Shrein Media opened their doors in 2014 as a do-it-all digital marketing agency, but has since specialized their services, helping companies build audiences using website content, email, social media, and live streaming video. Their expertise in these areas allows business owners to dedicate themselves to running their business while Shrein Media creates influential marketing content and high-impact marketing initiatives. Dave Shrein, founder of Shrein Media, switched to Teamwork Projects in order to find software that could give his team more flexibility as they established their specialty and developed more efficiencies in their workflows.
“We see Teamwork as a leader and forward thinker in the task and project management space. Other software companies are more set in their ways and evolved with their own needs in mind, but we see Teamwork evolving with their own needs and clients’ needs as equally.”
The Challenges
When Dave launched Shrein Media, he chose a project management software that adequately supported the agency’s jack-of-all-trades approach and let his team collaborate fairly well. After a few years in business, he saw that as his company discovered its specialty and narrowed its scope, the software became less beneficial. The more they refined their processes, the more they had to work around the software’s limitations.
“The project management software we started with was like most project management tools we’ve tried. They’re either so specific they can’t flex to meet our needs, or they are so broad that it becomes difficult to organize specifically for our clients or projects.”
One of the main limitations was the inability to organize projects at a client level. Their original software choice worked well for internal projects, but once the team wanted to make adjustments to cater to client needs, workarounds became difficult, and productivity dropped. Price was another factor that was increasingly problematic with their previous project management software. While they weren’t looking for the lowest-cost solution on the market, they struggled with the additional fees when they took on a new project.
“Adding one additional user would increase our spending by almost 200% for the year, and that was not sustainable. We made the decision to look for a a project management tool that was affordable and brought value to our systems, processes, and overall way of conducting work.”
The Solution
As the team searched for a solution, Dave revisited applications and software options that he had used in the past – either for his own projects or when working with another organization. Teamwork.com was one of those options he was familiar with but had not used in years. The rediscovery of Teamwork.com started by signing up for Teamwork Projects and using it to manage one project with one other member of his team. As he and his teammate became comfortable with the software, they both agreed that it would be a step in the right direction. A month later, all of their projects were imported over and the entire staff was using Teamwork Projects exclusively. Right away, Dave saw a cost reduction because Teamwork Projects allows customers to add as many users as needed without extra charges. This meant that subcontractors and one-off projects had their own place within Teamwork Projects and their budget stayed intact.
“We needed a way to expand users without ballooning our project management costs, and Teamwork collaborators is exactly what we needed.”
Knowing that costs were contained, the Shrein Media team started exploring Teamwork Projects’ features to find ways to organize projects on the company level. They were able to let go of their assortment of notes and productivity apps put everything into Teamwork Projects, from files to time tracking to task management. While the Shrein Media team is spread out across the US, the majority of the team is based in Arizona. Despite a central location as the physical base of operations, Shrein Media places a high value on flexibility and self-management, so team members work remote when and where they want to. This is a value that Dave works hard to preserve for his team and makes decisions which protect this value. Once they discovered which tools were most useful in their business, they started looking for ways to eliminate repetitive work and standardize their processes. Using task templates, they were able to create workflows that could be recreated with one click, but were also editable and flexible so they could adapt to the specific needs of any project.
“Task templates is feature our team depends on most. It allows us to build out our scope of work using our saved workflows and immediately assign each item to the perfect person.”
The Benefits
After five months of using Teamwork Projects, Dave has seen an increase in productivity because of the way the features dovetail and interconnect, automatically updating projects and reports transparently. His team saves hours every week using the task list templates, which instantly replicate processes. Team members now have immediate access to all of the information they need on each project: files, work completed, comments and questions, and updates. Everything is in an easy-to-understand format, which eliminates time wasted searching for materials or progress updates.
“Without Teamwork Projects, our workflow would continue to involve clunky nomenclature to help organize our projects by client, and we would continue to be managing multiple file versions through downloads and uploads. I’m sure we would still be duplicating tasks out on stickies or white boards to get a board view or Gantt chart view.”
Team collaboration and productivity has improved as team members have learned about the functionality within Boards and Lists to give each team member the view of tasks that they prefer, even when they work on projects together. They’re not limited to one visual representation for updates, to-dos, and progress updates.
“Teamwork Projects adapts to each person on our team. It allows them to work in a way that’s conducive to them as an individual instead of forcing them to confirm to one style of task management and project work.”
Shrein Media also uses Teamwork Projects to streamline project completion by tracking website development milestones and create weekly repeating tasks. Having automatic reminders and instant reports on progress helps the entire team identify priorities, which means time is spent moving the project ahead, not wondering which item should be tackled next.
“We needed a way to pull together all of our projects, and Teamwork Projects has handled that brilliantly. We tried several apps and strategies, but having software that adjusts to our needs has been a game-changer. It evolves with us.”