SUMMARY
I built a tool to help guide team processes, organize projects, and serve as a centralized hub. This has seen great success for my teams 1000x over.

THE PROBLEM:

Working in an agency, we often have to handle complex projects, with many moving parts, files, etc. As a lead, knowing I will have many projects that will need a system, I needed to design a tool that would guide our team as a system.

THE SOLUTION:

A custom made notion template for organizing project information, links, files, deliverables, and notes, all while helping delegate team tasks, ease in onboarding new team members, and having a centralized hub for project updates.

KEY CONSIDERATIONS:

• My team needs a place to track their work, find resources, and have a singular point to be a source of truth.

• My teams were looking for resources to level up their skills, especially those relevant to the work we are doing.

• The broader team needed a source of truth for decisions made in discussions, next steps, and takeaways.

  
  

KEY INSIGHTS:

• Creating a tool, that guides our team processes has not only streamlined the process, but the recall of information and important documents.

• The team is much more organized, and is able to reference things much more easily.

• There has been less confusion on what is needed from the team throughout the work day.

• It is easier to get a quick glance of where we are in a project.

• Project planning is not streamlined, and milestones are now quickly identified and referenced.

• Master task list as well as individual task lists have ensured clarity, and more collaboration.

• Having designed this tool, I can say, my projects now run much smoother than ever before, and I am constantly getting praise from new team members as this helps a lot of headaches they have had in the past.
  
  

LEGACY 'PROCESS'

Before implementing this project management notion for my teams, we all relied on searching through emails, saving things in chrome browsers, writing things down in notebooks, and not having a source of truth, causing team members to have contradictory information. This was further complicated when we add in the fact that we were a global agency, so team members are working in different time zones, and important information would fall through the tracks - even with team meetings every morning and evening.

THE OUTCOME

The solution created has been tested with over 15 different projects, in 6 different industries, and has evolved and performed exceptionally well for all teams.
You can see a copy of the templates here: https://concrete-emperor-ae5.notion.site/Templates-d0eaa96e0f2d4d4aa7e18f2dea08e9e0?pvs=4

This also includes a resource center that I encourage all my team members to utilize at their leisure.

Additionally, I would work with with my team members, as seen in the Individual Team Member Assessment, to evaluate their skill sets for both strengths and weaknesses and create custom learning plans to help them conquer their next project and career goals - which we review regularly.

THE IMPACT

• Other UX Leads asking me for the template, so they can use it for their projects

• Upper Management asking me to do a 'Show and Tell' on my systems, since they've seen how successful it has helped our teams be.

• Clients telling me they "…wish you {Reba} were on our team because of how seemingly effortless and efficient you make managing your team and our project."

  
  

PERSONAL RETROSPECTIVE

I see this as a living document, that I am continually evolving. No project fits into one cookie cutter solution. Before, during, and after, I am always adding new templates, structures, outlines, etc. to help my teams in the future.