Search Results

Navigate the Microsoft Landscape with Echo Consulting We’re thrilled about our latest milestone: becoming a Microsoft Partner. It's a testament to our commitment to enhancing productivity and visibility across the Microsoft 365 landscape. While we've been assisting organizations in this endeavor for quite some time, our newfound partnership provides us with even greater access and direct support from Microsoft. This means we can dive deeper into Microsoft's suite of tools to ensure our clients get the most out of their software investments. But I can't tell you how many teams I've connected with who feel like their work lives in a million different places in the Microsoft environment, or who can't get the Microsoft 365 programs to work together in harmony. There are those who know that they could do more with Microsoft but are too overwhelmed to try and optimize. Others simply want to spend less time tinkering with their workflow and more time doing their work. And I want Echo to support those teams. Becoming a Microsoft Partner isn't only aligned with our values of Learn, Share, Grow, Care — it directly benefits our current and future network of clients. Does your team use Microsoft programs to work? Let's connect to see how Echo can help your team make the most of Microsoft. Microsoft offers an extensive range of tools, from the essential ones like Teams, Outlook, and Office to specialized applications such as PowerBI, Planner, and Power Automate. With the recent addition of Copilot (AI - New) and many more innovations, the possibilities can seem overwhelming. At Echo Consulting, we thrive on simplifying this complexity. Our goal is to help teams find their rhythm and optimize their toolset, enabling them to focus on what they do best. Stay tuned for exciting developments ahead. In the meantime, if you have any questions or need assistance, don't hesitate to reach out. We're here to help you navigate the Microsoft 365 landscape with confidence. We can't wait to hear from you!

Navigating the Gift of Improvement with Trust and Maturity I have always felt that feedback is a gift. However, there is a big difference between being told that you are doing something wrong vs sharing opportunities on ways you could approach something better. Either way, it takes trust on both sides and maturity to maximize the value of feedback. A few considerations before providing feedback: How are you delivering the feedback? Is it the best place, right audience, correct timing? How well do you know the person that you are providing feedback to? Have you considered how they best receive feedback? Have you established trust and credibility with the person you intend to give feedback to? Have the requested feedback or your opinion / help? A few considerations before reacting to feedback: Do you trust the intentions of the person giving feedback? – Are they giving you feedback to help you learn and grow? Do you respect the expertise and perspective of the person giving the feedback? – This is especially important if there are many approaches and determining the right approach is nuanced. Do you feel safe and open to feedback? – Are there external factors at play that may interfere with your ability to be process feedback in a positive light? Are you feeling the way you do about the feedback because of the method of the feedback delivery, or the feedback itself? I personally struggle with “right sizing” and “right timing” the feedback. I love to give feedback as soon as I think of it. I also get excited about opportunities for improvement, so I tend to give more feedback when I’m excited about the current version, and less feedback if it still feels like something has a long way to go until it gets to a solid state. -> This can lead to feedback getting missed, and team members not feeling fully appreciated when they have delivered value. The ability to give and receive feedback positively is an important skill for everyone. With virtual and hybrid work, some can have a harder time without body language, and personal touches. Others find it easier to handle things virtually and in writing. Recognizing our own preferences, and sharing them with teammates can help reduce friction and increase positive progress. Check out our other resources on communication. #feedback #teamwork #communication #collaboration #delivery #trust

This time of year, it seems like everywhere we look folks are talking about new year goals, new habits, and hitting the ground running as soon as possible. We love goals, and we know that setting SMART goals is a key step in gaining traction on your highest priority initiatives. But even with goal setting and new year energy, it can still be challenging to integrate strategic annual goals with the reality of day-to-day work. We're always experimenting to find new levels of efficiency and alignment with our work. One technique we’re exploring this year is sprints. We piloted sprints at the end of 2023, and our team is already seeing the benefits of this scrum-based approach to work. Every team executes sprints differently, but the goal is the same: to bring more alignment between strategic goals while managing capacity, and to foster collaboration within and across teams. If your team or organization could benefit from shaking up your approach to work, read on to learn about sprints and our experience so far. Ready, Set, Sprint! A key component of the Scrum methodology, a "sprint" is a defined time frame — typically two to four weeks — during which a team or org focuses on specific tasks and projects. These time-boxed sprints allow teams to connect and collaborate on the most important projects and goals, while providing some space for adaptation if priorities change. Here’s how it works: Step 1 – Sprint Planning: A team meets at the start of the sprint to select projects to focus on based on priority, team capacity, and organizational strategic goals. This sets the tone for what gets prioritized in the sprint. For example, if one of your sprint goals is to review lessons from the previous year with the team, the sprint might include “plan 2023 retrospective meeting.” Step 2 – Sprint Execution: Throughout the sprint, teams and team members channel their efforts on those agreed-upon items. There's some flexibility allowed here – if new high priority projects come in, the team can develop a mutual level of tolerance for those changes. But ultimately, the idea is that everyone is clear about the goals, priorities, and actions to engage with during the sprint. Step 3 – Sprint Close: At the end of the sprint, the teams reconvene to review the sprint success, discuss areas for growth, and adjust the sprint approach if needed for the next timeframe. Sprint Best Practices Like any methodology or process, there isn’t one perfect way to execute sprints. But there are some best practices that we can recommend. Get Clear on Your Sprint Goals: Define clear and concise goals for the upcoming sprint to ensure a shared understanding of what needs to be achieved. Once goals are on the table, you might consider running a quick pre-mortem exercise to evaluate the efficacy of those goals. Dig Into Your Project Backlog: It’s helpful to dedicate one or two goals (or a percentage of team effort) to backlog projects during a sprint, that way the whole org can chip away at long deferred work. Having a single source of backlog info with prioritization is a helpful tool for this. Include Everyone: If possible, try to keep your whole org on the same sprint schedule. We’ve been impressed with how working on the same sprint timeline has resulted in more collaboration, creative problem solving, and internal support within and across teams at Echo. Stick to Your Sprints: It sounds obvious but keep your project work organized within the parameters of your sprint. If a project isn’t completed within a sprint, don’t extend the sprint – just move the remaining project work to the next sprint. Have a Sprint Manager: It’s helpful to have one person on the team who manages the sprint meeting and aggregates the agreed-upon goals for each sprint. This could be a rotating role within your team, or a project for a team member who is looking to add more management skills to their professional development. What we really love about sprints – in addition to feeling clear and connected to our individual and overall goals – is that we can continue to develop our approach over time. Whenever a sprint ends, the team meets to review the sprint, discuss challenges, and come up with ways to address those challenges in the future. Even though this is a new approach to work for our team, we’ve already seen some drastic changes based on what works for us, and what we need to improve upon. The short, time-fixed nature of sprints allows for easy adaptability and iteration in the short term and over time. Embracing the sprint approach is a great choice for teams seeking efficiency, adaptability, and continuous improvement. The structured nature of sprints allows teams to break down complex projects into manageable chunks, fostering a sense of focus and clarity. By committing to a specific set of tasks within a defined timeframe, teams create a rhythm that promotes predictability and transparency. And last but not least, the iterative nature of sprints also enables teams to gather feedback early and often, facilitating quick adjustments and improvements. Does planning sprint meetings make you groan? Check out our tips for running engaging, effective meetings.

It’s been quite a year for the Echo team! In addition to making new connections with clients, onboarding new team members, and launching our strategic decision-making software, we’ve created dozens of resources freely available on our website and youtube channel. We’re taking a look back at the year and calling out some of our favorite and most popular video resources to date. If you have a topic you’d love to see us unpack in a video, leave a comment or send us a message! And make sure to subscribe to our channel to stay up to date on our video tutorials, best practices guides, and quick tips. Most Watched Videos of 2023 #1 – How to Build a Dashboard in Smartsheet: A step-by-step tutorial on building a Smartsheet dashboard from scratch. With a focus on DIY from basics to advanced dashboard skills, Kelly creates a Project Dashboard during this value-packed tutorial. #2 – How to Use Smartsheet for Project Management: Smartsheet empowers teams to collaborate, plan, capture, track, and report on projects allowing for maximum efficiency and communication throughout! In this value-packed webinar recording, we will cover Smartsheet best practices along with tips and tricks to increase your team’s efficiency. #3 – Smartsheet Tutorial: How to Create a Metrics Sheet: A metrics sheet is helpful for building solutions, reports, automations, and more. Join Solution Consultant Kelly Pratt to learn how to build a metrics sheet in Smartsheet so your organization can get maximum value from the data held in Smartsheet. Honorable Mentions: How to Set Up a PMO in Smartsheet: A PMO is a great way to provide a streamlined way for your organization to track and approve new projects while seeing key metrics across all projects in real-time. In this webinar recording, we cover the core functionalities of a successful PMO and how to set up a PMO in Smartsheet How to Build Metrics & Charts from Multi Select Columns: In this tutorial, we'll walk you through how to build metrics sheets and charts from multi-select columns in Smartsheet taking you step by step through a use case and showing you how to get the most value from the data you have in Smartsheet. Most Watched New Videos of 2023 #1 – How to Manage Multiple Projects in Smartsheet: One of the most common questions that we hear from our network is, "How do I manage not just one, but multiple projects in Smartsheet?" In this video, Solution Consultant Kelly Pratt breaks down the basics of managing multiple projects in Smartsheet for improved visibility, organization, and accountability. #2 – How to Set Up a PMO in Monday.com: A properly built PMO can provide a streamlined process to track and approve new projects, see key metrics across all projects in real-time, and provide a portfolio-level view of all projects and metrics to make key decisions. In this video, we cover the core functionalities of a successful PMO and how to set up a PMO in Monday.com. #3 – Smartsheet Tutorial: Easy Time Saving Tips in Smartsheet: It's essential for businesses to be efficient and streamlined to consistently meet scaling demands - that's why we love Smartsheet's powerful yet flexible platform. In this video, we share some of our favorite beginner-friendly, time-saving tips in Smartsheet to improve your team's efficiency and effectiveness! Honorable Mentions: Smartsheet Tutorial: Workspace vs Folders: Smartsheet has two options for organizing work: creating folders or workspaces. In this video, we highlight the differences and similarities between Workspaces and Folders in Smartsheet, and give you our best tips for how to use both to organize, share, and streamline your work. How to Manage Risks, Actions, and Decisions in Smartsheet: A common and highly impactful method for managing risks, actions, decisions, and more is a RAID Log. We upgrade the RAID log to a CRAID log by including “change requests” for one single source of truth for every project. In this webinar recording, Echo Founder Molly Yanus demonstrates how to utilize Smartsheet to implement a CRAID log as well as other impactful risk management techniques. Want more tutorials and walkthroughs for managing your projects? Check out our full video library here: http://www.youtube.com/@EchoConsulting

We’re a fully remote company, but we know the value of meeting in person every now and then. A few times a year, we gather together for a focused session of connecting and strategic planning. We love in person meetings like this because we get to talk about the big picture of the company and dive into the details of our day-to-day work. This year we met at our company HQ in Burlington, VT to reflect on what went well for our team in 2023, what challenges we experienced, and what we’re looking forward to in the coming year. We kicked things off with a simple exercise. We set a timer for five minutes, and everyone wrote down their responses to two prompts: 1 - What do you want for Echo within the next year? 2 - What do you envision for yourself within the next five years? This exercise is a nice ice-breaker for group meetings. It gets folks engaged and connects the dots between personal and professional life, short-term and long-term goals, and big picture vision with steps along the way. As we collected all of the answers on a white board, we were inspired by just how aligned our team is with each other and the greater organization as a whole. We’ve always known that we have an awesome team, but to see everyone’s vision for the company and themselves was especially rewarding. Here are our biggest takeaways from the exercise: 1 - Everyone wants Echo to thrive. Echo’s profitability was one of the most common line items for everyone’s vision for Echo within the next year. This caught us by surprise; we know our team cares about their work, but it was encouraging to see the whole group’s dedication to Echo’s success over time. Bonus: There were also mentions of StrAlign, with one person envisioning “explosive growth” for our proprietary software over the next year. Cheers to that! 2 - We’re headed for Innovation, Alignment, and Evolution. These words, among others with similar connotations (expansion, learning, leadership, stronger) were consistent themes both for Echo and individuals. It’s clear that for our team, work isn’t about punching a clock; we all want to grow in our careers and contribute to the evolution of Echo. 3 - We’ve got travel on the brain. Both in our personal lives and in our work, there was a consistent interest in travel. Some folks referenced wanting to travel on their own, take sabbaticals, or work remotely from around the globe (van life, anyone?). We also had several team members envision an on-site retreat in a new location – ideally, a warm one! This is just one example of how we're working as a company to not only support a healthy work-life balance, but to create an environment where all of us can live our best lives in and outside of work. When you ask employees to share their vision for the future, you never know what you’re going to get. Sometimes you have to bridge big gaps between what different folks want, and work together to bring alignment to everyone. But in our case, all of our team was on board with some key strategic values of our organization. This exercise set the tone for two days of connection, integration, and engagement. We walked away with renewed vigor for our work, excitement for the new year, and some tangible action steps we can take to support our team and our company in both the short term and long term. Want to bring more alignment and engagement to your team meetings? Check out our video on Best Practices for Leading Impactful meetings!

As I hover on the brink of completing my first 30 days with Echo, this feels like an opportune moment to reflect on how I ended up here in the first place - not to mention how the whole expectation vs reality thing has panned out. So how did I get here? Interestingly enough, my first run-in with Molly and Echo occurred from the client side of the table. My client story isn’t unique by any stretch; I was desperate to untangle and make sense of a menagerie of workflows, tools, and communications channels, daring to imagine a future where we were operating in the same fashion, using the same words, and generally getting all kumbaya style with our process. If you've had even remotely close to those type of aspirations in the workplace, you’re likely either nodding your head or rolling your eyes. In the end, I found a like-minded champion for change that got us a heck of a lot closer to process nirvana than many thought we would. Furthermore, others in the organization noticed our positive pivot and wanted to get onboard! In the biz we call that, progressive elaboration. So, nearly five years since that fateful encounter with Molly, and 30 days into working for the firm that she founded…what do I think? Let's go back to that expectation vs. reality thing... Expectation: I’d be working with like-minded folks who’re passionate about helping others ditch the chaos and find their groove. Reality: Bingo! I suppose what I didn’t entirely expect was to find was how each of the different folks at Echo are as diversified in their skill set and the style in which they contribute as they are in their personal backgrounds… In retrospect this should’ve been an expectation. Expectation: I’d be challenged and stimulated from the outset. Reality: Woof… what an understatement. These guys work on (and with) essentially every PM and process tool I’ve ever heard of, as well as few that I hadn’t until relatively recently. And by the way, they’ve developed a (proprietary) strategic alignment tool that’s going to upend how we establish and maintain our portfolios…nbd. If you know, you know. If you don’t, you will. Expectation: I’d be up to speed and making moves within a week. Reality: Please…though I’m no slouch in this arena, these guys have set the bar ridiculously high. In closing: How’ve my first 30 days at Echo Consulting been? Educational, enlightening, and entertaining to say the least. I look forward to going through a similar exercise at the next milestone in this timeline. ‘Till then.

It’s hard enough to manage one project. But managing multiple projects brings a level of complexity that's hard to rein in. The thing is, most businesses – even solopreneurs – have to balance several projects at once to do their work. So what makes juggling all those projects so challenging? There are endless ways that obstacles and blockers can show up in project management, but in our experience, most companies experience the same holdups. Here are the most common ways that we see organizations and teams struggling with wrangling their projects: Resource Constraints: Every project requires resources, so when you're managing multiple projects at once, it's easy to run into constraints on those resources. Whether its a tight budget, low team capacity, a quick deadline, or a need for equipment, teams of all sizes can struggle with allocating and managing resources effectively across projects. And if project needs aren't aggregated into an organized, rolled-up perspective, it's possible for projects to have competing priorities. Regardless of the how, one thing is clear: resource constraints can have serious impact on project execution and delivery. Lack of Visibility and Coordination: Visibility is one of the most common pain points we see from companies and teams trying to manage multiple projects at once. When we say visibility, we mean having a birds eye perspective on project needs and an organized way to access the detailed information of the project. If details and overall project health aren't easy to view and process, it can quickly become challenging to track progress, manage risks and issues, and synchronize expectations with the project realities. A key solution to this problem is to roll up project data into one centralized hub – at Echo, we like to use a CRAID log to get clients going in this direction. Complexity and Scale: This one might seem obvious, but it's important to address; managing multiple projects gets complicated. Each project involves a lot of moving parts, and making sure key stakeholders are getting the information they need for each project can feel daunting. The complexity can result in challenges in aligning project goals, managing dependencies, and coordinating activities across projects, making it harder to ensure smooth execution and timely delivery. Limited Project Management Maturity: We believe that companies of all sizes can manage their projects at a high level. But most of the time, the process of evolving to a mature PMO begins with the basics. One of the best recommendations we can give to any team or organization looking to streamline project workflow is to build in processes and tools that help automate and standardize your project pipeline. Without established project management processes, tools, and frameworks, companies may face difficulties in prioritizing projects, assigning responsibilities, and tracking progress, leading to project delays, scope creep, and quality issues. Conflicting Priorities and Decision-making: When managing multiple projects, conflicting priorities and decision-making can arise, especially when resources, budget, and timelines are limited. Companies may face challenges in making tough decisions on project priorities, resource allocation, and trade-offs, resulting in delays, scope changes, and compromised project outcomes. Change Management Challenges: Repeat after us: change happens. Every individual project is going to involve some change management, so building in processes for acknowledging and enacting changes is key to managing multiple projects at once. Change management challenges, including resistance to change, lack of communication, and inadequate change planning, can make it difficult to effectively manage projects and ensure smooth transitions. Project Dependencies and Risks: Projects may have dependencies on each other, and risks from one project can impact other projects. Managing and mitigating project dependencies and risks across several projects can be complex, requiring proactive risk management, contingency planning, and effective communication and coordination. If any of these obstacles to managing multiple projects hit home with you, rest assured: you’re not alone! We’ve worked with clients of every size and across many industries, and we hear the same pain points over and over again. Think its time to get some guidance on managing your projects? Sign up for a free discovery call to learn more about our work.

You probably know by now that we’re tech agnostic here at Echo; we firmly believe that no tool is going to be 100% perfect for 100% of teams 100% of the time. But like any team that manages multiple projects at once, we appreciate a well-made piece of software. And when we find a good tool we like to spread the word. Enter, Monday.com. Monday.com provides an intuitive platform to help streamline project management and improve communication among team members. Its design is user-friendly, packed with features, and their tech support is top notch. Plus – in our humble opinion – they just seem nice. The Monday.com brand has positioned itself as approachable, practical, and unpretentious. Quite a feat for a highly modern, powerful piece of project management software! So if you’re looking for a tool that supports your team or organization's growth, Monday.com is definitely one to consider. We have a couple of suggestions on where to begin, and best practices for setting up a PMO or work management solution in Monday.com. Below you’ll find three of our best tips for building out your PMO in Monday.com. Tip #1: Evaluate and define your intake process. This is more of a general PMO tip than specific to Monday.com, but we can’t stress this enough: one of the best ways to streamline communications and improve workflow is to start at the beginning. An intake process is the way new ideas and projects are identified, reviewed, and approved within your team or organization. Not only is it the quickest way to get organized (How are new projects selected? Who owns the approval process?), it’s also essential to ensure that project ideas are aligned with your team’s strategic goals and resources. You can establish a clear intake process within Monday.com – in fact, the software has some fantastic pre-built templates to help get started. But even if you establish your intake process with a paper and pen, it’s worthwhile to plan or diagram out how new project ideas are presented, selected, and approved. Tip #2: Use Templates. Okay – we spilled the beans on this one already. But this tip really does deserve its own section. When we work with clients to implement a PMO, we never recommend starting from scratch. Using templates allows you to see practical examples of how your team might set up a PMO, and can spark ideas on how you want to customize the template to match your needs. The more you work within a template, the more you’ll likely realize what it has that you want to use, and what it’s missing that you need to add. In Monday.com, try searching for templates with the terms Project Portfolio Management (PPM), Project Management, and Work Management. Our team really likes the Project Portfolio Management template in Monday.com. It's the one our Founder, Molly Yanus, used when demonstrating how to set up a PMO in Monday.com for a recent webinar. Tip #3: Integrate the tools you already have. When you’re adopting a new tool on your team or organization, it’s important to recognize that while you might really love the tool, it’s a big change for everyone else. And using the tool effectively – really making the most of it – is about more than just training your team. Your team has to be willing and interested in using the software you’re rolling. Our best advice to increase buy-in is to integrate tools you already use into the new software. Fortunately, Monday.com has tons of integrations with other tools. including Google Drive, Dropbox, Trello, Slack, and more. You can also create custom integrations using Monday.com's API. Integrating the tools you already have can make the transition to Monday.com seamless and increase team adoption. Remember: there’s no one perfect tool, and the tool that is the best for your team is the one that WORKS. If you think Monday.com might be a good fit for your team or organization, make a free account and start to explore the software. We also recommend doing a free trial to access their premium features – that way you can begin to see how the tool might be useful in building more complex workflows. Think you'd like to see Monday.com in action? Join us for our next webinar on May 18th, and learn how to manage risks, actions, and decisions in Monday.com!

When you're managing multiple projects, risks happen. But knowing that risks are a reality is one thing; getting ahead of those risks so they don't impact your project goals is a lot more challenging. The key to managing risks within and across projects is to have a clear, organized, current way to track all the elements that impact your project's health. Enter, our favorite tool: the CRAID log. In this article we'll explore how teams of any size can use our a CRAID log to get the visibility, accountability, and communication they need to predict and move beyond project risks, and continue making progress towards their goals. Change Management, Risk Management, & Project Management Let's clarify the difference between risk management, project management, and change management. Project management is a framework of knowledge, skills, tools, and techniques to meet project goals. But we know that implementing a new project management process isn’t just about the tools you use; it’s about guiding your team or organization through that change. Change management focuses on the people side of that change. This involves working with your team to increase adoption, understanding, and utilization of the new PMO or work management system. How does Risk Management fit into this? Risk management deals with identifying, evaluating, preventing, and mitigating risks that can impact a project's outcome. Risks can be positive or negative, and a RAID log is a common approach used to capture and manage them. A thorough PMO needs both risk management and change management to be effective. Fortunately, the CRAID log channels both of these concepts into one comprehensive tool. What is a RAID Log? A RAID log is a central register that captures risks, actions, issues, and decisions in one place. It serves as a single source of truth for tracking and managing project-related information, providing visibility across different projects. The key to a RAID log is that it isn’t static; rather than simply establishing the project schedule, plan, and goals at the start, using a RAID log allows teams to continuously track risks, issues, actions, and decisions as they come up. This gives a more accurate understanding of the project needs and development, and helps teams to get ahead of risks before and as they are happening. Pro Tip: We often recommend using a (C)RAID log instead of meeting minutes, because they are more action oriented. Rather than simply cataloging project status and conversations in the meeting, try using a RAID log to build momentum with your meetings. From RAID to CRAID The inclusion of "change" or “change request” in the RAID log is a game changer for visibility and project traction. Change can happen in any area of a project, such as scope, resources, or schedule. To stay up to date and accurate on the development of a project, it’s essential to track all changes, not just those that trigger formal change requests. While change requests are traditionally viewed as a separate and more formal process than the RAID system, the reality is that changes often impact risks, issues, actions, and decisions. Think about it: if a change request comes into your project, it will require at minimum a decision (is this change request approved?) and an action (make the change). If the change request impacts project scope or resources, then it may also create risks or issues related to the project goals and timeline. So rather than wait to track changes until they require formal requests or budget updates, start tracking every change. You’ll gain a better understanding of how the risks, actions, issues, and decisions are connected to project changes, and you'll have more context for the project's health overall. What's the difference between CRAID and a Project Plan? While a project plan typically outlines the project's scope, features, deliverables, and milestones, a CRAID log complements it by capturing the factors that allow or impede those project parameters. It provides a separate space to track these elements, ensuring better visibility and proactive management of risks and changes that may not fit within the structure of a project plan. Incorporating CRAID in your project management toolkit can provide valuable benefits, regardless of the size of your team or project. It promotes better visibility, proactive risk management, and change management, leading to improved project outcomes. Want to see the CRAID log in action? Register for our upcoming webinar on Managing Risks, Actions, and Decisions in Monday.com!

Burton Snowboards is a purpose-led brand rooted in snowboarding and the outdoors. With a focus on positive impact for people, the planet, and the sport of snowboarding, Burton has been at the forefront of innovation and progress of the snowboard and outdoor industry since its inception in 1977. Industry: Outdoor / Retail Location: Burlington, VT (global offices in Australia, Austra, Canada, California, China, and Japan) Size: 200-500 "Master collaborators in every sense of the term. From the outset, Echo asked all the right questions and was able to provide me with some immediate suggestions to get us on the right course. With our original scope of work nearly conquered, I’m keen to tap Echo's goal oriented thirst for solving the hard problems energy for the next phase.” - Jason LaShelle The Problem: Burton’s project management system lacked scalability, visibility, accountability, and prioritization. All marketing requests were channeled through the same intake process, preventing the team from getting a clear, accessible view of their current and future workload. In terms of accountability, their previous Trello system only allowed work to be viewed on the team level rather than an individual level. This meant that the entire team had access to all projects and could not filter out what wasn’t necessary for their own work. Prioritization was also a challenge for the Burton marketing team, as their existing system had no way to filter projects based on size, investment needed, time urgency, etc. We equated this to comparing “apple seeds to apples to apple trees” — a major sales campaign existed within the same system as a simple content request for the website, and there was no way to group projects by importance. Background: Jason LaShelle reached out to Molly Yanus and the Echo Consulting team to get recommendations on switching to a new tool. After connecting with Molly, it was clear that Jason’s team didn’t just need a new tool; they needed a more organized and scalable system for getting the visibility, accountability, and prioritization they sorely needed. Echo recommended Smartsheet as the best tool to get the job done, and guided Burton through the process of shifting into Smartsheet and fostering adoption of the new tool within their team. Approach: The Echo Consulting Team collaborated with Burton in a custom vendor selection plan. Echo worked closely with Jason and the Burton Marketing team to determine what functions their new tool needed to have, and consulted all major stakeholders to ensure that the new solution would have buy-in across the team and beyond. Echo Consulting hosted multiple workshops with the Burton team to demonstrate how each tool option could be utilized to suit Burton's needs. Then, Echo invited key stakeholders to explore each tool and test it out on their own. Once each stakeholder had tested a tool, they were asked to rate the tool based on a variety of factors. Using the ratings from all stakeholders, Echo created a Vendor Selection Prioritization Matrix. This matrix highlighted the values of each software option and considered the user experience for each level of stakeholder. Using the Vendor Selection Matrix as a guide, Echo recommended that Burton move forward with implementing their intake process in Smartsheet. After determining that Smartsheet was the best tool for their needs, Burton began the process of shifting their Trello system into the Smartsheet environment. Results: Jason's team adopted Smartsheet for their marketing intake process and work prioritization with great success, and Smartsheet is now used throughout the Burton organization for streamlined workflows and improved efficiency. This was a unique project for the Echo team, and it demonstrates that finding the right tool is about more than just features; it's about making sure there is adoption of the new system within and across a team or organization. “I can’t tell you how delighted I am to see how successful they [Echo] are and continue to be. Molly and her team are true and absolute value creators. Feeling underwater with any sort (or lack) of process initiatives? Stop spinning your wheels and give Molly a shout. You’re welcome." Want to learn how to use Smartsheet for your team? Head over to our YouTube channel, or jump right in with one of our most popular Smartsheet Tutorials: How to use Smartsheet for Project Management.

I'm nearly finished with my second month at Echo Consulting, and my excitement continues to grow as I work closely with the team on my extensive onboarding schedule. I wear a few hats in my new role, but each one allows me to identify improvement opportunities and implement those changes to support others and continue to grow with this awesome team. I have been following Molly’s progress with Echo since launching in 2019 as a solopreneur. I watched as new team members were added slowly at first, and then more rapidly in 2022. I now have the pleasure of being #13 on the team (I know – but someone had to be it at some point!). As I watched Echo grow and establish their identity and share their core values, so many things resonated with me. It was a company I wanted to learn more about and explore working with, and the rest, as they say, is history! The philosophy of supporting clients to be self-sufficient and not dependent was refreshing. Coming from the education sector this approach seemed obvious, but it 's not always the norm in the project management world. In my short time at Echo I see how the team really believes this and wants clients to ‘fly’ – and this is so energizing. I believe that having fun, having a sense of community and connection, and having a space to explore and grow are vital components for our well-being and success in our work. One of the things that popped out to me about Echo and was their values, and how they supported everything I believe work and life should be about. I wanted to reflect at the end of this second month on why Learn, Share, Grow, Care as values resonated with me, how I have seen them within Echo already, and why they are crucial to success in work and life. LEARN Learn is about embracing a lifelong journey of learning and education. Whether it is through formal education, self-study, or on-the-job training, learning helps us to acquire new skills and perspectives that enable us to grow and contribute to society in meaningful ways. This journey never ends with things changing so rapidly. In just two months of being at Echo I've explored new tools, and there have been many opportunities to learn from different perspectives, whether with the client or with the team. This drive from the team to be at the leading edge puts Echo and their clients in an awesome place to move forward. SHARE Share refers to the importance of sharing our knowledge, skills, and resources with others. This value encourages us to be generous and collaborate with one another, leading to a more interconnected and supportive community. By sharing, we can help others to grow and learn and benefit from their own growth and learning. I have found so many examples of sharing and giving value over the past two months. This is linked with another strong value I have seen and heard a lot at Echo already: transparency. From day one I have had access to the people, resources, and support I needed. GROW Grow refers to the importance of continuous personal and professional development. It is essential to strive for growth in all aspects of life, including knowledge, skills, and relationships. This value encourages us to challenge ourselves and push beyond our comfort zones, leading to a more fulfilling and meaningful life. At Echo, my onboarding has been about me growing into the business and the team. From having 1:1 with each team member to identifying my own goals for growth and being encouraged to grow my networks I have seen so many examples of how this value is supported. CARE Care is about showing compassion and empathy for others and ourselves. This value encourages us to prioritize our well-being and the well-being of others and to act with kindness and consideration in all our interactions. By living and working with care, we can create a positive and supportive environment that promotes growth, learning, and sharing. At Echo, I've experienced this in my onboarding tasks and check-ins about my well-being as I come to grips with a hybrid role. There is a genuine discussion about how we can do this with a growing remote team. The fact that care is embedded in what we do will mean that creating value for our clients and team members will be a priority. In conclusion, the values of Learn, Share, Grow, Care are interrelated and essential for a successful and fulfilling life, business, and team. By prioritizing these values at Echo, we can create a positive impact on ourselves and our clients. We can ensure that what we do drives value and is authentic. I am encouraged that I have seen snapshots of these values being lived here at Echo and excited to try to live and breathe these myself. Want to get to know Echo's new team member, Mark? Check out his LinkedIn profile or watch the first video he recorded for Echo. We look forward to him being able to share more valuable insights with you!

Your team is feeling burnt out. A handful of projects are dragging on with no end in sight, and you keep having to put other projects on hold. Tasks are piling up, and it seems like everything needed to be done yesterday. Sound familiar? This is one of the most common experiences our clients have when they first begin working with us; their team feels like they’re not getting anything accomplished, but are working harder than ever. They need better visibility on their most important projects – and they need it fast. As a rapidly growing startup, we know how it feels to be drowning in projects and tasks. When our team is in the weeds, we take the same advice we give to clients: set up a simple priority system to get the visibility you need and boost morale. There are a lot of ways to set up a priority system, but our team has a few favorites. Read on to learn our most tried-and-true prioritization methods, and how to put them to use. Three Tools for Prioritization #1 - Eisenhower Matrix: A popular method for discerning what matters most and what can wait, an Eisenhower matrix utilizes a four-quadrant grid that crosses urgency with importance. Here's how it works: Do First: The top left quadrant is reserved for high importance, high urgency projects; use this for your most critical, time sensitive tasks and projects, for example, running payroll for your team or invoicing clients. Schedule: The top right quadrant is for low urgency, high importance projects; this spot is reserved for projects and tasks that really matter to your team and company goals, but they don’t have a close or tight deadline. This is where you can catalog all those tasks and milestones that lead to the big, long term projects that your team is working on. Delegate: The bottom left quadrant is designated for high urgency, low importance projects; this is a great place to list low effort tasks with impending (or past due) deadlines that need to be crossed off of your list. Sending an email that you’ve been putting off, or QAing a project for your team might live here. Think of this as your “quick wins”, or wrapping up things that are almost across the finish line. Ditch It (aka "Don't Do"): The bottom right quadrant is a space to drop projects and tasks that are low urgency, low importance. This is a place for future-oriented tasks. We often reserve this category for internal processes that we’re slowly building, but don’t need to prioritize in the immediate future. Things like SOPs, creating evergreen internal materials, or following up with clients when we don’t have capacity to take on new projects. Try it: Grab a wall and some sticky notes, or try a digital whiteboarding platform like Miro, and collect your team. Have everyone write down the projects and tasks that they’re working on, and then move the stickies into the appropriate quadrant. Once you’re finished, focus on the top two quadrants – divide the highest priority, highest urgency tasks among the team members who have the most capacity, and then follow up with the bottom two quadrants. Better yet, delegate those lower quadrants to a support team. #2 - Impact / Effort Scale: This system also uses a quadrant approach, but instead of urgency and importance, it focuses on the effort a task or project will require, and the impact it has on the goal. Quick Wins: The top left quadrant of this system is for tasks and projects that don’t take much effort, but have a big impact on your goals. These are perfect for team members who have very little capacity but could benefit from a quick easy-to-completable task. Big, Important Stuff: The top right quadrant is for high effort, high impact projects. Like in the Eisenhower matrix, this is for projects that are going to take more time to complete, but bring a lot of value to your team or organization. To the best of your ability, spread these projects across the team, or assign a few people to collaborate on it. Fillers: The bottom left quadrant is for low impact, low effort tasks and projects. Usually these are going to be tasks that just need to be crossed off the list, like writing an email. Delegate or Ditch It: The bottom right quadrant is for high effort, low value tasks. Our best advice is to keep projects and tasks out of this quadrant. These tasks and projects are going to take tons of resources, but don’t make a big difference to your team or organization – so consider tabling them for now, delegating them to someone else, or shifting your strategy to make these tasks have a larger impact. Try it: Similar to the Eisenhower matrix, work through this system with at least one other person – and we highly recommend this option for capacity planning. Get your sticky notes, place them in the appropriate quadrant, and then evaluate. How much capacity does your team have? Who can take on the low effort, high value projects? How can you distribute milestones and tasks related to high effort, high value projects? And what’s in that bottom right quadrant? Is there a way you can shift your approach so that task or project brings more value? Pro Tip: We like that the “effort” part of this system addresses team capacity. With the Eisenhower Matrix you might have a project that is high urgency and high importance, but if no one on your team has time to allocate towards the project, then things need to be shuffled around. By using the Impact & Effort method, you can quickly assess what projects need to be assigned to someone with higher capacity, and what projects can be handed off to team members with less time available. #3 - Top 3 Method: The Top 3 method serves as a quick, gut-check, big picture view of the most important projects. If our team is managing multiple different projects at once (and as a work management consulting firm, we’re always managing multiple projects at once) it’s helpful to zoom out and get a big picture view of what’s most essential. We recommend use the Top 3 method alongside other prioritization systems, like the Eisenhower matrix or the effort/impact scale, to quickly determine what really matters, and then prioritize those most important projects first. Try It: Zoom out and consider all of the projects that you and your team are managing. What are the three most important projects in your portfolio? What projects have the closest deadlines, or the biggest impacts? Limit yourself to only three. Pro tip: Even if you’ve identified your Top 3, you might still spend time on other tasks throughout the day or week. Sometimes the highest priority is a high effort, long term project – but you still need to tackle some of your shorter term, low effort tasks while you work towards that bigger project goal. Keeping your highest priorities in mind can help you and your team stay aligned and on track to make progress on your objectives. Prioritizing projects and tasks is an essential practice for reducing burnout and making expectations clear. With clear visibility on priorities, the entire team can spend less time trying to figure out what to work on, and more time moving the needle on their most important projects. One last recommendation: celebrate the wins! If you and your team are managing multiple projects, those quick wins really help to boost morale and demonstrate that progress is being made, even in the busiest of seasons. Ready to get clear visibility on your most important projects? Let us help! We can tailor your work management system to organize, prioritize, and streamline your project portfolio. So you can ditch the sticky notes and get back to work. Learn more about our work here.