I am happy to present to you part two of a series of questions and answers from former “Lunchbreak” interviewees. Readers sent in a considerable number of questions, and we couldn’t fit them all in one article; here we present the rest of the questions and answers from this select group of entrepreneurs.
I appreciate the great feedback that I (and the featured entrepreneurs) received this past week, and I plan on putting together more such articles in the future, iy”H.
—Nesanel
I run a company with 14 employees, and I feel that we are all over the place in regard to task management.
I know there are many options out there. I am curious what you use in your company to oversee task management.
Yossi Gottehrer: We have used Asana in the past, and we now use Wrike. There are several others that are great. The common mistake companies make when signing up for these software programs is that once they sign up, they think everything will suddenly run smoothly. You need someone on your team who will take the time to set up the software, which can take months; it also takes lots of time to maintain. You need your team to input their share of the info daily and to properly convey info in their reports. It can definitely help a lot with the right person managing it, as well as encouragement for the team to work along with the program.
Yisroel Berkowitz: I’m a bit confused by what you mean by “all over the place.” Do all your employees have a specific task? Do they know what their job description is? Do you have the right people working for you? Are they overworked? Are you an organized person?
I would start by making a list of all the tasks that are necessary for your company to function fully. Assign each task to the person who is the best fit for it. Once that is completed, check to see that each task has enough manpower to take care of it, and then check that each employee has the capability to fulfill the task.
There are many task management programs and apps, but these systems are only as good as the people feeding the info into the system.
Michael Mintz: We use Monday.com and have found it to be a great tool to help our team stay on top of tasks and collaborate with each other.
Yossi Klein: Two good programs are ClickUp and Google Keep.
Josh Spiegel: I can totally relate! For so long, we were running around without proper software to manage our tasks, and it felt like chaos all the time. Since then we have started with Asana, and we couldn’t be happier. If you put in the time to set it up for your company’s needs, you will not be disappointed.
Isaac Rudansky: We use Monday.com for project and task management. It’s a flexible tool that will expand as your company grows. You can also look into Asana and ClickUp, both highly capable solutions for task management. Most importantly, with any tool, you have to establish protocols. For example, in my company, WhatsApp is never used for work, and Slack is never used to communicate with clients. The software doesn’t necessarily solve the problem of disorganization, but it’s a first step.
Chezi Cweiber: It helps if your employees understand what their job is and what their priorities should be. If they understand that, a weekly meeting to go over priorities works for us.
Ori Zohar: This is a common growth pain for many company leaders. There are many opinions regarding the “ideal” number of team members one person can manage well, and it depends on your management style. If you’re a hands-on, detail-oriented manager, your max might be five direct reports.
It also depends on your company culture. If you can work with your teammates to handle tasks independently, give them work that matches their skill level, and empower them to make decisions rather than having to check back in with you about every detail, you’ll build trust in the team and free up your time for more important tasks than micromanagement.
Rather than trying to have a window into every task across everyone at the company, we have our team broken into task groups. At my company, our operations team consists of three people who work together all day. The wholesale group has four people who do the same. They each know all the happenings in their area of expertise and support each other to get their work done. I’m part of their weekly meetings to check progress, workload, focus and prioritization, and I help whenever they need support.
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