A couple of weeks ago I wrote about what we did when facing a surprise situation. I broke down the steps we took to find a new management software that would meet all our needs when we were informed that the program we had been using for nearly 12 years was going to be disappearing on us. We went through the process of trying out different options and landed on the almighty Teamwork!
Now the fun part…
We had 12 years of information and data on all our clients in One Place. We had all historical data for amount of time spent on a client, who had worked on a client, the specific tasks that were executed, and so much more spanning all of those years. We didn’t want to lose all of that and especially wanted to be sure that pertinent information we needed for current clients was organized in a way that would allow for seamless transition from one program to another.
So it was time for a game plan. We wanted to figure out where we could move this data and organize it that would allow for us to all have access as well as make it so if we ever faced a similar situation we wouldn’t have to worry about transferring all of the data again. We looked at the different tools we had at our disposal and how we could make them work together to accomplish all of these.
We broke down the process by answering 3 questions:
#1 – What exactly were we looking at? We had to list out all of our clients so we could make sure we didn’t miss anyone.
#2 – What information was it that we needed to store and what system made the most sense? Instead of populating all of this data into the new system we were using we decided to create an organized electronic filing system where we could store the information and details for each client and link it to their account in the system. Teamwork works beautifully with Google Drive and linking files to specific clients so everything stays organized. The best part? If we ever run into this type of situation again we won’t have to worry about transferring that data!
We worked down the list of clients and created their client folder, all of them structured the same, added them in Teamwork, linked everything up, and we were good to go!
#3 – How are we going to learn this new system? We started small. We wanted our team to know the basics. We figured out what the essentials were. The things that our team members needed to know to get through the day to day. Gradually, we covered more area and we all found that we were learning together. It became a dialogue amongst the team and ended up being a great opportunity for our team members to help each other overcome hurdles.
When we started out it was easy to feel overwhelmed at the thought of having to make this shift but we found that when we broke it down piece by piece and tackled it together the process was smooth. At the end of it all we ended up in a far better system than we were in before and, if not for that dreaded notification of our previous system shutting down, we would never have seen the green grass on the other side.
BY: Stephanie