How We Skyrocketed Our Productivity By Switching To Nifty Project Management Tool
Introduction
Here at StrtupBoost, it is all about scaling your business and helping your company grow. However, to help you scale, our team needs to operate productively. We need to stay focused on all of our clients and projects, making sure everything is synced. Every team member needs to know what he/she has to do next, but also what other team members are up to right now.
This synchronization became increasingly important when the COVID-19 pandemic hit. Like most other businesses, we were forced to go remote, which brought new organizational challenges. Now we need apps for communication, conferencing, and usual project management. All that complicates the process, creating a lot of “empty” hours over the course of the week/month, as we spend quite a bit of time switching from app to app.
That was the central reason we decided to switch to Nifty, as it’s an all-in-one solution. But, let’s discuss our old system first, giving you some insights about things we liked, but also things that were the bottlenecks and reasons why we had to change.
The Old System — Slack + Monday (And Other Apps Occasionally)
At its core, our old system had two apps — Slack and Monday.
Slack needs no introduction as it is the go-to communication app for teams of all sizes. It does so much more and works faster than sending in-team emails, and yet it is cleaner and more organized than sending text messages. Every StrtupBoost project had its channel, and we also kept things split up by teams, so everyone knew where to look when they needed the latest info about the thing they’re working on. All in all, our Slack system was nothing revolutionary, and many of you are probably using something similar.
Monday was the tool of our choice for project management. We liked how it has timelines, which let us see where the project is and how it makes it very easy to organize a project using columns, color coding, and estimates. Monday makes collaboration clear as you can leave comments, assign team members to tasks, track time, and more.
Also, when we needed to schedule a conference call, we used Zoom, and we also used Google Docs to collaborate on documents. Of course, we used email to communicate with clients and check for updates.
So, Why Did We Change, What Was Wrong?
When you look at the system, it seems quite intuitive and basic — when you need to leave a message, you go to Slack. When you need to check the project status and tasks you need to do, you go to Monday. When you need to make a call, you go to Zoom. When you need to share a doc or a file, you go to Drive/Docs. Simple? Not exactly.
An Issue With “Empty” Hours
That constant switching between tasks created an entropy, a wasted amount of actual work time that remained trapped in switching between apps and trying to find what you want. Remember, this was real productive time. After all, we were not switching between apps because we wanted to procrastinate, You actually want to do work, but the system is holding you back.
Sure, the solution was to keep everything open in the background all the time. But, then you constantly need to ALT+TAB between apps while working on the project itself. And then it comes to personal preference — someone will rather leave a comment in the Monday project management tool, while someone else likes to write a Slack channel message for similar reasons. When all team members are online — no problem. But, if something like this happens and you are working remotely (across multiple time zones), the person who was missing from the live update will need to go through messages/comments to figure out which is important and what is the next step for them to do.
In short, the work system started trapping work time, and we noticed that we needed something that will combine all of the features we needed into one app. We needed Nifty.
We Replaced The System With One Tool — Nifty
Our new system is not exactly a system, as we basically replaced all apps with one — Nifty.
Instantaneous Communication
First, Nifty has a built-in live chat feature that lets us communicate between team members instantly. That was missing from Monday and was the primary reason we opted to use Slack. Sometimes you only need to ask something quickly, and doing it in Monday comments was not very convenient. But, opening Slack and switching your focus to a different app is not convenient either, and Nifty solved that problem.
But, through Zapier, Nifty supports integrations with more than a thousand apps, Slack and Zoom included. That way, even if we need to use a feature that Nifty doesn’t natively have, we can stay within the app, and use integrations to connect it to other tools. Again, Nifty keeps the operation centralized, as we don’t have to search through the system itself to get the job done.
Documents Collaboration
Another problem that we had was using Google Docs to collaborate on documents. There’s nothing wrong with Docs, we love it. But, that was a third app we used to get the job done. A team member needed to go through Monday figure out the assigned task (and browse through comments), then they would need to go to Slack and read the discussion, then they would need to click the Google Docs link, and edit the actual document, by reading through comments and other edits — a slow process to say the least.
Nifty Docs changed all that. Now, the document we are working on stays within the project management tool, simplifying the process tremendously. We have everything in one place, which completely eliminates redundancy. Once a team member opens Nifty, they will see everything important just by going through notifications, and they know what exactly needs to be done next.
Also, Nifty has Google Docs integration too, which is very convenient as we sometimes have to use a feature that is specific to Google Docs. Even then, everything stays fully synched with the project management tool, so we don’t have to waste time manually updating anything.
All The Project Management Tools Are There
Nifty has all the advanced project management features we liked when using Monday. In other words, when we transitioned to Nifty, we didn’t lose anything but gained a lot.
Assigning tasks to team members is a breeze. Everyone knows what do do next, and we can all see the project progress at a glance by checking the overview tab. The milestone feature is especially useful as it keeps that feeling that the project is going somewhere, giving us that boost when we feel stuck. When you notice a task list getting big, you can easily convert it to milestones, and visually see where the project is heading. Also, in a click, Nifty lets you switch between list and kanban view, making it incredibly easy to organize your task list.
In short, one look at the customizable project home panel will tell every one of us everything we need to know about the project. So no need to switch between apps and read dozens of unimportant comments — everything is there in one place.
Bottom Line: A Noticeable Difference
Yes, StrtupBoost is not NASA, but even our small team noticed significant productivity improvements when we decided to replace our system with Nifty. The amount of saved time is noticeable, and there is much less hassle as you don’t have to browse through multiple apps to start working. All you have to do is turn on the laptop, and open Nifty — the work begins there. No more wasting time getting stuck in the system itself.
Nifty holds everything in one place, and by doing that, it lets us focus on what we do best, and that is scaling your business. It simplifies our workflow, allowing us to focus on the work itself, and getting things done. And you know what? We love it! Thanks Nifty!
