Better Communication = Better Project Management
Poor communication leads to poor outcomes
During any project, prioritizing clear communication among team members, and knowing which communication tools to use, is critical. “Communicating with all your stakeholders is the single most important factor for project management success”, according to an article from the Project Management Institute. Poor communication is too often the cause of other problems that lead a project off-course.
“The top three problems that prevent a project from being successful are changes in scope, poor estimation in the planning phase, and poorly defined goals and objectives. If you communicate effectively, then your chances of encountering these problems is diminished considerably.” How to Improve Communications for Better Project Management (PC Magazine).
Effective communication is particularly important when a project takes several months or years to complete. The project manager needs to remind everyone of the objectives, parameters, status and expenditures of the project—and needs to do so often. All teams and stakeholders benefit from reviewing their project’s status reports and history to get a better sense of what has happened, what is happening and what will happen through the life of the project. Presenting this information in a clear and concise manner through dynamic project reports and dashboards is key.
It’s clear that communication is of the utmost importance for any project to be successful. What can you do to improve your teams’ processes and ensure that your stakeholders will have all the information they need to be successful? This is where the right project management tool can make all the difference.
Using Agility Blue to enhance communication
Agility Blue is a task and project management software designed specifically for the legal industry that can help drastically and easily improve your communication skills:
First, it centralizes all of your information and gives everyone on your team access to it. In the end, documentation is just another form of communication.
Improve communication by keeping all team members informed of project status through Agility Blue’s dashboard view.
Agility Blue also serves as the repository of all your project details, including project sub-tasks, assignments, deadlines, and comments. Access to this record at your fingertips ultimately allows you and your team to accurately and effectively communicate with your stakeholders and clients.
Standardize communication through Agility Blue’s custom task forms, and by adding comments to tasks.
Finally, Agility Blue’s web portal gives stakeholders an easy way to enter project requests and receive automated email notifications when their projects are changed or completed. Notifications are automated, which means less overhead for team members, and no delay in relaying critical information to stakeholders when they need it.
Automate communication to stakeholders outside of Agility Blue through the Web Portal.
You can greatly improve your information sharing with team members, stakeholders and clients by using the a project management platform that keeps everyone in the know, in real time, with minimal effort. To see Agility Blue in action, contact us at sales@sadiebluesoftware.com.
Agility Blue Updates
New features, enhancements, bug fixes and more!
Add Objects On the Fly
Matters can now be created while on a Client Detail screen. There is a new button named “New Matter” within the Matters list and a link within the Action Console titled “Create a New Matter…” Creating new Matters this way will pre-populate the Client information with the current Client.
Projects can now be created while on a Matter Detail screen. There is a new button named “New Project” within the Projects list and a link within the Action Console titled “Create a New Project…” Creating new Projects this way will pre-populate the Matter information with the current Matter.
Clients can now be created while creating new Matters by using the new Plus icon next to the “Client” label.
Matters can now be created while creating new Projects by using the new Plus icon next to the “Matter” label.
Form UI Enhancements
Form names now appear on Tasks for the first section of each Form.
Task Fields that do not contain any values will now display “No Value” instead of completely omitting the field.
Email Notifications Enhancements
Reply to Agility Blue Email Notifications
The email notifications generated by the Agility Blue notifications system can now be directly replied to if an email notification has been sent on or after 9/25/2017. When an email is replied to, a new Task Comment is created for that Task. The person replying to the email notification will be listed as the creator of the Comment determined by the “From” email address. If the user replying to an email notification is not an Agility Blue user (if, for example, the email was forwarded to someone that is not an Agility Blue user and that user replies back to that email where notify@sadiebluesoftware.com is listed as a recipient), then the user will be listed as the Agility Blue Service Account. Comments that were created by email replies will be adorned with an “Email Reply” badge. Attachments will be ignored. Please allow up to 30 seconds to one minute for comments to be created within Agility Blue.
Create New Projects and Tasks by sending emails directly to Agility Blue
Emails sent to notify@sadiebluesoftware.com that come from approved domains will generate new Projects and Tasks within a registered Workspace. New Projects will be created with a single Task using the Subject line of the email as the name of the Project and Task. The “General Instructions” form is used with the Body of the email as the instructions. Only the text representation of the email will be used for security reasons (HTML and inline images/objects are stripped), however attachments can be sent and will be processed and uploaded as Task Attachments**.
New Projects and Tasks are created under a Client named “Email Requests” and a Matter named “Uncategorized”. A tag with the name of “Email Request” and category “Agility Blue” is applied to the Project. Projects can be moved to other Matters within Agility Blue by editing the Project and changing the Matter.
If the person sending the email is an Agility Blue user based on the “From” email address, that user will be used as the creator of the Project and Task and Owner of the Project. If the person is not an Agility Blue user, the Service Account will be listed as the creator with no Project Owner. In both cases, the Requester of the Project will be listed as the email “From” address (the Contact will be created if it did not already exist).
Please be aware that objects generated through the email reply and request features go through the same User Notification Rules pipeline as if creating new Projects, Tasks, or Task Comments within the application.
* The email reply and email request features are currently considered “in beta”, and as such, your organization must opt-in to enable the features. Please have an Organization admin send us an email at support@sadiebluesoftware.com or call us at 612-659-0456 if you’re interested in enabling this feature for your Organization. Please note that the email request feature can only be available for one Workspace within your Organization.
** Email attachments should not exceed 25 MB in size.
API Documentation
Api Documentation is now available for users interested in utilizing Agility Blue in external applications using the Agility Blue REST Api.
Bug Fixes
Removed system accounts from Drop Down Lists involved in selecting users (“Service Account” and “Portal User”).
The Create New Task dialog window no longer appears after copying a Project with one or more Tasks.
Interview with Ari Kaplan on Agility Blue
Respected legal industry analyst and author Ari Kaplan of Ari Kaplan Advisors recently interviewed the founders of Sadie Blue Software on Agility Blue™. The interview is featured in the award-winning legal industry blog, Reinventing Projessionals. The blog, an ABA Blawg 100 honoree, is a great resource for legal professionals throughout the industry. According to the author, the blog “is designed to offer ideas, guidance, and perspectives on how to effectively navigate a perpetually shifting professional landscape, with a unique focus on the legal industry and the technology that is driving its evolution.”
The topics we covered in the interview with Ari include how Sadie Blue Software was started, the challenges for legal teams that Agility Blue solves, and why legal project management has become such a hot topic in the legal industry in 2017. Click on the link below to listen to the interview: