As a busy agency, we’re running numerous projects at any one time and therefore organisation is key. Not only that, but we need to stay connected and informed as a team all the time.
So over the years we’ve tried pretty much every project management and productivity tool on the market – Asana, OmniFocus, Slack, Things, Trello, Todoist, Wunderlist, etc. You name it, we’ve tried it. But somehow, no one system covered everything we needed.
Finally, we settled on Basecamp 3 which has brought a new sense of organisation and communication to not only our agency, but also to our clients.
Here’s how Basecamp 3 has helped our workflow
Why use a productivity tool
Simple. Stay organised! On any one day we could be working on a variety of client projects from social media management to marketing plans, branding design to website build. This means we need to stay on top of project flow and also keep each other up to date.
Basecamp helps us stay organised. Instead of having stuff scattered all over the place — strewn across separate products, lost in inboxes, or scrawled on stickies or notepads — Basecamp brings everything we’re working on under one roof. Organised, centralized, and clear so everyone knows what to do, everyone knows where things stand, and everyone can get what they need without having to ask around all the time.
How we stay organised
Now each HoneyBe Creative team has a team, or, project area for focus. Each project area consists of:
- To-dos for tracking work
- Message Board for posting announcements and updates (no more ‘Cake in the kitchen!!’ emails)
- Campfire chat room for quick casual chats with the team (much better than lost conversations in email!)
- Schedule for posting deadlines and milestones
- Docs & Files for organising all the assets and notes everyone needs to do their work, and
- Automatic Check-ins to get insights from the team on a regular basis.
Keeping our clients updated
We’ve found Basecamp to be so good internally, that we even invite clients to use it collaboratively with us. Some clients find this extremely useful as they have a direct feed into the entire team and can drop in to see how any project is progressing and even chat to us about it should they wish.
For clients that don’t want that level of detail, we now email them directly from Basecamp and their reply is recorded in that project so the whole team can access it and stay informed. No more emails hidden in another team members inbox!
Embrace productivity!
Basecamp 3 may not be the solution for every business, but for our agency it just works. There’s no more ‘Where’s that file for sign off?!’, or, ‘Where’s the email from Client 5?!?!”. It’s in Basecamp. Simple.
Staying organised and having all project items in one place makes our work flow smarter and quicker, therefore we’re better focussed for delivering inspired design and marketing for our clients.