation to start on these repetitive and bulky tasks is nowhere to be found. It’s a problem that’s plagued businesses since the first person decided to set up shop.

If your business is profitable enough you can hire an in-house team to work on these, freeing you to focus on bigger picture stuff. However, there is still bound to be wasted time and resources and it’s a good idea to review your processes to make sure they’re 100% efficient.

In this article, we’re going to give you the tools you need to take a good hard look at how administrative process improvement works. You’ll be able to identify inefficiencies and implement new ideas to help your team and business continue to thrive.

7 Benefits of Updating Your Admin Processes

Let’s take a look at the benefits of reviewing and updating your processes before we discuss admin improvement ideas. Every business should inspect how its operations are being run, no matter the size. There will always be areas of improvement and staying on top of things is key to consistent growth.

Staff may try and push back on changes, particularly if they perceive tasks to be more complex than the previous method. Help them to understand how these changes can improve productivity and help keep the business competitive.

Here are 7 benefits that the business gains from administrative process improvement:

Standardized process: As the business grows there will be a need to develop standardized processes which all staff can follow. A review of business operations can help business leaders to certify the correct way of doing things.
Automate where possible: As new technology emerges and employee skills grow, new automation options become available. If you can automate rudimentary tasks, this gives employees more time to work on business growth opportunities.
Eliminate waste: Waste can be anything from time, resources, or communication. Admin processes that aren’t refined are likely to include a lot of waste which can be removed with new processes implemented.
Up to date information: Take the opportunity to ensure that all the information in your business is up to date. If employees are working with outdated instructions this can be causing major interruptions to your operation.
Continuous improvement: Improving your administrative processes should form part of your business’s commitment to continuous improvement. Ensure your company remains ahead of the competition by always striving for better.
Frees up resources: Once you’ve identified inefficiencies in your processes, the resources being wasted can be redistributed in a way that benefits the business’s goals.
Review every year: As part of your commitment to continuous improvement, you should review the processes each year. This helps to uncover new inefficiencies and takes advantage of new technology.

Once you have established the baseline for all of your administrative processes, you can use this as a reference for the next time a review takes place. The job will never be completed because there will always be ways to implement new admin improvement ideas.

Admin Improvement Ideas That Work

Whether you are a solopreneur or in charge of a team at an enterprise business, cutting the fat out of the business processes has likely crossed your mind more than once. In order to make effective changes, you’ll need to implement ideas that are proven to work and can deliver the necessary results.

Change Management

The first thing that needs to happen is a way to monitor and implement change management. This is something that needs to work for managers and their employees.

Your processes may currently exist as undocumented generalized theories that everyone vaguely understands. We need to make sure that they are identified and documented in a way that is easy to follow. At this point, you should include all the information around a process including any waste or inefficiencies.

Document information regarding how long a task should take, how many people are involved, and the number of entry and exit points it has. If there are bottleneck areas, make note of these as this is something that will need to be addressed when developing new admin improvement ideas.

At this stage of change, the goal is to establish the current baseline for your processes. If you are unsure of the details personally, make sure to include your staff in drawing up the current process outline.

Process Mapping

Process mapping is a useful visualization tool that can be used for a wide range of industries. The benefit of using something like the Makigami Processes Map is that the data is very easy to read and it’s an easy way to get contributions from your staff.

You will log your processes from start to finish and gain a hard copy of how everything in your operation works. During the process mapping phase, you’ll start to uncover where the inefficiencies lie in your business. At this point, members of staff will be able to share their ideas for areas of improvement.

Although it won’t be time to implement changes, it is a great place to start collecting ideas from the people who will benefit from the changes the most. Communicate to your team the data that has been uncovered through process mapping. This helps to keep team members aware of how their activities affect business productivity.

Delegation

Unless you are a one-person operation, delegation is going to be your best friend. Who is going to be responsible for reviewing and updating each process? Depending on the task, it can be quite time-consuming and there may not be enough hours available for one person to take ownership of them all.

The key is to refine your administrative processes so that they save you time and money. Put your best person on the job, someone you can trust to consider different approaches to problem-solving.

There will also be an opportunity to crowdsource ideas at this point by giving your employees the chance to speak their thoughts. Those who have been doing the admin tasks will be able to pinpoint what causes them headaches and areas which should be improved.

New Technologies

New technologies are being released to the market all the time and some may be well worth the cost investment to improve your processes. If you want to automate some of the more repetitive tasks this may come at an additional expense to the bottom line. However, if it improves productivity and frees up resources elsewhere, the trade-off could be worth it.

Your tech stack (the hardware and software you use) is going to have a great effect on your administrative process improvement. Companies rely heavily on their technologies to stay modern and competitive. It’s worth looking at your current stack to make sure you’re using the best products available.

Teamly is an all-in-one tool for project management that can save your business time and money. It gives you all the tools you need to effectively manage your team remotely. This gives you greater flexibility and control over your projects and processes.

Outsource Certain Tasks

Consider whether you should outsource certain tasks that your company can’t handle as effectively as you would like. If you work by yourself or only have a small team at the moment, there may not be the people resources available to work on certain administrative tasks.

In these instances, it may be worth contacting an outside company or virtual assistant to help you. Outsourcing can be highly cost-effective and you’ll have access to skilled professionals without the need to hire internally or invest in additional training.

Conclusion

Admin is at the heart of every business but it’s not always the work we want to be doing. By taking the time to look at administrative process improvement, leaders can identify ways to make admin tasks easier to complete.

Whether you decide to outsource some tasks or start using new technologies, reviewing your admin processes is an important part of continuous improvement. A business should always strive to be more productive and deliver better results for its clients and customers.

December 27, 2021January 7, 2022

How to Handle Criticism at Work Like a Professional

Do you look forward to football season like a lot of people do?

There’s nothing quite like a lazy Sunday afternoon, where everyone is sitting in a cozy armchair or lounging on the couch with a beer in hand, and there’s a half-eaten pizza on the table.

Between gossiping about friends and chatting about the news, everyone offers their critique of the game.

“Can you believe he missed that field goal at 36 yards! They’re throwing points away!” and “How did the quarterback not see that receiver? He was wide open!”

As a general rule, it’s really, really easy to offer criticism.

Receiving it, however, is another story.

It’s crushing to be called out by a manager for being over budget, or to get dinged on a performance review. Your gut reaction is to lash out and blame someone else, or curl up inside yourself like a turtle.

It’s sheer fantasy to think that by staying on top of our game, we can avoid criticism. It’s everywhere. No one escapes it.

The secret, really, is knowing how to navigate it. There’s a craft to handling criticism at work, and knowing what criticism to accept and what to deflect. Let’s look into it.

Responding to Criticism in the Moment

Sometimes criticism comes completely out of the blue. You get to work (late, for the third time that week), and right off the bat the manager pulls you aside with a brusque, “We need to talk.” And immediately the poached eggs you ate for breakfast start to scramble inside your stomach.

At other times, after blowing a deadline or bombing a presentation, you kinda know what’s coming.

Either way, any rough conversation with a manager leaves most of us feeling as powerless as a mound of jello.

Rather than let our emotions be our compass, however, at times like these it’s helpful to have a plan for traversing the rocky path of responding to criticism. Here are four suggestions.

1. Listen

Usually, the second we hear any criticism directed our way, we’re already formulating a rebuttal: “Let me tell you why I am late,” succeeded by a litany of excuses.

However, you need to take more than a split second to assess the situation. Find clarity as to what the manager is saying by calmly asking questions, out of curiosity.

In order to take the emotion out of the situation, pretend you’re asking on behalf of a friend, with questions like: “Can you explain why this has been such a problem?”

The objective is to understand everything that is going on. Why does it matter so much that they’d bring it up with you?

2. Pause and Collect

Receiving criticism is hard, particularly when it’s poorly delivered, and it’s good to take a moment to acknowledge this.

After receiving a harsh lecture, the tendency is to head in one of two directions: either attack the person who’s giving it, or retreat and get defensive.

Rather than letting emotions dominate our actions, just take a moment to breathe. Establish some emotional detachment from the situation, and remind yourself that it isn’t personal. You’re discussing a work situation, but it’s not your whole life.

This distance creates a good foundation to formulate a constructive response.

3. Repeat Back What Was Said

After the manager has said his or her piece, come to an understanding of everything that was communicated.

Ask clarifying questions such as, “So it sounds like you’re saying…” Try to get at not only the criticism, but also why it matters.

Repeating everything back lets the manager know you’ve accepted and digested the message. It makes you look professional and responsible.

4. Offer a Solution

You probably have a really good explanation for the criticism. (“There was traffic, and my kids are sick, that’s why I’m late.”)

Regardless, and even if you’re being criticized for something that isn’t entirely your fault, this isn’t the time for excuses or explanations.

Rather, this is a window for offering a solution. For example, if you were criticized for going over budget or not meeting a deadline, say you’d like to meet earlier next quarter to develop a better strategy.

It may entail some quick thinking to come up with a solution right away. But it communicates that you want to work with the situation, and that you’re a team player.

It also acknowledges the chain of command. A “please help me get better” tone never hurts in a situation like this.

These four steps provide a path for responding constructively to criticism from a manager. Although you might come up with a different formula, the key is to detach yourself emotionally from the situation, and behave professionally.

Taking Action Afterwards

It’s tempting to shoo a difficult confrontation under the rug and just get on with things, acting like nothing ever happened.

However, when you’ve had a chance to go to your office and decompress, it’s a really good idea to take further steps to resolve the issue.

Here are a few suggestions.

1. Write Out What Happened

When your memory is still fresh, jot down everything the manager said, and your response, then read it back over. This may help to diffuse any angst you’re feeling, as it provides objectivity.

It’s good to have this document to reference later. Our imaginations can do wild things, and so having an accurate summary keeps you from exaggerating the story into something like “He was yelling and screaming at me,” or “They just think I am the worst.”

2. Send an Email to Recap

Once the situation is clear in your own head, follow up with the manager. This may take some deep breaths, but it’s worth it.

The intent of the email is to establish understanding. So cut anything out that sounds apologetic, accusatory, or snarky. Be sure to include any follow-up steps you intend to take.

The manager will appreciate this response, as it communicates responsibility.

3. Assess the Criticism

Next, take some time to personally reflect what was said. Was the criticism merited? Were you really at fault?

This takes a lot of honesty. It may be that we’re called out on the carpet for something we had no part in, and it’s entirely unfair. In this situation, search out documentation to prove your point, and present it without any blame or accusations.

However, more often than not, there is some merit in the criticism. It may indicate an area for you to improve.

Finding a third party to talk things over may shed some light on the scenario. It’s a good idea to find a neutral person like a career counselor, rather than a friend or family member who might take your side completely. You need an objective assessment–someone who’s able to see all sides and offer you their perspective.

4. Get a Plan

When you’ve identified what you need to improve, figure out how you’re going to do it. If you’re always running late, maybe tweak your morning routine. If you’re over budget, research a new system to use on the next project.

The fact that the manager confronted you means they have a less-than-ideal image of your work ethic or behavior. Making changes allows the manager to see you in a new light.

5. Get Over It

Once you’ve accepted the criticism and made a plan of action, it’s time to get over it. Don’t dwell on the “unPHAIRness” of it, or berate yourself.

Take it in perspective. Consider the criticism in light of everything you’re doing right in your job and in your life. It may still sting a little bit, but remind yourself that criticism is natural and normal, and decide to move on.

In sum, taking action after a difficult conversation helps to resolve the issue and heal any tension in the working relationship. It’s hard to accept criticism, but sometimes the best way through a challenge is by going through it, and not avoiding it.

Handling Non-Constructive Criticism

Every office has some mean bullies, or people with downright poor communication skills.

Sometimes they’ll vent frustrations without really thinking things through and resort to abusive language and ad hominem attacks.

It’s certainly not fun when this is directed at you. However, what these people say and how they say it reflects on them, but how you respond reflects on you.

When deciding how to handle mean or abusive criticism, it’s good to consider your professional reputation, and the impact it can have on your social capital. Here are a few guidelines.

1. Take a Breather

If you’re really triggered by a hurtful or nasty comment, it’s best to step away from the situation for a time, to prevent it from turning into a real fracas.

Walk around the block, get some coffee, or let it rest for the weekend. When the emotion has cooled down, you’re in a much better headspace to formulate a response, or determine if the situation even merits one.

2. Talk it Over Before Responding

Before responding to mean criticism, especially if it’s in writing, go over your response with a friend. Aim for a civil exchange, and don’t include anything that could be used against you.

3. Be Professional

Before responding to an office bully, think about your overall goals. Office behavior is noticed by everyone. Keeping yourself out of ugly office politics reflects well on you.

Although this isn’t possible in every situation, try not to burn any bridges. Everyone has different sides to their personality and at some point you may build a positive relationship with this same person, so long as the door is still open.

In sum, receiving harsh and mean criticism is one of the hardest things that can happen at work. It breaks down team spirit and makes it difficult to do your job. It’s helpful to have a few tools for responding professionally.

Evaluating and Accepting Criticism

Even if you’re handling criticism well, it can still get inside your head and demoralize you. Some criticism is entirely irrelevant, and so the last thing you want to do is take it to heart.

Here are some methods for discerning if criticism is valuable, and deflecting messages we’re better off ignoring.

1. Manage Your Self Talk

Even when people say harsh or critical things, you still control how you absorb it. Take some time to identify the narrative you’re telling yourself. Push back on any messages that say “I’m not as good as them,” or “I’m a failure.”

Rather than listen to mean criticism, determine the story that you want to be telling yourself, and listen to that instead.

2. Know Who to Cut Out

Some of the criticism we receive really helps us, while a lot of it needs to be flushed down the toilet. How to know the difference?

Carlo Iaonne of ICM Career Coaching says to make this determination by asking yourself two key questions:

Does this person have my best interest in mind?
Is there a part of this person that I aspire to be like?

This simple criteria helps you separate the wheat from the chaff, and listen only to advice that is truly helpful.

3. Listen to Yourself First

“Do what you feel in your heart to be right–for you’ll be criticized anyway,” said Eleanor Rosevelt.

In our social media culture, where amassing followers and likes is what it’s all about, it’s easy to think that receiving criticism means we’ve done something wrong.

But the truth is, people are going to criticize you, regardless. When you know what you want, what you think, and what your goals are, then messages from other people, be they positive or negative, are easier to tune out.

Conclusion

Just like metal and steel, criticism is one of the hard facts of life.

When receiving criticism, it’s good to have a plan of action, in order to avoid making an unhinged, emotional response. It’s also important to discern when to accept criticism and when to reject it.

And criticism isn’t necessarily a bad sign. Receiving criticism means you’re being heard–people don’t criticize someone they never think about.

Anyone can offer advice from the comfort of their living room, but not everyone is willing to step out there and fail.

So don’t be too concerned about getting written up, or notes in your employee file.

Ultimately, it’s about what you think, anyway.

December 24, 2021September 30, 2023

How to Manage a Software Team: Creating a Framework for Success

It’s your responsibility as a software manager to make sure your staff is productive and successful. You don’t need to be a coder to be an excellent manager. Many great managers aren’t technically competent; what sets them apart is their ability to lead and inspire people.

But leading software teams isn’t necessarily easy, It can be extremely challenging for several reasons:

For one, coding is repetitive work, and it’s frequently done in isolation. It’s all too easy to overlook the red flags that a team member is burning out if you’re not vigilant.
Also, It can be hard for developers to prioritize. Software development entails several tasks. And many of them are important. Yet, you can’t do all of them at once.
Not to mention software teams are often remote. Remote software development has its advantages. But there’s also the danger of communication breakdown.
Last but not least, the software industry is notorious for its high turnover. This implies that you’ll have staff members come and go frequently, making it more difficult to establish a strong culture.

The good news is that you don’t need to be a corporate psychologist or a management expert to lead software teams. With the appropriate methods, you can make managing software teams a lot easier and efficient. This article will provide you with useful strategies for managing your software teams more effectively.

Your role as a software development manager

As a software development manager, you’re responsible for creating an environment in which your developers can be productive. It’s imperative that you provide your team with the resources they need, set expectations, and ensure that everyone is working towards common goals. And that’s no small task.

Traits of a good software manager

To be a successful software manager, you must develop an acute awareness of certain characteristics; You must be:

Encouraging
An effective communicator
A problem solver
Organized

Encouraging – First and foremost, you must be able to inspire people. As a software manager, you should be able to inspire and motivate your team. This includes setting a good example, being positive, and establishing goals for the team.

An effective communicator – You should also be able to communicate effectively with your team members. This means understanding what each individual on the team is capable of, as well as being clear about expectations and goals.

A problem solver – You should also be able to think critically and solve problems quickly while staying calm under pressure. You need to know how software development works to create an effective software team that will help you achieve your business goals.

Organized – Finally, you must be organized. There is a lot to keep track of when managing a software team. This includes overseeing project deadlines, tasks, and resources. And if you lose track of something, it can end up costing you a lot of time and money.

The qualities that make the best software managers are not necessarily innate. You might have some or all these traits naturally. But with effort, you will be able to improve your skills in each area over time.

For example, if you’re an introvert, it can be hard to communicate effectively with your team members. But by keeping your team in the loop and learning to ask questions, you can overcome your introversion.

How to build a successful software team

Now that we’ve looked at the qualities of a good software manager, let’s look at how to build a successful team. In this section, we will discuss the most important milestones in forming a successful team. We’ll examine the significance of recruitment, training, feedback, affirmation, and creating a productive working environment.

Recruitment

First, you need to find the right people. This means finding individuals who are smart, motivated and have the skills needed for the job.

Where do you find the right people? Hiring experienced developers is one alternative. This implies that you must look for people with the required skills and knowledge. LinkedIn, Indeed, Fiverr, Upwork, and similar platforms are good sources for competent individuals.

Another good approach is hiring recent grads or interns. The benefit is they’re often eager to learn new things, have the drive and passion for what they do. Many colleges and universities offer internship programs in which you may employ students who want to learn on the job.

Another advantage is that most of the time, they will work for less money, and you can mentor them to increase their expertise. However, depending on the person, you may need to put out a lot of effort into training.

Training

After you’ve built your team, the next step is to train them. To have a successful software development process that generates high-quality results, make sure to properly educate your staff members.

Training can be divided into three categories: Technical (knowledge and skills), soft (behaviors), and managerial (leadership).

Technical training means teaching your team coding languages, platforms, and technologies.

Soft skills are more difficult to master than technical knowledge because they do not have a clear set of rules that you can follow. For example, the ability to communicate is something that users must learn over time through trial-and-error or input from other people.

Managerial training is focused on developing the skills needed to be an effective leader. This includes learning how to motivate team members, set and achieve goals, and think critically under pressure.

The best way to provide training is by using a combination of methods: online resources (videos, tutorials, articles), hands-on activities (workshops, hackathons, meetups), and one-on-one sessions (conferences, meetings).

Feedback

After you have completed training, your software team will need ongoing feedback so they can continue to learn and improve their skills. Feedback offers many benefits: it gives people a sense of accomplishment and recognition, makes them feel more valued by the company they work for, helps identify what software development skills need to be improved or developed further, etc.

There are three areas for feedback:

First, is giving feedback for job performance. This feedback looks at the task itself and how well they performed in comparison with their peers or other software development professionals. Feedback for performance also should include an evaluation of the technical skills needed to accomplish that work (i.e., coding languages used).When giving feedback, don’t forget to be both constructive and positive. The aim isn’t to put someone down or deceive them; the objective is to assist them towards improving their abilities.
Second, is receiving feedback on the overall process you use to complete the software development. This includes an evaluation of how well the team works together, their communication skills, and the tools and technologies used.When your team’s processes are out of whack, software products may not reach their full potential. This type of feedback is essentially critiquing the structure or format of how work is done.This type of feedback should be received regularly (weekly or monthly) to ensure that you as a manager are aware of how your team is experiencing your dynamics and processes.
Third, is receiving Feedback for you as a manager. This can be difficult to do, as it requires a high level of trust and brave communication (i.e. honesty).This type of feedback should be requested from your entire team. And remember the goal is to help you identify your strengths and weaknesses as a leader. It will also provide insights on how you can further develop your managerial skills.Feedback can come in different forms such as verbal (in person), written (email), and nonverbal (e.g., with body language, tone of voice). It’s important to communicate feedback in a way that all team members can understand and use.

Affirmation

Next, you need to take the time to affirm all team members. Affirmation offers software development teams an opportunity to recognize each other’s strengths and has proven to be a powerful tool in software team building.

Affirmation helps build self-confidence, develop interpersonal relationships (e.g., teamwork), provide encouragement for future work performance, demonstrate appreciation towards others, and increase overall software team morale.

It’s important to realize that affirmation shouldn’t be reserved for software development experts; instead, affirm all software team members no matter their role or level of expertise (i.e., everyone).

A simple way to do this is with a daily standup meeting where you can recognize who did what throughout the software development process and for their efforts.

Affirmation is such a powerful tool because it doesn’t require you to spend money, but rather simply time and effort which can go a long way towards helping software team members feel appreciated.

The bottom line is that affirmation benefits software teams by creating trust between each other, developing communication skills (e.g., collaboration), and increasing software team morale.

Environment

Last, but certainly, not least is the power of setting the right environment. This means creating an environment that is positive and encouraging, where team members feel comfortable taking risks and sharing ideas.

Even if your team is remote, there are still things that you can do to create a good working environment, such as holding regular zoom meetings in which everyone discusses their progress and problems.

Be careful to not overdo it, meeting for the sake of meeting isn’t a good idea. Make sure that the meetings are valuable and beneficial to your team members, otherwise, they may get discouraged or demotivated very quickly.

What’s important is that you build an environment that creates a connection between your personnel and software products. This is done by providing the right tools, technologies, and training so software team members can feel confident in their abilities and be productive.

Creating this type of environment takes time and effort but is well worth it in the long run.

Summary

Software teams are the backbone of any software development organization. As a manager, it’s important to be aware of the different dynamics and processes that make up a software team.

4 Tips for managing software teams

Now let’s look at 4 tips for managing software teams. These tips will help you create an effective environment in which your developers can thrive:

Set expectations early – set your team’s goals at the beginning of each sprint or project cycle so that everyone knows what is expected of them.
Give your developers the tools they require. Providing your staff with the appropriate software for creating code, debugging problems, and so on is a good idea. Make sure you have an up-to-date version of the software they need and that you’re not asking them to use tools that are outdated or difficult to work with.
Additionally, give your developers time to learn new technologies if needed. They may be hesitant to try something new at first, but with a little encouragement and support, they’ll come around to it quickly.
Management software can be a game-changer. Use a tool like Teamly to help you keep track of what everyone is working on and how tasks are progressing.

Teamly is perfect for managing software teams. You’ll have the best project management tool needed to finish projects fast and efficiently. With Teamly you can see what everyone is working on, set and track goals, share documents, provide feedback, and more. Because your software team can see what everyone is working on, collaboration is easy and effective.

Conclusion

At the end of the day, keeping your software team members happy and productive is crucial to success in any industry, not just technology. So consider this framework when thinking about how you want to manage your next software project.

December 24, 2021October 30, 2023

Top 5 Elements Of Creative Strategy Development And Implementation Steps

When you begin a new project, one of the first things you do is form an initial outline – one of the essential elements of creative strategy development. This outline is one of the most important aspects of any new project and can be the deciding factor of its success. But one thing is often overlooked…

Creative strategy development is so much more than fancy words, clever designs, and standard sales tactics. While those are certainly important aspects, a creative strategy is made up of much more. First, let’s define creative strategy; then, we’ll go through the steps to develop and implement the creative strategy successfully.

What Is A Creative Strategy?

A creative strategy is made up of 2 essential parts.

First, the creative aspect. What typically comes to mind are design teams, writers, photographers, product designers, and digital media managers when we talk about creatives in the workplace. Creatives are the people who form the basis of new products and strategies, with an important set of elements in mind (we’ll break those down in a minute).

Second is the actual strategic planning that is done to help a new marketing project find high rates of success.

Essentially, creative strategy development is the process of identifying your marketing goals and designing a strategic plan to achieve them. It’s how you will lead your team in the right direction. These strategies allow you to create content that reflects the company’s values, engages customers, and solves a problem. A creative strategy will guide your business from its current state to meeting (and surpassing) your long-term vision.

5 Essential Elements Of A Successful Creative Strategy

While creative strategies can vary in their action plans and goals, there are 5 main elements of a creative strategy that play a vital role in its creation. These include:

Brand Awareness
This is the knowledge you have of what helps people identify your company, product, or personal brand. What are the long-term goals of your brand? What is the brand’s history? What has the growth of your brand looked like? What is your mission statement? What are the main values? All of these concepts play a vital role in the development of your creative strategy and must be well known to your marketing team.
Main Objective
The goal of the marketing strategy. (We’ll get more into this in the next section)
Target Audience
Who are you directing your marketing efforts towards? Knowing who you are talking to in your marketing will determine what strategies would best resonate with your ideal customer. Think of things like gender, age, demographic, financial status, likes and dislikes, etc. Many companies will even create a client avatar reflecting the ideal customer who the marketing campaign would be directed to.
Primary USP
The Unique Selling Proposition is why you’re the best person to be providing your service/product. The USP makes you stand out from your competitors by differentiating your offer (more on this below).
Tone
Many companies have created a tone guide for their marketing department to follow when creating any material for the company. This ensures that the voice of the company sounds the same across all platforms and is easily identified by their consumer base. A coherent tone across all of your marketing is essential in continuing to grow your brand and attract your target audience.

Process For Developing And Executing Your Creative Strategy

The process of developing and implementing a creative strategy is made up of 4 main parts: planning, developing, implementing, and measuring. Let’s take a deeper look at each one.

Planning And Development

Identify And Set Realistic Goals
Setting goals that reflect your company’s values and are in line with its long-term goals is the first step in planning your creative strategy. Goals can include things like boosting engagement on social channels, creating hotter leads in your funnels, increasing sales, etc. These goals, however, must be outlined appropriately to be successful. This is where methods like SMART Goals can be highly beneficial, ensuring they are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound.
Identify Your Audience’s Problems
What problem are you solving for your target audience? What are their pain points? When you consider these questions, it is important to go deeper than surface level. When you think about the benefits you’re offering them, think about how they solve the bigger issues in their lives.For example, if you’re marketing a system to enhance team management, you’re making it easier for managers to interact with their team. You’re also helping them maintain their projects through one system. When you consider the deeper pain points, you’re creating a product that serves your customers’ bigger struggles. These include providing those managers with regaining their time, tracking progress with ease, and making deadlines nearly impossible to miss, all from one singular tool.Identify your audience’s pain points, and create a strategy to highlight your ability to fix them.
Brainstorm And Choose Your Creative Strategy
When you’re developing a new creative strategy, a diverse team is beneficial. Diversity allows for a higher variety of perspectives, providing a better selection of ideas. Varying perspectives leads to higher rates of collaboration, producing more refined solutions and a strategy that will connect on a more personal level with your audience.A great way to begin planning your creative strategy is to work backward from the goals you’ve chosen. This will help you create a well-structured plan that keeps the timeframe of the project in mind.
Create Your Unique Selling Proposition (USP)
Specifically, your USP is where you’ll define why you’re the best option. This will position you as the authority in your industry and is the first step in building trust with your customers.However, before you can position yourself as the best option in the industry, you must first know exactly who your ideal customer will be. You can achieve this by researching your target audience at length. Being knowledgeable about who you’re targeting will help you develop a more directed, personable strategy. This will allow you to connect with your audience on a deeper level than your competition.

Determine How You’ll Measure Success
The easiest way to do this is to set milestones to gauge progress throughout the project’s lifetime. This will provide you with a way to adjust your strategy if you find it’s not aligning with your expected timeline.

Depending on your project, your key performance indicators (KPI) will fluctuate to fit the strategy, however, they may include:

- Click-through rates
- Number of new email subscribers
- Engagement on social platforms
- Number of sales
- Profits made over a specific amount of time

Implementing And Measuring

Pre-Test
When beginning any new marketing campaign, it is essential to pre-test your strategies in smaller pools. This will help you gain a better understanding of the potential success of your creative strategy. This will also provide you with the opportunity to identify any issues or shortcomings in your strategy and adjust them to be more successful.While in the pre-test stage, using an A/B test strategy is a great way to compare campaigns that have slight differences in them. This will provide you with the opportunity to see how each one performs and create your final campaign using the data collected from each.Once you’re satisfied with your pre-test results, it’s time to execute your final project and release it to your full audience.
Evaluate Your Campaigns
Once you’ve executed your final product, ensure you check in on its success at various stages. This will let you monitor its progress and pivot if needed. The best way to do this is to use your previously determined milestones to measure the likelihood of meeting your goals in their expected timelines.Another way to evaluate your campaign is to compare data from past creative strategies to the data being received from your current strategy. This will give you a strong indication of growth over longer periods of time and allow you to measure success on a larger scale. This also provides you with a unique opportunity to “bring back” previous aspects of a creative strategy that performed well in the past.
Optimize
If you don’t meet your goals right away, consider completing some additional testing of various marketing techniques (if time allows), while still maintaining the essential aspects of the project.If you do find your creative strategy failing, use it as a learning opportunity. Evaluate why your creative strategy may not have performed the way you had hoped. Take a deeper look into your USP, tone guide, and target audience research to determine if there are any aspects that may have been missed or need to be tweaked. Use all the data you have to make a more informed strategy for your next project.

Conclusion

Successfully developing and implementing a creative strategy is a powerful tool. Develop a creative strategy that helps you stand above the competition while remaining true to your company’s values and long-term goals. This will lead you to higher rates of success that benefit your company for years to come.

December 24, 2021December 24, 2021

Why Quality Assurance Tracking In the Workplace Is Essential For Success And Growth

To consistently deliver on the promise of high-quality work, an organization must ensure they have the appropriate quality assurance tracking system in place. Without this delicate checks-and-balances process, more errors slip through the cracks, workflows can potentially break down, and the quality of work is not usually up to company standards.

Having a quality assurance tracking system ensures everyone on the team has the support needed to deliver a final product in line with the company’s expectations. In order to achieve quality assurance in the workplace, let’s first define quality assurance.

What is Quality Assurance?

Quality assurance is defined as the process of meeting an organization’s standards and includes careful monitoring of each stage of production and delivery.

While the terms “Quality Assurance” and “Quality Control” are often used interchangeably in conversation, there are major distinctions between the two processes.

Quality control is the identification of various issues during project management and ensures the quality is meeting the required standards. Put simply, quality control focuses on the product and is considered a reactive process. Whereas, quality assurance is about the prevention of errors or other defects that may arise during projects and making sure the controls put in place are working effectively. This is through examination and review of the multiple techniques, methods, and processes dedicated to creating deliverables as expected. Quality assurance verifies the processes in place are not introducing errors or other complications and come before quality control. In other words, quality assurance is a preventative measure that focuses on process.

Let’s see an example of this in action.

Say we have a Human Resources team that is about to implement a brand new employee management system. No one on the team has previous experience with the system – an important factor acknowledged and reviewed by HR leadership. In order to ensure training and implementation goes smoothly for everyone involved, leadership has developed a way to assure quality from the beginning. Managers have assessed what documents are needed in order to have successful training. In the case of HR, a thorough understanding of the various moving parts is critical to the implementation’s success. Therefore, the HR teams need a highly-detailed standard operating procedure drafted in order to initially move through the basics of training, specific examples unique to the HR department in order to capture realistic data entry, and other documents that will help train the entire team.

During the process of training, it’s inevitable that particular workflows may encounter issues unique to the new system. This is a part of the quality control process, where defects are identified while trying to get to the final product. (In this example, the HR team’s final delivery is an accurate entry on employee information). The team can then discuss different solutions that may best fit their needs, and a process moving forward that captures the appropriate workaround. After the training is successful, and the team has proven they have a foundation of working knowledge to be able to do their jobs efficiently, processes can be refined to ensure high-quality work is delivered.

Why Is Quality Assurance Tracking Important?

Quality assurance tracking is important in the workplace for a few key reasons:

Motivates the team – The team is likely to stay more motivated and on track with their various assignments as there are established processes and controls in place, providing much-needed structure and clarity in essential procedures. Everyone is essentially held to the same principle of producing high-quality work. This creates a unified mission, one that everyone strives to achieve. The review process for quality assurance helps keep operations smooth and succinct, incorporating feedback from the core team, and allowing them to thrive in an effective environment.
Creates transparency – In addition to increasing employee motivation, quality assurance also helps create transparency in the workplace, a huge contributing factor in healthy and positive work cultures. Because processes are consistently being measured and monitored, the team is regularly updated on any significant changes. If, however, the established processes no longer make sense due to the demands of the company and external clients, the team has an opportunity to provide their input on how to improve workflow. There’s a level of trust built at this level as employees see how carefully managed and supported their work is.
Preserves integrity – A final work product in line with the company’s requirements is the goal for everyone on the team. With quality assurance in place, the standard is consistently met (or goes above and beyond), preserving the integrity of the work and the mission the organization is set out to achieve.
Greater awareness of current procedures – Quality assurance tracking enables leadership to have a greater awareness of the processes surrounding the team. Foundational knowledge is needed in order to stay proactive about procedures that no longer serve the company. Quality assurance tracking also ensures that managers and leads are able to train new employees in the correct methods and techniques that are appropriate for the roles. Without this awareness of current procedures, there is little to no way of effectively monitoring what processes are working and what are considered detrimental to the team’s progress.
Consistent operations – Quality assurance tracking ensures operations are running smoothly and producing solid deliverables. One of the greatest benefits of having quality assurance is achieving consistency in all work-related procedures. Nothing demotivates a team like unorganized and confusing processes. The running of consistent operation is key to stabilizing the team and the organization as a whole. According to Qualio, business researchers state that businesses with inconsistent processes are 5 times more likely to negatively impact customers than the delivery of a poor product. Developing and reviewing processes that minimize the risk of disastrous results like this is paramount to ensuring a company’s overall success.
Happier customers – Because quality assurance allows for reliable delivery of the team’s best work, the happier (and more confident) the clients will be with the company as their provider. The final product will be in line with what they expected to receive and bolsters the reputation of the organization as a whole. There will be fewer overall defects or hiccups that can impede a customer’s satisfaction with their product and their trust and support of the company increases.
Continuous improvement – Quality assurance helps a company embrace the constant need to adapt and make important improvements that help a business move forward into the future. With a continuous drive to improve upon themselves, organizations can reap huge benefits such as strengthened employee performance, increased engagement, and flexible leadership. This makes it easier to cultivate a work culture unopposed to facing complex issues and helps the team to actively seek out more effective methods of problem-solving.
Effective decision-making – Since monitoring and assessment of the organization’s processes occur in real-time, leadership is able to make objective decisions based on recent and accurate data presented before them. They can use this information and make strategic and effective decisions in commiseration with their fellow colleagues. The goal is to achieve continuous improvement, so the decision-making aspect of any workflow and operations is crucial as it moves the team closer to the company’s main goals. Quality assurance also ensures the decision-making process within their own team is done in a proactive manner and not a reactive one, which can make or break the quality of final products and increase stress amongst the team members.
Saves money – Quality assurance is an important layer of support for a project’s life cycle and contributes to an organization’s business growth. A lack of quality assurance during essential operations can cause a loss of time, resources, and money. An effective quality assurance tracking system allows the company to save money by decreasing the work (and time) that’s necessary to continuously fix defective products. The more the final deliverable is error-free, the more the customer base will trust in their hard-earned efforts and continue to purchase from them. Catching issues along the way, and in earlier stages of development, will help reduce the development cost and stay within a designated budget. In the long run, having excellent quality assurance measures allows the organization to increase its profitability.

Quality Assurance Tracking In Any Profession

Let’s take a look at how quality assurance is used throughout a variety of different professions.

Healthcare – To determine a hospital’s capacity for providing service and care, quality assurance measures can be used to determine staffing capacity (nurse-to-patient ratio), the number of beds available, types of specialties and services, etc.
Education – In order to support schools in their innovation and creativity with students, there needs to be a regular, systematic review of school leaders, student assessments, subjects, and other evaluations to continue the trajectory of quality and efficiency.
Construction – One of the biggest issues facing professionals in the construction field is the amount of work that needs to be redone as some of the team may not have the resources they need in order to do the job correctly (or completely) the first time. A quality assurance measure preventing this type of rework is developed to prevent these types of issues from reoccurring.
Scientific Laboratories – In order to avoid critical mistakes that waste time and resources during routine experiments, quality assurances in laboratories include measures such as regular documentation of experimental methods, double-checking labels as part of the process before beginning certain tasks, or removing the possibility of contamination by following a strict protocol for sterilization.
Business – To keep the processes moving and error-free, businesses can develop detailed checklists, perform audits of past assignments, review process documentation and standards before project kick-off to ensure that operations for project management are on a solid foundation.

Despite the different nature of these fields, there’s a common thread that ties them together: a consistent method of quality assurance tracking that examines the processes so the company meets its goals.

In Conclusion

Quality assurance tracking is beneficial for an organization as it helps ensure that tight protocols exist, supporting the entirety of the project (and team) and resulting in a high-quality deliverable. Understanding the fundamental operations of the business and looking to improve and expand the processes will help shepherd everyone towards success.

December 24, 2021December 24, 2021

The Craft of Smart Planning: How to Handle Defects in Scrum

Have you ever planned a car trip? Sometimes when you finally get out on the road, everything works like clockwork: the highways are empty and the sun is shining the whole time.

However, on other occasions, all the hotels are booked, or you hit inclement weather that delays the trip for days.

Planning a project with agile is no different. Even in the best planned sprints, the deliverable deviates from what was anticipated. These defects need to be addressed in order to deliver a quality product.

Yet, fixing defects increases a project’s scope, making it very difficult to forecast the completion date.

There’s no cut and dry method for managing defects. However, the ceremonies and roles in the scrum framework provide methods for tracking them. Let’s look at some approaches for handling defects in scrum, as well as some of their pros and cons.

1. Fix Defects During the Sprint

The most straightforward way to fix a defect is to work on it right when it’s detected. This solves the problem straight away.

However, a good agile team produces work at a consistent pace, and fixing defects mid-way could pose a challenge to this principle.

A time-consuming defect impacts the outcome of the sprint. In a sprint where two user stories were planned, fixing a defect may mean only one is brought over the finish line.

This causes the team’s velocity to go down. (Velocity is measured in the total point value of stories a team completes during a sprint.) A velocity that see-saws, producing a lot of work in one sprint, and very little in the next, isn’t agile.

Routinely fixing defects as they’re discovered also skews the story point estimates, making it hard for teams to plan sprints going forward.

2. Add Defects to Product Backlog

Another approach to handling a defect is to add it to the product backlog as an individual story.

This “work is work is work” mindset gives a defect equal weight as any other user story. The defect is assigned points, and completing it adds to the team’s velocity.

This is a good approach, in that it gives the developers credit for the time spent working on the defect.

However, this also has a way of incentivizing defects. When developers receive gold stars for working on defects, they aren’t concerned about preventing them in the first place.

A second option, then, is to add the defect to the product backlog but not assign it any points. Although this is probably a superior approach, it can be disheartening to a team. Time spent working on a defect detracts from time it would spend on a user story. The team feels like it’s taking three steps forward then two steps backward.

As you can see, handling defects as they’re detected is a bit of a conundrum. It’s hard to both fix them and maintain a constant velocity.

Utilizing the planning and reflecting ceremonies in scrum helps to resolve these complexities. Let’s look at some of them.

3. Play Planning Poker

When a team notices a lot of defects showing up during a sprint, sometimes this means the stories are too complex, and need to be broken down.

Planning poker is a method for estimating the complexity of a story. Teams “play” this during sprint planning.

In this game, team members use cards with numbers on them to rate the complexity of individual stories. So as not to be influenced by other team members, the point values are assigned privately, then the teammates reveal their estimates at the same time.

A higher point value indicates more complexity, meaning a story would take longer to complete.

The point values are based on the rapidly increasing Fibonacci sequence (1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55). An estimate of 55, for example, indicates a lot of uncertainty around a task. In this instance, the story should be broken down into simpler tasks so the team has a better understanding of the work entailed.

A point assignment of 3 or 5, however, indicates the work is fairly straightforward and predictable.

Making accurate story point estimates keeps velocity constant and enables a team to complete everything in its sprint backlog.

When a team becomes familiar with software work and puts some time into making these estimates, it’s able to assign point estimates that take potential defects into account.

4. Identify Patterns in Defects

In order to track and manage defects, it’s helpful for a team to categorize the types of defects it encounters.

One type of defect in software development is build defects, caused during the development process. Another are release defects, which are defects that have passed the user acceptance testing (UAT), and made it to market.

After a team has worked on several sprints together, it’s able to identify patterns in its defects and plan accordingly.

For example, high incidence of build defects indicates the team needs to focus on improving the development process. A pattern of release defects indicates a need to improve its UAT.

A sprint retrospective is the ideal time for a team to discuss any patterns it detects, and work to collaboratively improve its processes and systems.

5. Refine the Definition of Done

Each iteration, or sprint, in the agile cycle works toward creating increment to pass onto the end user. When a team pushes to create this increment, it may not go through sufficient testing, resulting in a sloppy product with many defects.

In order to manage defects, a team needs to create criteria for what it means for increment to be code complete. Usually, this entails more than just writing the code.

It may include identifying and clarifying technical debt in the product backlog, and implementing processes for testing and reviewing increment before its release.

A thorough “definition of done” sometimes entails having a “done checklist.”

6. Hold Sprint Retrospectives

The sprint retrospective is the ceremony most scrum teams skip. However, consistently practicing this ceremony helps a team handle defects.

A retrospective allows a team to address systemic issues and defects as they occur, and prevents a scenario where a team needs to dedicate an entire sprint to fixing all the defects in the previous weeks’ work.

Whenever a sprint produces defects, the team has plenty to discuss at the retrospective. It’s important for a leader to allow the team to run this discussion. The scrum master may guide a conversation, but he or she doesn’t direct it.

7. Elect a Good Product Owner

It’s essential for a team to have a product owner who knows what’s what.

One of the agile principles is about “maximizing the amount of work NOT done.” When a product manager grooms the product backlog, he or she is looking for the stories that are going to really move the needle for a project, not necessarily those tasks that keep the team busy.

By addressing any technical debt in the backlog, and selecting cleanup stories for the sprint, a product owner addresses defects as they arise.

Keeping the stories broken down into small, manageable amounts of work also helps to manage defects.

8. Run a Hardening Sprint

The goal for a scrum team is to deliver increment at the end of an iteration.

However, when a team hasn’t sufficiently dealt with defects during individual sprints, a hardening sprint is helpful for cleaning up messes and clearing up bottlenecks.

It’s good to be transparent in the product backlog as to the necessity of a hardening sprint by disclosing any technical debt. This lets the stakeholders understand what is going on.

The hardening sprint is generally used as a last resort.

When a team has a solid definition of what “done increment” looks like, stories are broken down with accurate estimates, and retrospectives are utilized, then a hardening sprint shouldn’t be necessary.

Conclusion

Handling defects has a lot to do with good planning and reflecting.

The scrum framework of working in iterations and then reflecting provides many opportunities to fix defects, and to resolve systemic issues that cause them.

Sprint planning and sprint retrospectives are central ceremonies for managing defects. Tracking the types of defects a team comes across is also key.

The good thing about agile is that you’re fixing defects as they arise. In this respect, it’s far superior to waterfall, which allows defects to pile up until the end of the project. At this point, when there’s literally thousands of defects, it’s impossible to address them all.

So even if your scrum team has to run a hardening sprint, or the velocity see-saws from time to time, it’s in a much better place than it would be using waterfall!

Managing defects is particularly challenging in a distributed agile team. Teamly’s sophisticated project management software offers a wealth of resources to keep remote teams agile. Come check us out today!

December 24, 2021January 7, 2022

7 Benefits of Outsourcing to India

A rising number of organizations are looking for better, more efficient ways to improve their business processes and save on costs. One of the ways in which a company can make this happen is by outsourcing essential and non-essential functions to a third party either inside, or outside, the United States. One of the most desired outsourcing destinations in the world is India.

India has become an in-demand and increasingly popular resource for those looking to outsource some work outside the country. According to Classicinformatics, 80% of firms in the US and Europe chose India over any other country for their outsourcing needs. There are a variety of benefits as a result of choosing to outsource to India – the talent pool alone is expansive, offering more opportunities – that can help streamline and create a robust (and international) workflow process within the company. Here is what you need to know about outsourcing to India. Let’s first define outsourcing.

What is Outsourcing?

Outsourcing is the practice of hiring a third party to complete services or other business functions that originally were done in-house by the company’s own employees. One of the most prevalent examples of this in action is within the Information Technology (IT) field. Some companies may choose to hire IT developers or tech support from another business without making them employees of the organization as it helps cut down on costs. Other areas that are frequently outsourced include one-time projects, marketing, customer service, or financial services. Let’s take a look at another small example. A small business has a need for editing services for its marketing materials. Instead of hiring a new employee to do this work (or increasing the workload of one of the existing team members), the company decides they’ll hire a contractor to perform the essential functions needed for editing only. This saves the company time and money when outsourcing this particular need and helps free up the team to focus on their main objectives.

It’s important to keep in mind that when considering the possibility of outsourcing work, there are three distinct types:

Offshoring – Outsourcing work to a different, distant country
Nearshoring – Outsourcing to a neighboring country often with the company’s own time zone
Onshoring – Outsourcing within the company’s own country

Offshoring and nearshoring have been the most popular choices for a company looking for a way to save on costs.

What are the benefits of outsourcing?

Outsourcing may prove beneficial to an organization for many a variety of reasons:

Opens up a wider possibility for talent – Companies will have more access to a variety of different skills, resources, and experiences. Most importantly, the availability of highly-specialized skills in widely considered challenging fields becomes an appealing option for companies looking to provide a competitive edge.
Allows the core team to focus on main goals – If a company decides to outsource some of the more time-consuming, non-essential business functions, then the core team can focus on its main objectives, have more room to implement strategic decisions, complete more company-wide goals, and get more work done faster.
Streamlined processes – With parts of the work outsourced to a different firm or company, the organization as a whole can review, clarify, and refine more of its internal operations, create streamlined processes that make sense for the entire team and execute on best practices that benefit the company.
More flexibility to meet the demands of the market – As with any business, the market constantly fluctuates. Outsourcing parts of the business operations can help create a flexible way for the team to meet any changes from external clients and provide everyone with resources to meet the demand.
Access to more innovation – Outsourcing some work can also mean increased collaboration between thought leaders and experts in their respective fields. This exchange of ideas can allow for more creative thinking between the two companies – an opportunity to learn from the other. Outsourcing could even potentially lead to other areas of evolved partnership.
Lower labor costs – When a company chooses to outsource, there are lower labor rates or reduced (or no) fringe benefits costs. According to CapitalCounselor, the top reason why 70% of companies decide to outsource is cost reduction.
Tailored services – Whether it’s a single project that needs to be outsourced or an entire division of the business, outsourcing can provide a simplified way to find a way to get the work done efficiently and quickly. It’s completely tailored to the business need, with professionals highly skilled in that specific niche. For example, if a business is looking to outsource its accounting division, engaging with a company specifically involved in the financial industry can open up a wealth of opportunities at a fraction of the cost.

While there are indeed many benefits to outsourcing, we should also consider some of the disadvantages.

What are the disadvantages of outsourcing?

With outsourcing, of course, comes some risk:

Time-zone differences – Especially if the company chooses to offshore some of its business practices, a drastic time-zone difference can have huge ramifications on the team and workflow. It takes careful planning and coordination to ensure all relevant parties are included in essential meetings and decision-making processes. Time-zone differences will also need to be accounted for when it comes to project management. If a few individuals on the team are in a variety of time zones, this will need to be considered when setting up a timeline for when assignments are due. If not managed correctly, this could create some delays (and misunderstandings) in the delivery of final projects.
Language barriers – Outsourcing to a different country also comes with having potential language barriers that could make certain tasks difficult. Unfortunately, some messages or instructions can be lost in translation or misinterpreted entirely. If the outsourced company doesn’t have a firm understanding of English, translators aren’t readily available, and the internal team doesn’t know how to carefully and tactfully communicate in a way that bridges the gap, there are bound to be many complications in the process, which could cause heavy delays and setbacks. Offshoring can also present some cultural barriers in addition to language ones. For example, cultural barriers can affect how employees and contractors interact with each other, share ideas, or manage disagreements. It can even seep into relevant areas such as negotiation, trust development, and prospective deals.
Loss of some control – When a company decides to outsource some of its work, that means potentially losing some control over those particular processes. The company loses some of its grip on monitoring how the work gets done. This means trust plays a heavy role in outsourcing. It may take a few cycles of consistent, high-quality work to achieve this level of trust and reliability.
Hidden Costs – Outsourcing work is generally perceived as being a cost-saver, however, companies must still be extra cautious about lengthy contracts, making sure they have their HR or legal department read any commitments thoroughly. There could be hidden fees, unexpected costs, or higher hourly rates that the company didn’t account for.
Increased Criticism – One of the major criticisms of outsourcing is the idea that more work opportunities and chances to further develop one’s professional career are given to outsourced companies, particularly outside the US, which has drawn criticism over the years. Much of the complaints are inevitable, with some of the public having a strong opinion about outsourcing to other companies overseas. It’s important to keep in mind the company’s needs and if outsourcing is truly a way to create a better and bigger future for the internal team.

Now we have defined outsourcing, how it can benefit organizations, and the various disadvantages companies may come across. With India being a favored resource for outsourcing, let’s talk about why companies choose to outsource to India.

Benefits of Outsourcing to India

India is likely on its way to becoming a tech leader by the year 2030, which is just one of the many reasons why companies decide to outsource to India. According to OutsourceAccelerator, India ranks as one of the top resources for outsourcing, especially for its services in IT and Software Development. Here are some of the other most important factors that make India such a vital asset in the global market:

Little to no language barrier – One of the major disadvantages of outsourcing to a different country is the language barrier. According to Maps of the World: Top 10 English Speaking Countries, India ranks at the top of the list at number two with just over 125 million people being English speakers – the second largest in the world after the US. This means that communication with an Indian workforce will likely be smooth and the language barrier minimally disruptive, opening up some avenues in which they can provide additional services like customer support.
Increasing talent pool – The talent pool in India increases each and every year. Another statistic from Classicinformatics states that over 3.1 million graduates from various colleges and universities are added to the growing job pool. With this massive amount of knowledge flowing into India’s workforce, outsourcing companies have a wide variety of different levels of expertise and skills they can rely upon to deliver outstanding work. Talented experts in their field are brought on to make meaningful contributions to the company, which in turn, can result in a fluid exchange of ideas, increasing cultural competencies, and can create a multicultural appeal. Additionally, the onboarding process moves rather quickly. Under regular circumstances, a company needs to go through a full and fair recruitment process in order to hire the perfect candidate. However, the hiring process in itself can be a long road. From the posting of the job ad to sourcing, interviews, and finally selection, the prospective employee must then undergo a background check which can take anywhere between a few days through a couple of weeks (and assuming there are no glaring red flags that would cause a company to rethink their decision). After this, the onboarding procedure can begin with a selected start date and an additional meeting with the company’s HR department to complete all the necessary legal paperwork. When a company outsources to India, skilled professionals are available almost immediately. Once the contract is reviewed and signed, these professionals can start right after the agreement is fully executed.
Unparalleled IT workforce – The Indian workforce supplies one of the world’s most robust IT services and offerings. Booming with advanced technology and excellent web customization, navigation, solutions, and development, the Indian IT workforce has been known to stay on top of emerging trends in technology to meet the demands of this specific field and advance their skills. The infrastructure devoted to IT services has boasted big companies such as Trigent, Clarion Technologies, Netgains, Qburst, and GirnarSoft. According to a white paper by Backoffice Pro, the Indian IT industry has expanded into the US, Europe, and Latin America. Over 200,000 graduates are added every year to the Indian IT workforce, resulting in India having the youngest employable population in the world (the average being 29 years of age). In the age of digital advances, this particular population will be key in the development of the technology market and its evolving innovation.
Reduction in costs – Because of India’s large population and cost of living, there is a lower cost for labor. This is a stark contrast to the US which has a high cost of living compared to the major of other countries. When you factor in all the different variables that go into an employee’s overall cost including the cost of fringe benefits, equipment needed to perform the job efficiently, taxes, competitive pay package, and other incentives (especially for a higher-level position), the cost of US labor can be quite high. According to the same white paper by Backoffice Pro, a developer in the US can cost a company $50-80 hourly, compared to an Indian developer who could charge as low as $15 hourly. This drastic reduction in cost can allow a company to have more flexibility within its budget and make strategic decisions towards its staffing needs depending on its unique circumstances.
High-quality work – Because of the level of skill and expertise from the highly-trained Indian workforce required in various business markets, the result is likely in high-quality work and services. In order to provide the best quality, the Indian workforce is usually up-to-date on the latest trends and the technology needed to facilitate a fast transfer of work with opportunities to collaborate and share ideas and resources frequently. Not only is the turnaround time reduced, but the work also comes at a much lower rate.
Stable Government – With India’s stable government and one of the world’s largest democracies, this minimizes the risk of any international work disruption that could potentially wreak havoc on internal work processes.
Ensures a company is sufficiently staffed – Another major benefit of outsourcing to India is building a layer of reliability and retention for the core business team. If the workflow ever threatens to overwhelm the team, a company can then rely on its outsourced team to provide support where needed. An efficient way to do this in the workplace is to assign certain tasks to the contractor, ensuring that they still receive meaningful work and preserving the workflow of the team.

There are a variety of benefits that come with outsourcing to India, and it’s easy to see why companies would choose India as its number one choice in outsourcing considering all the valuable advantages. While the IT field prevails as India’s most valuable source of expertise, there are other areas of business that benefit from outsourcing to India.

Extensive Industry Coverage

It isn’t just IT services that have gained huge momentum over the years as one of the top choices for outsourcing to India. Other vital areas of business outsourced to India include:

Retail
Media
Manufacturing
Customer support/services
Accounting/Financial/Payroll services
Data management
Call center
Software development
Human Resources
Procurement

There is much opportunity here for a company to outsource these different functions. As a result of this wide range of services, India remains in the top position as the world’s most preferred country for offshoring services.

In Conclusion

There is an increasing number of benefits when a company decides to outsource to India. Aside from cost savings and a wider talent pool, a company has a chance to expand its global network and influence and create streamlined processes that benefit its entire system. 68% of companies in the US now frequently outsource their services in hopes of alleviating their core team and building a method of operations that ensures high-quality services and outcomes.

While it’s certain that there are many advantages to outsourcing to India, it’s equally as important to understand some of the risks naturally associated with any type of outsourcing decision for a business. It’s essential for companies to remember that a full assessment of their needs is vital in this decision. It must be an absolute necessity for the current state of the team and the organization in order to begin the process of outsourcing its services as there could be some unexpected costs. However, if the demand is present after a careful examination of the company’s business processes, then the benefits of outsourcing to India could outweigh any risk.

December 24, 2021January 7, 2022

Master Your To-Do List and Get Things Done

To-do or not to-do… that is the question!

But if you are reading this, you have decided that you need to do a to-do list.

The name describes its function: a to-do list is simply a list of tasks that you would like to accomplish. There are quite literally millions of templates designed to plug and play but having a deeper understanding of the psychology of to-do lists will ensure you are using this powerful tool to its full potential.

What is the Difference Between a To-Do List and a Checklist?

To-do list and checklist are terms that are often used interchangeably, but there are some very important distinctions to consider.

A to-do list is a specific list of tasks that you wish to accomplish in a set amount of time, usually daily but sometimes more long term.

A checklist is a to do list but it is specific to a repeatable process.

For example, maybe you are going camping this weekend. On your to-do list for the day, you will see “pack for camping trip”. The act of packing is a task that you wish to accomplish that day so it belongs on a to-do list. If camping is a regular activity for you, it is helpful to have a camping packing checklist. Though you have gone camping before, having a checklist will take the pressure off of our brain to remember what it was that you packed (or forgot to pack) last time.

You may think that you have done something enough times to not need a checklist but some of the brightest minds in the most complicated professions make use of checklists… and in some cases, it actually saves lives! Dr. Atul Gawande, author of The Checklist Manifesto and responsible for the Safe Surgery Initiative and Checklist, was able to reduce surgery related complications and deaths by over 35% with his simple yet effective checklist for surgery procedures. He found that simple steps were missed in preparation for procedures, even by the best of surgeons. Having a consistent and standard checklist took the pressure off of an already intense process by having a simple 19 point one page checklist to refer to.

Okay, so you may not be performing life saving surgery but if some of the smartest minds make use of this simple system, it is safe to say that implementing it in your own life will also have a positive impact.

Creating Effective Checklists

Greg McKeown, author of Effortless: Make It Easier to do What Matters Most, has a simple 4 item list to consider when creating your checklists:

Observe your process
Record your process
Refine your process
Teach your process to others

Greg is a big fan of actually recording yourself during the process and note what could be done better. Recording yourself may help you find efficiencies in your own process. Teaching others your process is a great way to retain the information and may even help someone else be more productive. In completing these steps, you are effectively creating a template checklist that can be reused by yourself or others.

Consider your everyday tasks and note what repeatable processes would benefit from a checklist.

Your Brain Likes To-Do Lists

The human brain is plastic, meaning that it is capable of changing as we take in new information or form new habits.

Think about it, we can literally change how our brains are wired by implementing helpful systems. Once we form a habit, it becomes automatic which is actually a great way to conserve our brainpower for more complicated tasks.

Your brain is a big fan of to-do lists. When you write down your to-dos, it gives permission to your brain to let them go. We tend to use our brain as this short term storage unit when that isn’t how it works and is not optimal for your productivity or energy.

Jot it down, your brain will thank you.

The Brain Dump

A clear brain is a happy brain.

Before you even think about drafting to-do lists, you need to perform a brain dump. A brain dump, like to-do lists, is pretty self explanatory: take what is taking up space in your brain and dump it onto a page or digital document.

Every. Single. Thing.

The first time that you do this, you may feel a bit overwhelmed. Chances are that you have been relying heavily on your brain to store unfinished tasks or ideas and have quite the backlog. Fortunately, you will start to feel lighter as you pour everything on to the page.

Have you ever wondered why unfinished tasks tend to take up so much space in our heads? Why do they pop up at the most inconvenient times? Russian psychologist Bulma Zeigarnik called this phenomenon the Zeigarnik effect. He suggests that unfinished tasks create cognitive tension and your brain keeps bringing it forward in an attempt to keep it in our short term memory so as not to forget it.

The magic of a brain dump is that you can get these tasks and ideas out of your head and to a safe place so your brain doesn’t feel the need to constantly remind you. Letting your brain rest will keep it energized for more demanding and important tasks.

Try scheduling a regular time for brain dumps. While once a week would be great, but even once a month would make a big difference in how you feel. Try doing a brain dump at the end of the week and you may find that you spend less time on your weekends ruminating about unfinished work to-dos.

To-Do List for Mental Health

Creating to-do lists can keep you on task but they also have surprising mental health benefits.

Most people today will describe feeling overwhelmed or stressed which is an unfortunate reality of our hustle culture. While the pandemic certainly has people rethinking work and life balance, most people are still left with heavy workloads and conflicting priorities.

Not only will writing down your daily tasks help to keep you organized, there is a real reward when you check off an item on your list – it is called dopamine. Dopamine is the “happy” hormone and we feel it because that checked off item represents an accomplishment – big or small. Even if a task can be done quickly, take a minute to add it to your to do list if only just to check it off because that small dopamine hit may just carry you through to the next task and the one after that.

While it is important to keep your professional work out of the space that you sleep in, having a notepad beside your bed to jot down to-dos will get them out of your head and actually help you to sleep better. The Zeigarnik effect is a notorious disrupter of sleep and the last thing you should be thinking about at the end of the day is unfinished or pending tasks. With practice, you will be able to jot these to-dos down at the end of your workday instead of before you go to bed. Knowing that there is a place for these thoughts, should they creep into your head, provides you with a sense of comfort knowing you won’t fall asleep to the tune of pending to-dos.

Feeling as though you are productive and are contributing to something outside of yourself is a cornerstone of mental health and to-do lists can help you accomplish that. There are times in our day where we have some unexpected time on our hands – Clients cancel, flights are late, or any number of unexpected things come up that give us unaccounted for blocks of time in your day. When you have a to-do list handy, you will likely be able to move to another task. You will feel productive which is a great boost to your overall mental health.

Types of To-Do Lists

Generally speaking, there are two main types of to-do lists – short and long term. Before dissecting the different types, it is important to understand how to be SMART with any type of list.

SMART To-Do Lists

Every task on your short or long term to-do list should be SMART – Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Time Bound.

Specific

It is tempting to have less items on your list and be more vague in their descriptions. You may decide to write down “prepare for team meeting” as an item on your list but being more specific will be more helpful in managing your time and keeping you on track. Ask yourself what exactly is needed to prepare for this meeting:

Is there any preliminary research to be done?
Do you need to draft an agenda?
Are there minutes from a previous meeting to review?
Do you need to prepare a visual presentation?
Have they been sent a reminder?
Is there any documentation you will need to print?

The one task of preparing for a client meeting was easily broken down into 6 possible SMART tasks. While this may add more items to your list, they are more specific and will help ensure that you are fully prepared and don’t miss anything.

Measurable

When it comes to ensuring that a task is measurable, you need to consider what it will look like when it is complete. If you have a task on your list to clear your inbox, a measurable indicator of the task being completed would be an empty inbox. Another task may be to find a better deal on a company cell phone or internet plan. The measure involved in that task’s completion would be a reduced phone or internet bill.

Oftentimes, measurement isn’t a specific number but more about the status of the outcome. If your theoretical client meeting ends with a happy customer, your measurement would be in terms of satisfaction.

Attainable

Be real, do you think you can actually finish your end of year report in one day with 20 other items on your to-do list? Likely not.

Refer back to the first item in the SMART acronym, specific. Break a task down in a way that is designed to set you up for success and be reasonable with the time and energy that will be required of you to complete it.

Perhaps completing an end of year report isn’t attainable in a single day, the best you can manage is the outline of the report or the collection of supporting materials. That is okay! When you set attainable to-dos, you are setting yourself up for success (and a nice dopamine hit).

Relevant

Is the task on your list relevant to your end goal? The answer to this question can depend on how you manage and categorize your lists. It is helpful to have several lists to lump relevant tasks together but also to ensure that you have goals that those tasks will combine to reach. Grouping tasks together will also help you maintain focus. Jumping from client meeting presentation to end of year report will cost you time in the switch so it may be more efficient to dedicate your morning to writing related activities and afternoon to meetings, lumping the relevant tasks together.

If you have a list in front of you, it may be helpful to actually write the goal at the beginning of the list. Ask yourself if you check off every item, will you be steps closer to that goal? If you are writing an end of year report, every task on that list should take you one step closer to completing that specific and measurable goal.

Time-bound

Deadlines are essential. You can run with the assumption that the items on your to-do list are due by the end of the day which works for some, but certain tasks will have deadlines that exist within the run of the day and should be noted. Noting deadlines will help you prioritize your daily activities, taking the guesswork out of the flow for your day.

Short Term To-Do Lists

Short term to-do lists are more familiar and include those that you would use for daily tasks. These often look like a notepad with checkboxes on your desk, a magnet pad on your fridge, or a list written on a whiteboard. These items are generally one time items like those specific to a particular task such as preparing for a work presentation. To-do lists are also often used for household chores and maintenance.

A work to-do list may look something like this:

Check voicemail
Send email to client regarding the status of the venue
Choose a template for the end of year presentation
Send in lunch order before 11:00am
Draft agenda for team meeting

A personal to-do list may look something like this:

Drop cupcakes off at the school before 9:00am
Fill up gas tank
Pick up part for the lawnmower
Clean cat litter
Wash bedding

While there are endless possibilities when it comes to individual lists, these examples all clearly demonstrate a specific task that can be done in a regular day. When a time isn’t specified or the task is non-time specific, it is safe to assume that the task simply needs to be accomplished at some point during the day. The cat litter can be changed anytime but the cupcakes need to be dropped off before the class party.

Long Term

Anything that cannot be completed in a day is considered an item to add to your long term to-do list. If you go to the next metric, it would make sense that you may also make use of weekly or even monthly to do lists. While not as detailed, these lists provide a bigger picture or an overview of the period of time and can be referenced in order to develop effective daily lists. For example, your weekly to-do list may note certain reports or presentations that are due. This list can be used to develop more specific items to be done in the course of a day to make the larger task more manageable.

Another example could be a larger project such as reaching a certain sales goal by the end of the year. This one item could live on your long term to-do list and be further broken down by goals for the month and weekly actions that will help get you there such as running a promotion or drafting a plan.
When you consider the utility of long term to-do lists. It is easy to see how long term to-do lists can be helpful for breaking down daily tasks to help you reach your goals.

Master To-Do List

While it does fall in the category of long term to-do lists, it is worth specifically mentioning the master to-do list…The to-do list of all to-do lists.

Think of a master to-do list as an organized brain dump, a place where you can add any tasks for both short and long term lists. If you have done your brain dump properly, you should end up with a number of items, some of which have nothing to do with each other all in one place. It is helpful to use a digital document so that you may easily copy and paste, grouping similar tasks and breaking down larger ones.

With everything in one place, you can pull from your master to-do list and add to your daily, weekly, or even monthly lists. Some items may remain on your master to-do list for a while and that is okay, you can get to them when they become a priority and they will be safely stored and out of your head in the meantime.

Creating Templates to Increase Productivity

We often find ourselves doing the same or similar tasks over and over again in our professional and personal lives. If this is the case for you, it may be helpful to create some templates that you can use to save time and energy.

If you travel regularly, it would be helpful to create a checklist of the items that you know you will need. Even if you have traveled dozens of times, having a list will ensure that you haven’t forgotten anything and take the load off your brain from having to dig around and find information from your past. Remember, even surgeons do it.

Another handy use of templates would be for work. If you work for an organization that plans events, it would be helpful to have checklists for pre and post event planning. Given that the event planning process looks similar each time, you can look professional and be prepared at the same time.

Invest some time to create templates that will save you time in the long run.

To-Do Tips

Big or small, short term or long term, to-do lists can help you reach your goals.

What do you wish to have accomplished at the end of the day? Perhaps you have a report that is due, a meeting with a client, or graphics to design for a new webpage. In an ideal world, you can picture the end of your day having accomplished the tasks specific to your goal.

But it isn’t enough to simply write “complete report” on your list. Depending on the type of report, you may have some research to do, some feedback to collect, or even need to design a template that can be used for future reports.

Bring it all back to your goal and the specific actions you need to do to accomplish it. Here are some final tips to ensure that your to-do lists are as effective as possible:

Be SMART – Make sure that every item on your list is Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Time Bound.
Prioritize – When did “priority” become “priorities”? Having multiple priorities simply waters down the importance and significance of having a single one. That does not mean that you only ever have to-do lists with only one item but it does mean that you understand that you have an order to the tasks that you wish to accomplish.
Pick a Medium – While some people can manage both digital and physical lists it is best to pick one and stick with it.
Use Categories – Keeping your to-dos organized by using categories will help keep you focused on the task at hand. It isn’t enough to breakdown work and personal, having categories within these lists will benefit you.
Schedule Prep Time – Your to-do lists are not going to make themselves, put some time and consideration into drafting them and ensure they align with your goals of the day.

To-do lists are an incredibly helpful tool that you can use to stay focused and boost your productivity. Plan a brain dump, create a master to-do list, and start organizing your tasks in a way that will serve you.

December 24, 2021March 28, 2023

Work From Home? Here is how to Separate Your Space

Not only are more people working remotely, but one Owl Labs study says that half of their respondents indicated that they would not even consider returning to a job that didn’t offer at least part time remote options. Currently, In the U.S. alone, almost 70% of workers are working from home.

Early in the pandemic, you didn’t have to look far to find people making makeshift offices in spare bedrooms, dining room tables, or even closets! Innovation and creativity fueled a new wave of people learning how to work with what they had available and set up a workspace that has been traditionally supplied to them. Almost 2 years later, most people have gotten at least somewhat comfortable with their at home workspace and have been more than willing to share their tips and tricks for making it work at home.

Consider Your Work Needs

First things first, you need to consider your professional needs before you start rearranging furniture or emptying closets. For example, a photographer’s workspace will look different than a corporate office workers space and will make use of different technology and gadgets.

To figure out the space you will need, list the technology and other space related needs that you require:

Laptop or desktop computer?
Fancy audio setup or basic headset?
Space for books or paper documents?
Physical or digital notepad?

If you have (or plan to have) a desktop computer set up, you may need a bit more space than someone who works from a laptop and the same can be said if you will have paper documents that you will need for reference. For some, the dining room table is a great place because they like to spread out and see everything that they are working on at once. For others, the kids get home at 3:00pm and it is a mad dash to clear the table for homework and supper.

Another aspect to consider would be the need for privacy. While the dining room table is appealing, you may need to have a space to take client or work related calls. Every job will look different but you need to consider what kind of physical space you will need to be productive and comfortable.

Create a Work Specific Zone

When the pandemic first hit, the line between work and home was not just blurred, it was obliterated. Work documents were mixed with children’s homework or pillows were used to prop you up in bed with a laptop. Everyone did the best they could but it is time to make your set up a bit more permanent and reestablish the boundaries between work and personal life.

If you are lucky enough to have a spare room to use as an office space, the boundary is simply an open or closed door. If you have a smaller space, set clear rules for yourself such as an open or closed laptop indicating if you are at work or at home. The more obvious the distinction between work and home, the more likely you are to actually respect that boundary. It is easy to check just one more email or jump on one more call when you have fluid work/life boundaries and that is what you want to try and avoid. Your work zone isn’t just a physical space, you need to respect (or set) reasonable work hours.

Boundaries can also be set by the clothes you wear. While working in your PJs is tempting and sometimes called for, it may be helpful to actually get dressed as if you were going to work to help set the tone. Shut that door, close that drawer, pull across that curtain, figure out your boundaries and make them clear so that you are able to tell the difference between work and personal life.

Get Creative and Personalize

Chances are that your home office space is already better than any cubicle in terms of having a personality. Exercise your creative muscles and create a space that you are inspired to work in. Be sure to include pictures of loved ones, plants, fun stationary, even a diffuser or candles if that is your thing.

Pinterest is great for ideas for small home offices, some favourites include:

Closet office conversions – removing the doors from a closet can instantly create a dreamy office space that can be hidden away with a sliding door or curtain. With a built-in desk, a couple shelves and a bit of paint, you can have an instant office space. Check out Pinterest for some creative ideas because there is no shortage of inspiring closet offices!
Spare room office combo – if you happen to host a lot, chances are that you have a spare bedroom. That space is valuable and you may still want to keep it available to guests but you still need a dedicated and private office. No worries, you can have both! If space is an issue, you can always trade in a bed for futon, daybed or Murphy bed if you want to get really fancy. When company comes, a temporary set up elsewhere in the house will do.
Fold up office – Remember the murphy bed suggestion? You can also get desks that fold up! These are more commonly called wall desks and take up very little space. They can be set up in a spare room or even a common area in your home. Instead of clearing the dining room table once a day, you can simply fold up the desk and it will be ready and waiting for you tomorrow.

Get Comfortable

Maybe you have created a cute little nook for work, complete with succulents and a vision board… but is it comfortable? Ergonomics should be a top priority for your workspace. Pinterest images of a laptop in a perfectly lighted Bohemian themed room may look pretty but the natural screen height of a laptop is not designed for long term work and comfort. Consider desk as well as screen height so that your body is properly aligned to reduce injury. You may not think that a desk job could be hard on your body but it can wreak havoc on you if you develop bad habits. Mayo Clinic has a great article outlining the basics of an ergonomic work space.

Part of your comfort also involves airflow and lighting. If the weather allows it, open a window or two and make sure that fresh air is circulating in your space. If opening a window is not an option, be sure to schedule time in your day for a walk or even step outside occasionally. Setting up near windows is a great way to get some natural light which also looks great on video chats. Make sure the light is in front of you to avoid being backlit. You can also invest in a light therapy lamp that mimics natural light if you find your office in a darker basement or closet with little light.

Clean and Organized

Home offices are as unique as the people who have them and organizing will look different to everyone. Here are 5 tips to keep your small home office organized and clutter free:

Go paperless: In this day and age, the majority of documents and work can exist in a digital space or be scanned.
Create a filing system and make use of storage containers: For the few paper items you will need, having a small portable filing system will keep you organized and paper off your valuable workspace. Storage containers will also serve this purpose but be sure to label them to find what you need easily.
Have a physical inbox: Even the most organized of us have spaces around our home and cars where paper clutter tends to collect. Anticipate it and have a physical inbox where everything goes and commit to clearing it at the end of each day
Utilize wall and drawer space: From pegboards to floating shelves, you can customize your vertical space while keeping your workspace clear and functional. In the same spirit, having several drawers to keep office supplies will also keep your workspace tidy and decluttered. You may also want to consider cable management to not have cords taking up more valuable space on or around your desk.
Keep a notepad handy: digital or paper, having a place for quick notes will help you resist the urge to have little bits or paper or sticky notes cluttering your space and distracting you.

Find Your Community

You are not the only person working from a home office, people around the world are doing this too and are full of experience and suggestions. Finding (or creating) these groups will help keep you accountable to good home office habits as well as inspire you to make the best use of the space you have.

No matter what kind of space you are working with, you can set up a small home office that works for you.

December 24, 2021December 25, 2023

13 Tasks All Business Owners Should Delegate to a Virtual Assistant

Tasks to delegate to a virtual assistant

The role of virtual assistant has skyrocketed in popularity in recent years. Along with the general remote working and freelance boom, VAs have grown from an odd curiosity to a rewarding and lucrative career. More importantly, their impact on businesses has been shown to be incredibly powerful and worth the investment many times over.

In this article, we’re looking at some of the core tasks that any small business owner or contractor could assign to VA. Grouped into 3 categories—administrative, financial, and personal—these are tasks which can radically free up your time and, therefore, add tremendous value to the business.

We’ve also taken a look at exactly what a virtual assistant does, who could benefit from hiring one, and a few key pointers for attracting the best VAs to your job posting.

What is a VA?

Virtual assistants are self-employed workers that company owners bring in to tackle work that frees up their time for more crucial tasks. The role has skyrocketed in popularity in recent years since there’s a huge opportunity gap for both sides:

For entrepreneurs or business owners — Free up a significant amount of time every week or month, ability to hire in-demand skills in one person, flexible contracts, eliminate tiresome jobs.
For virtual assistants — Good pay, flexible hours, work from anywhere, respectable profession.

The fact that virtual assistants work entirely remotely and are usually part-time are the main differentiators from traditional or executive assistants. Engaging a virtual assistant has been revolutionary for a huge number of business owners; not only does it free up time and eliminate the jobs we like least, it also gives the brain more energy to put into the highest-value tasks, making us even more effective at completing them.

Finding the right VA can be transformative for any small or medium business.

Who should hire a VA?

Generally, it’s either small business owners, entrepreneurs, or successful freelancers that engage virtual assistants. The reason why is pretty straightforward: these personas have enough complexity in their work that they massively benefit from outside help, but aren’t so established, profitable or busy as to need a full-time assistant.

One reason VAs are so in-demand is that they are capable of providing a hugely broad set of skills. While running a business does require skills that no one else in the company has (and there are jobs no one else can complete) the majority of your job probably isn’t like that.

In fact, most company owners spend most of their time doing simple logistical, administrative, sales and financial work. Work that skilled virtual assistants can do to the exact same standard and for a fraction of the cost of your time!

So that’s the real answer: anyone who wants to free up their time to perform higher-value tasks (i.e. the kind that make the company more profitable) should consider hiring a VA. Once you’ve gone down that road, you won’t believe how you ever ran your business without one.

#1—Administrative

Administration is probably the biggest area where business owners can benefit from a virtual assistant. Most of us know these tasks take up a lot of our time, but we have no idea just how much until we’ve been liberated from them. These are the most impactful administrative tasks which your VA can manage on your behalf.

Calendar & meeting management

Running your own business automatically means signing up for a disproportionate amount of time spent scheduling and attending meetings, events, trips, and lunches. You’ve got constant “catch ups” and reviews, pitches, employee reviews, creative sessions—in any industry, being the boss means having everyone fight for a piece of your attention.

But while many of these conversations are essential to running the business successfully, actually organizing them isn’t suitable work for a CEO. Let your virtual assistant take the reins! This can include:

Routing all meeting requests through your VA for approval
Giving your VA authority to schedule any calls, trips, or meetings during the day
- The key is discussing your preferences with your VA, in detail, before they start. Let them know what your biggest priorities are, any exceptions to rules, or times you aren’t to be disturbed.
Providing reminders about any upcoming meetings and their agendas
Giving your VA the authority to reschedule appointments

One of the most crucial tasks you should give your VA (which you’re probably not already doing yourself) is soliciting agendas for every meeting. Make it your VA’s job to request an accurate agenda along with every meeting request. Not only will this make your meetings more productive (since thought has gone into exactly what needs discussed) but your VA can then distill and share that agenda with you, verbally or in print, before each meeting.

The more meetings you have every week, the harder it is to be prepared and present; VA-led agendas fix this problem! Note that we said many of your meetings and appointments are essential—but not all of them. Use your VA as a filter for the meetings which don’t actually need to take place. Unlike you, your VA has no qualms about saying “no” and protecting your valuable time.

Email and communications handling

You probably receive a huge number of irrelevant emails every day. Any virtual assistant worth their salt can efficiently manage your emails in a fraction of the time it takes you—and also to a much higher standard.

By giving your VA access to your emails (with all the necessary securities in place) they can proactively manage your emails: not those you send but those you receive. They can filter emails into different folders or organize by priority and send spammy messages straight to the bin.

The result is a clean, clear inbox of messages that actually require responses. This will massively reduce the time spent meandering around your emails, but also stop that list of “unread” emails hitting 4 or 5 digits.

If you want to take things a step further, give your VA permission to respond to certain emails on your behalf. Commonly this can include:

Meeting or appointment requests (as seen in previous sections)
Pitches or proposals (standardized response)
Enquiries from potential customers (standardized response)
Personal emails
Enquiries about purchases, invoices and billing

Whatever remit you give your virtual assistant, let that authority extend to emails too—you’ll make a fortune with the time you save!

PS—If there’s something truly urgent, your VA can always update you so you don’t miss out.

Travel arrangements

The more your job requires travelling for business, the more value you can get from a good VA. To name just a few, here are ways your VA can streamline your business travels:

Research flights and accommodation — Share your travel preferences with your VA then let them screen options on your behalf. They can then present a list of options (times, prices, unique benefits) so that you can make your choice in seconds, not hours. They can also commit time to finding special deals to reduce company costs.
Booking travel — Once you’ve established a relationship with your VA, we recommend giving them full authority to pay for travel arrangements using company funds. Now instead of researching and paying for these trips, you can be handed a clean itinerary of what’s happening, when, and where.
Arrange transport — On the ground abroad, you need to navigate around the area. Your VA can be instrumental in coordinating your various events, meetings, or entertainment. They can book hire cars, arrange drivers, book taxis, or even plot the walking routes you’ll want to take to dinner.
Manage social time — If you’ll have free time on the trip, allow your VA to explore the local options that suit your tastes. This could be obtaining day passes for the local gym, booking a tee time, finding a nice restaurant for dinner—whatever you like to do, tell your VA and let them organize it for you.

Perhaps most vitally, your VA can continue to manage your communications: both domestically (so you don’t have to deal with everything while you’re abroad) but also on your trip, liaising with the local partners or clients you’re visiting.

Data entry

Data entry takes a near-infinite number of forms which all share a specific trait: it is boring but necessary. What isn’t necessary is doing this number crunching yourself. Many VAs are experts in collecting, sorting and inputting data into whatever software you need. Digitizing documents, preparing product catalogues—whatever it is, free up your time by letting your VA take charge.

Social media management

There’s a growing expectation for senior management and leaders of companies to be more involved in their digital communities, largely through some amount of social media presence. But the vast majority of senior company figures are not posting their own content or forming their own replies to posts.

Over time, your VA can become the person who knows you best in the entire company. You’ll be communicating with them constantly and, depending how you utilize their expertise, they might be heavily involved in the day-to-day running of the business, perhaps even sitting in on major strategic meetings.

Use this knowledge (and the fact many VAs are social media aficionados) and let them run your social media on your behalf. Rather than creating time to think up ideas, write & edit and then schedule them (as well as responding to comments and interacting with connections or followers) you could have one short strategy meeting every month to decide roughly what needs posted.

If this seems like a minor point, then remember that’s exactly the point: you want a VA to take on as many of your minor tasks as possible. It’s all about marginal gains: if you VA can take over 10 minor tasks, it adds up to a significant release in your schedule.

#2—Bookkeeping

While it’s more applicable for smaller businesses, getting your VA involved in financial management can save endless headaches and lost time. We’ve split this section into the 5 main areas where virtual assistants are most commonly deployed in finance and bookkeeping.

It’s important to note your VA won’t be a qualified accountant. What they can do is follow basic protocols around taking payments, issuing invoices, issuing receipts and checking over payroll—work that regularly falls into the owner’s remit!

Invoicing & collecting payment

Chasing clients for payment is the absolute least effective use of your time. Payment is absolutely critical to the business, but your strategic guidance and person management is something no one else can provide.

The beauty of a VA is that they can command more respect than the average employee (since they can operate with your name) and they usually have experience in using invoicing software. Allow them access to open accounts so they can promptly chase late payments, offer friendly reminders, and send receipts.

If you can trust your VA, this eliminates a potentially massive time suck. More pertinently, chasing clients for payment can be a huge source of stress, which bleeds into the rest of your work. Eliminate all of this by letting your VA run the show.

One final upside to this approach for smaller businesses or contractors is that communicating through an assistant lends a certain level of prestige. This can be influential in impressing clients.

Making payments

If the company needs to buy in some last-minute equipment for a project, book a venue for the Christmas party, or has any other short-notice expenses which need taking care of, your VA is the perfect person to take on the work. The same goes for fast payments to one-off contractors or bonuses; once your VA has access to the purse strings, you can move from handling those payments yourself to spending a few seconds giving instructions before returning to your other work.

If they’re already familiar with the company finances (which they will be if you’re using them for any bookkeeping) then you can advise on budget or payment methods as needed. VAs are famed for only needing this kind of instruction once and getting the job done right every time after.

Recordkeeping and expense tracking

It is a legal requirement to retain an organized log of all receipts and invoices from your business’s purchases and expenses. These are vital for ensuring you pay the right amount of tax. However, it’s also a time-consuming and arduous process.

While modern digital apps have made combining digital and print receipts much easier, doing so—while organizing them clearly by date and matching a receipt to every single expense—requires a huge amount of time and diligence. This is a priority for the business—but it should not be a priority for you personally.

Any qualified VA will be able to sort and file your records faster and more efficiently that you can. More to the point, it costs your company significantly more to do this work yourself, since your time is considerably more valuable than a $15-$30/hr virtual assistant! Simply show your assistant how your platform works (don’t be surprised if they already know how to manage recordkeeping better than you) and leave them to it.

Payroll oversight

It is your responsibility to make sure everyone gets paid the right amount every month. While this sounds easy, you know that problems can crop up and administrative errors do happen. But rather than combing through the accounts every month, why not assign responsibility to your VA?

They’re almost certainly familiar with the accounts already (and if not, what are you doing?!) and can simply send you a summary of the monthly payroll. You can retain responsibility, but with a commitment of only a few minutes per month. As with most of our suggested VA tasks, this is a no-brainer way to optimize your time and, as a result, positively impact the business.

Paperwork

Every business has financial paperwork. Sure, much of it is on the computer now, but it’s still paperwork and it’s still arduous to complete. Everything from purchase orders to new starter contracts, tax returns and insurance documents need to be carefully completed, filed and stored.

This is virtual assistant heaven. Not only will any good VA be an expert at this kind of work already (meaning there’s no need to train them up) but it’s also the type of task they love tucking into. Going forward, whenever you need to find a specific document or pull out a number from the past, your VA can hand it to you immediately.

Sure beats digging around your disastrously messy filing cabinet and spreadsheets for hours!

#3—Personal

In addition to everything we’ve discussed so far, one of the biggest areas where business owners and entrepreneurs find VAs make the most impact is in their personal lives. Running your own business requires a huge amount of time and mental effort, and sometimes the lines between home and work life become blurred.

Worse, we put so much time and effort into maintaining the business that important personal matters can fall by the wayside. Remembering birthdays or date nights, working until the shops close, failing to prioritize hobbies or personal time—these are problems for business owners of every scale.

But with a proactive VA, that no longer needs to be the case!

Shopping

Running your own company tends to mean working every hour God sends. While that might be necessary to get your business off the ground and growing fast, it usually comes at the cost of personal time and headspace.

When birthdays are coming up or Christmas is round the corner, it might well be the last thing on your mind. This is the perfect area to delegate to your VA. Not only do they have an intimate familiarity with your calendar (including birthdays and special occasions) they’re also proactive and can devote time to making the right purchases—time that most business owners simply can’t afford to give up.

Vacations and travel

When your VA is already managing your work travel, having them help outside of work is a natural extension. Booking and organizing vacations and trips isn’t difficult, per se, but it is time-consuming. You need to spend hours looking at flight and accommodation options, activities, and prices—and repeat these searches for multiple sets of dates.

If you’re in charge of organizing the family summer vacation, then put your VA in charge. Tell them broadly what you’re looking for then let them investigate. You can then have another quick meeting where they lay out all the best options, including the prices, photos, descriptions of local amenities and whatever else you want to know.

Then your job is simply to pick an option, maybe suggest a couple of changes, and everything is done. And if you don’t normally handle the holiday bookings, maybe you could volunteer knowing your VA has got you covered? As well as earning some great kudos from your other half, you’ll end up taking a wonderful vacation.

Kids, school and childminding

One of life’s biggest struggles is juggling a business and family. When your work is an extremely important part of your identity, you can’t easily “switch off” or bail out to deal with your kids. More to the point, with your insanely busy schedule it’s easy to forget about important events like the school show or an arranged play date.

Enter the VA. With an intimate knowledge of your calendar, your VA is the perfect solution to combining work and parenting easily. They can arrange your schedule so that you don’t miss your kid’s performance, but without needing to make last-minute apologies clients either.

Organizing childcare, buying presents, arranging playdates—there’s a lot of minor administrative work your VA can do to help you balance the precarious act of business ownership and parenting at the same time.

Putting together a good job description

If everything we’ve suggested so far sounds too good to be true, then realize that there is one small caveat: the best virtual assistants won’t work for just anyone, or for low pay. These people are absolute life-savers who can indirectly transform your business and personal life—and they know it. Like any worker with such a valuable skill set, they command respect and are rarely “free agents”.

The best way to catch the attention of high-quality virtual assistants is simply to advertise well. Your ad needs to be eye-catching of course, but more importantly it needs to be candid and honest: share your actual expectations and hopes for your VA, and make it clear what kind of work you do, your salary budget (and whether it’s negotiable) and what time commitment you expect.

And if you aren’t sure about any of these things, then explain that in your job advert. Tell any prospective VA that you want their insight into what they can offer, what they charge, and what time commitment they think is reasonable. You’re hiring for expertise that doesn’t currently exist in your company—use that expertise to figure out what you need!

Remember that the vast majority of VAs work part-time for their clients. So whatever hourly rate you see—$15, $30 or $50+ an hour—remember that you’re not looking at a full annual salary, and also try to remember how much money you’re saving by employing them in the first place.

Conclusion

The reality is that if you’re running a small to medium business—even if you’re an independent freelancer—and you’re profitable, then you can almost certainly benefit from delegating tasks to a virtual assistant.

It’s easy to view hiring a VA as an unnecessary expense; in reality, the right VA will enable you to increase profits. Rather than committing hours and days to non-profit-making activities (like admin and bookkeeping) you can focus entirely on marketing, sales, product development, or customer service—whatever you do that keeps the money coming in.

Perhaps the most crucial benefit for delegating to a VA is lowering stress. On top of everything else, utilizing a VA allows you to alleviate the burden of stress. You’ll find it easier to maintain a positive mindset, sustain deep focus, and drive your business forward when you’re not being dragged down by these low-value tasks.

When you consider that the side benefits include increased productivity, a healthier business and a happier personal life, then the decision to hire a virtual assistant starts to look like a no-brainer.