When leading entrepreneurs need one place to digitally document every process that makes their company run, they turn to Trainual. This simple online software platform was created so small businesses owners can unlock the knowledge in their brains and build a complete modern training manual for every aspect of their company. Trainual was built by consulting and investment firm Organize Chaos after working with hundreds of business owners in order to help find a way to build scalable systems and processes. Their headquarters is located in Scottsdale, Arizona (USA), with clients worldwide. Chris Ronzio, founder of Trainual and Organize Chaos, chose Teamwork Projects because its tools created efficient workflows that helped scale his own business — and it helped transform his clients’ businesses, too.  

“Over the years, we have worked with hundreds of small businesses to gather ideas and feedback on how to make their companies more scalable. With Teamwork Projects, we have one central place to dump those ideas as they come in and we have an organized way to process them into feature ideas as we build our product.”

Trainual is not only a growing business, it’s a growing business trying to help other businesses scale quickly. The key to growth is creating repeatable processes, and Chris’ team found that once they created an efficient process or workflow, they couldn’t find a project management tool that let them capture it and share it with the entire team. Before Teamwork, every idea, bug that needed fixing, and problem to be resolved was in a different app or platform, depending on each person’s preference. Notes were in Google Doc files, Evernote, and even physical notebooks, all in different parts of the office. Leading project management software provided support for certain aspects of their projects, but failed to offer a comprehensive solution where every task, file, conversation was accessible. After trying and discarding several platforms

“We found that Trello boards weren’t an effective tool to manage a project with a lot of detail, files, and users with different permission levels. Basecamp and Asana lack features like roles and templates that we’ve come to rely on for our business.”

Without those additional features, too many non-billable hours were spent trying to locate essential information instead of working with customers or moving a project forward. Chris decided that he needed to invest in a tool that would make tracking and accessing materials more intuitive. Trainual also needed project management software that would be easy for their clients to learn, since many of them were wrestling with the same project management issues. Chris and his team not only wanted to solve this issue for themselves, but find a solution that would improve their clients’ workflows as well.

“Through the process of building our software, we did one-on-one consulting work with many small businesses to gain experience in multiple industries. Across the board, very few companies had a proper project management solution, and this inhibited their growth.”  

After using several solutions, Chris knew that his entire team he needed the ability to template projects and task lists, and Asana wasn’t providing that for him. Chris discovered Teamwork Projects offered that essential feature and many more, so he decided to take it for a test drive. In just a few weeks, his team was finding new ways to use the software to store files, notes, and even conversations.

“Using Teamwork Projects, we’re now able to track important links to review, notes from meetings, action items for every department in the company, customer feedback and our entire software development roadmap. Everything is in one place, and everyone knows where to find it.”

Keeping tabs on each phase of a project has also been drastically simplified with the reports available within Board View. Admins can see and set tasks, with just a few clicks, then use drag and drop to make adjustments.

“With the new board view, we’re able to track the status of every feature we’re working on and use triggers to automatically assign a task to the correct employee at each stage in the process.”

Task templates are by far the centerpiece of Teamwork Projects for Trainual, however. Not only have the templates converted task lists into repeatable processes for their own company, they use Projects’ template system as a hands-on, practical tool that teaches each client how to find and build these processes in their own companies.

“To be scalable, small businesses need to build repeatable systems. Trainual software teaches the context behind building these processes, and Teamwork Projects is the perfect complement to create template checklists and projects that adhere to those guidelines.”  

Templates have been the key to Trainual’s growth and stability, both by giving them more command over their time and allowing them to invest that time back into revenue-producing activities. Sharing those tools with other companies poised to grow has been a bonus.

“Across our team, I know we save about 10-20 hours a week using Teamwork Projects as opposed to jumping across five different systems for tracking tasks, notes, links, files and billable hours. Removing those inefficiencies and being able to show other companies how to do it has expanded our production and our reputation.”

One unexpected advantage of using Teamwork Projects has been shorter meetings because everyone walks in knowing the agenda. Now that the team is proficient at using tags and filters, topics needing further discussion can be tagged, and then the list is filtered before the meeting. Updates are easily accessed by exporting task lists from key projects and reviewing the progress and notes attached.

“Using the tool this way gives us an instant agenda, which helps us stay on topic. As we discuss the different tasks and projects, we can assign immediately assign priority levels to the most critical features or bugs so that they stand out at a glance. Everyone leaves the meeting knowing exactly what needs to happen next.”

The integrations available with Teamwork Projects also make workdays easier for the Trainual team. Using Zapier, they connected a Google Form to their Teamwork Projects account so that users can submit ideas and issues, and those submissions go straight into a list in Teamwork Projects that product team reviews. Other integrations include the Chrome extension to save links and tasks, the HubSpot integration for the sales team, the Harvest integration for time tracking, and the Dropbox integration for file storage.

“Teamwork Projects has made our day-to-day so much easier, so we recommend it all the time for organizing projects, keeping everyone on the same page, and even jotting down potential ideas for the future. We’re helping so many companies scale using these practical tools.”