Giving constructive feedback is key to building a team. Here are 5 easy steps to get it right.
Many managers are uncomfortable giving feedback, especially when it’s negative. This discomfort often turns into anxiety and avoiding it altogether. As a result, a problem that’s fixable when addressed early can become a huge problem when the right feedback is never given. With a little bit of training, you can fix this destructive behavior and […]
Read MoreNew to Project Management? Here’s the Complete Manual on Running Projects of all Kinds
Why did we collect all of these project management tips? Approximately 66% of the people who manage projects in any given organization have no training of any kind in project management. This can result in a lot of challenges for organizations, for teams, and for the people who are managing projects without formal training. We’ve […]
Read MoreThe Ideal Collaborative Workflow For Marketers and Developers
With today’s reliance on digital media, it can be a huge advantage to have a specialized team of developers working to implement the ideas of your marketing specialists, efficiently fix any issues that come along, and implement changes that ensure the company can reach achieve its website goals. There are definite advantages to having a […]
Read MoreThe 5 Project Management Skills Every PM Needs to Master
Project management is a job that’s easy to underestimate, with project managers themselves often inaccurately lowballing how much coffee they’ll need to get through to project completion. With the wide array of workload that falls on a PM, it becomes important to master several key skills to help you manage it all. So without further […]
Read MoreHow to Lead (and Survive) a Cross Functional Team Project
Running a project is hard enough when you’re managing just one team. Now imagine running several together. Welcome to a cross functional team manager’s life… Running a multi-team project is no easy task. The more people from various departments and functions come together to work on a collective goal, the messier things get. Not to […]
Read MoreThe Top 5 Tips for Building a Project Plan
Coming up with a project plan is a big undertaking. There can be a lot of moving parts to keep track of, and through it all, you’ve got to stay focused on the ultimate goal of getting to the finish line. There are always plenty of nitty-gritty details to work out but take some time […]
Read MoreThe Practical Guide to Team Goal Mapping
Project managers can increase productivity and team cohesion with team goal mapping, but for it to be effective it has to be properly developed and documented. Fortunately, there is a constant flow of new tools and updates to existing tools that can make this process easier and more effective. Here are 2018’s top tips for […]
Read MoreHow to Find and Improve Hidden Team Processes
Everyday team processes usually form when managers lay out the steps and get input from their team. If the team agrees the process is reasonable and effective, it gets encoded into the project management tool they’re using. But what about the processes that develop organically between teams? Such workflows aren’t always efficient. Informal team processes […]
Read MoreHow to Transition from Traditional to Agile Project Management
When your projects are running behind schedule and the outcomes aren’t meeting the standards you’re hoping to reach, it’s time to take a hard look at your project management framework to see if it’s holding you back. Old, traditional project management methodologies can be cumbersome and inefficient, and if you’re still using them, odds are […]
Read MoreWhat Bad Team Collaboration is Costing You, and How to Fix it
Anybody can run a team, but few people know how to run an efficient team. The difference between the two are obvious; like two sailing ships racing on the open sea. A ship whose crew is constantly at odds and doesn’t cooperate will always lag behind the ship with the more united and coordinated crew. […]
Read MoreBecoming a Manager? Here’s your Survival Guide
Becoming a manager is a jungle of creeping scopes, tangled dependencies, and hidden pitfalls. Your teams scramble to push projects through this wild mess to the other side, but need capable managers who can guide them down the right path and keep them functioning as an effective unit. Unfortunately, not all managers are up to […]
Read MoreBoost Your Managerial Skills in 5 Minutes a Day
Managers are made, not born; and even great leaders still have plenty of room for improvement. Being a manager covers such a wide area of responsibilities and functions that you should be in a constant cycle of growth and development. But how do you find the time to learn and build your managerial skills when […]
Read More5 Organizational Skills Every Manager Must Know
Try to picture the perfect manager. What do they do, and how do they act? Different companies call for different management styles, but some things are universal. You probably imagine a manager that has a clear and consistent vision for the project they’re overseeing, who knows how to pinpoint specific problems, while still keeping their […]
Read MoreDoes Your Upper Management Suck? Here’s What to Do About It.
Imagine you’re part of a crew on a large ship. You sail toward your destination, maintaining the ship to the best of your ability. Suddenly, the ship leans to a side, and you almost lose your footing. You look to the helm to see the captain yanking the wheel, announcing a new direction for no […]
Read MoreUse Agile Methodology to Better Lead Your Team
A lot of teams talk about how they’re going to “do agile” or how they’re undertaking “agile transformation”. They hire consultants to teach them “One True Way” to manage a project team with Agile methodology, yet still find themselves easily screwing up their agile processes. There is a lot of information spread across thousands of […]
Read MoreHow to Build a Practice of Efficient Communication Across Your Team
Teams only perform as well as they communicate. If you have smooth and efficient communication, then tasks flow easily from person to person. However if communication is problematic, the process gets muddled, deadlines are missed and work quality is poor. These bad communication practices will hurt your team morale and culture if left to languish. […]
Read MoreThe Modern Guide to Hiring Millennials
Fun fact: the majority of workers in the US and Canada are now Millennials. Everyone who works at Unito, other than our three co-founders, is a Millennial. A lot of what we do in our hiring millennials process is super different from the traditional one, and given the popularity of our article on how to […]
Read MoreAsana tips: Your collaborators don’t have Asana accounts? Here’s how to keep them informed.
Throughout the course of your project, you will most likely have to collaborate with people outside of your team, such as contractors, vendors, freelancers, partners, or clients. While it’s easy to share information with people who have Asana accounts, what do you do if they don’t? Luckily, you can still keep non-users in the loop […]
Read MoreHow To Take Constructive Criticism Well (And Why Leaders Should Embrace It)
As Comedy Central’s Walter Levitt says, “criticism comes with the contract when you become a leader”. Nobody’s perfect, and sometimes we all need someone to tell us when we aren’t reaching our full potential. Constructive criticism is in fact necessary for everyone’s development. However this is especially true for leaders, who will use that development […]
Read MoreImplementing Performance Management In 4 Steps
If you want to improve your team’s motivation, competency, and engagement, a performance management system can definitely do the trick. It’ll help your team members understand their objectives and expectations, and improve their relationship with you – their manager. However the key is to implement it properly. If you’ve never used performance management with your team before, […]
Read More9 Signs You’re a Terrible Manager
It’s such a fact of life that it’s an accepted rule of work: in large organizations, employees rise to the level of their incompetence. Many people are in management roles who have no training or natural inclination to the job. If you’re wondering if that’s you, here are some sure-fire signs that you could level […]
Read MoreRemote Management 101: How To Empower Your Remote Team With Digital Tools
There are many advantages to allowing employees work remotely. Cost savings; access to a broader talent pool without concern for geographic location; and granting workers the flexibility, convenience, and comfort of working from home are just a few. However, a remote team that doesn’t have the online remote management tools necessary to communicate, organize, structure, […]
Read MoreCollaborating with Developers? Here’s Why You Should Build A Growth Marketing Team
Most of the time, a company’s website is owned by both the marketing and development teams. Marketing creates the content and design, while the dev team owns the coding. However this this joint ownership often results in divergent priorities, inefficient communication, and issues in cross-team collaboration. The developers may plan their sprints separately, and marketing’s […]
Read MoreGetting Started With Trello: Master Project Organization
Welcome to the world of Trello! This post is a no-frills quick guide to setting up and using the handy tool to maximize project organization In this particular guide, we’ll be focusing on managing a work project involving a small team. Trello’s features and functionalities let you do a lot more than just that, but […]
Read MoreWhy Single Source of Truth Data Systems Kill Team Collaboration
Every department in your organization will use different tools to carry out their tasks – and this can lead to information silos. To address this problem, some companies have tried to create a centralized database that holds a ‘Single Source of Truth’ (SSoT), aggregating data from all their other platforms to create an up-to-date view […]
Read More3 Easy Ways to Add Agile Methodology to Your GitHub Projects AND Keep Developers Happy
If you are a founder, product manager, scrum manager, or technical lead working with a team of developers, you’ll be familiar with the fact that it’s not always easy to add agile methodology to their workflow. Especially if you try to get developers to use software they don’t understand, think they need, or want to […]
Read MoreMarketers, Here’s How To Collaborate With Web Developers
If you are managing a marketing team, you are probably familiar with the experience of working with developers on certain projects. Joint projects between marketing and developers can be challenging for both teams, since they have different work processes and styles. As a result, the two teams often clash. One of the challenges you likely […]
Read MoreAn Oldie But Goodie: 5 Benefits To Using Basecamp
These days, project management software tools are a dime a dozen. On our blog alone, we’ve highlighted some of the benefits of using Trello, JIRA, Wrike and Asana to name a few. But today we are throwin’ it back to 1999 when one of the first project management software platforms was created under the name […]
Read MoreHow To Maximize Cross-Functional Team Productivity In 3 Steps
Are you a leader who is determined to run a successful cross-functional team (CFT)? Managing such teams and ensuring they are productive is not always easy. However with proper planning, CFTs have the potential to execute complex projects and achieve huge company goals. While the idea of a high-functioning dynamic team is well understood, many […]
Read MoreHow To Manage Your Cross-Functional Team With Agile
You’ve probably heard of the term “agile” being tossed around but probably aren’t familiar of what exactly agile does or why it’s an important workflow, especially when it comes to managing a cross-functional team. Wait, a cross-functional what? A cross-functional team by definition is a team that includes specialists from all different areas of a […]
Read MoreWhy Transparency Is Vital To Engaging Millennial Employees
Workplace transparency is very important to millennials, much more so than to most other generational cohorts. This generation which consists of people born between the year 1980 and 2000, tends to look for more honesty, meaning, and flexibility in the teams they work for. Honest, transparent leadership is one of the main leadership traits they […]
Read MoreHere’s How Managers Can Save Time (8 Hours!!) Each Week By Syncing Tools
Long gone are the days when managers used email as the main source of communication and collaboration with their teams. The number of software tools companies use for business processes has skyrocketed in the past few years. According to Siftery, tech giants like Uber, Facebook, and Apple use a whopping 140 to 175 different tools […]
Read More5 Essential Steps To Leading A Remote Team
Leadership is challenging in any context. Yet when you mix in factors associated with a remote team, such as limited communication, disengagement, and different time-zones, it becomes even more so. Unlike traditional work environments, leading a remote team tends to be more disorienting, time-consuming, and complex. In today’s world, technology changed the way people do […]
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