9. Task Management Systems. Launching Your Virtual Architecture Practice

This is the 9th video and today we're going to talk about task management software. Task management software is an online platform that allows you to communicate to your remote workers tasks and keeps everybody on track with project scheduling.

There are several available online systems available. I typically use Podio which is a Citrix branded product. I use other Citrix product so it's convenient to be able to bundle all of that together. Task management software is it is the glue that binds the entire company together. It tells firm owners and managers how to organize tasks to keep staff coordinated and it's all managed in one location. We use Podio and this [video] is an example of something that I have called a job board. Podio is not just task management, but it also allows you to create your own little apps so that you can customize how things are utilized in the system. One of the things that I created was a job board so that my workers can open the system and see what jobs are available. They can pick or discuss with me which projects they'd like to work. For example, when a project is already in progress they will see in progress tab. But, if it's something that's ready to be assigned to somebody to work on, they will see this tab “ready for assignment.” Every member on our team has access to this online job board. It also tells [staff] how many hours are available to work on the project. It tells them what municipality we're going to be submitting to and client information. All of that information is all in this job board.

[Describes video] Let’s go online to see what it looks like when you first log on so the job board. The main board allows us to see what activity everybody's been doing; if they've been communicating emails or information to each other. This portion here called design and production tasks, allows me to create a task and assign it to each of our members. They get a notification that something has been assigned to them and they can go ahead and work on it. Once they have completed [the task] they can go ahead and check it off (just like that) and it'll disappear from the task board.

Key terms: work from home, WFH, remote working, virtual office, virtual firm, architecture firm, architect office, architect practice, architectural practice.