👉Onboarding Teams

Introducing change to the way things are run in a company has never been easy, especially if you are managing large groups of people. We think you will get the most out of Blue only when your team understands the value of project management software and adopts it well. This page is all about onboarding your teams to Blue, no matter the size of your team.

✅ Check-list for On-boarding Teams:

Build a Core Team to define how your company should use Blue
Design Workflow in Blue to meet your company's goals
Create a Training Plan to Introduce Blue to your team
Execute and Iterate

Step 1: Build a Core Team to Launch

Whether you're shifting from another project management software or you're totally new to this, introducing a new workflow to teams can be tricky. The way change is introduced has to be carefully designed, keeping the stakeholders close in mind. The best way to start is to build a core team who will define how your company uses Blue.

A Core Team should consist of diverse profiles and positions in a company, from an employee to CEO. They may have roles like:

Blue Master: They educate themselves how to use Blue and they know all existing and new features inside Blue. They constantly remind everyone the values of using Blue and behaviors that drive success.
Strategizer: This person has system thinking that allows them to be able to identify processes and behaviors. In the long term, they will be able to define use cases for different teams inside the company, observe and iterate over time.
Educator: They are the people who will go out to train people on how to use Blue and communicate the values. They should embrace effective communication.

The questions they may ask themselves and employees are:

What are the communication channels we currently use?
What are the needs surrounding those channels? (E.g. If you currently use WhatsApp as a team communication channel, ask the question of why it's important and what needs it solves.
What are the business processes we have? (E.g. How you maintain new leads, Delegate workload to team members, Complete a client project, etc.)
What are the goals of our company? How will Blue help reach them?
What are the biggest pain points in regards to communication and collaboration?

Deliberate answers to those questions will give you an idea as to how your team can use Blue to enhance work processes and productivity.

Step 2: Design Workflow in Blue

Now that you understand the challenges in your company regarding team communication, you can start designing a workflow in Blue to address those problems.

Choose one of the Use Cases in Blue to begin and iterate from there.
Or you can start from scratch:

1. Make a list of the company's projects and teams

Write a list of all teams inside your company, and in each team, list down all the projects they have on hand. This way you can define all the "Projects" you create in Blue. For agencies, they may create a project for each client, and for others, they create projects based on company departments or teams.

2. Define the stages and process of each project or team

Every project has its own process or stage; Write down the ideal process you want to establish or have already established. These stages will go to Columns on Board.

3. Fill those processes out in Blue's Boards and Experiment

The best way to see if it works is to try it! Create projects & todos in Blue and experiment with it.

Step 3: Create a Training Plan

Before creating a training plan, it's important that you set expectations on how teams should use Blue. Every company has its own communication culture, and it is the role of everyone in the company to implement it. Blue wants to be able to enhance those practices so you can work more effectively but keeping culture consistent.

For example, by using Blue, you may want to shift some unnecessary face-to-face updates to writing updates in Blue, so if this is the behavior you expect from people in your company, it makes sense to define those behaviors and communicate to them.

The Planning Stage

Number of people: Decide how many people should attend the training at a time and who. It works better if you start out small and expand the group as you go.
Trainers: For the first training, Educators in Core Team should be trainers or facilitators. For the next ones, company should encourage trainees to train subordinates as it may help them learn more.
Date/Time: Decide a day and time that is convenient for everyone. Mornings are usually best for absorbing and processing new information.
Location: It's best to go offsite for this training as it creates more focus for employees. Conducting a training in the office may cause distractions which could get employees to wander off to work on certain tasks.

Training Objectives

Communicate the value of using Blue to teams
Let teams to decide how they will use Blue and experiment it

Agenda

(10 min) Introduce Objectives of Training Session

(20 min) Identity Teamwork Challenges

Form into 5 people per group, preferably a mix of different departments
Let them come up with some challenges they face when working in a team or managing a project, and design it in a Flipchart
Let each team present with only 2 minute time-cap.

(15 min) Introduce Blue as Solution

Explain why Project Management Tool is important
Show a short demo of Blue
Introduce the workflow designed by Core Team

(30 min) Let Teams Experiment

Group teams based on departments or projects
Let them sign up in Blue & fill in their workflow & todos
Give space for them to discuss within the team on how they will use it

(10 min) Workspace Behaviors

This is when you set expectations for the whole company on how they collaboratively work together using Blue.
E.g. Write updates every Friday of the week & @mention your team.

(10 min) Debrief Training Session

Give the space for your employees to share how they feel about the new approach & listen to them
Explain once again that change is hard but you can start small and improve along the way.

After Training

Ensure the plans are implemented and give timely feedback when necessary.
Have a short meeting with Facilitators to discuss improvement points for the training session. We recommend using "START. STOP. CONTINUE" method where you define what you want to start doing in the next session, stop, and continue doing.

Step 4: Execute and Iterate

Don't fall in love with your solution too soon, it can always be better. 😆There is a lot of flexibility in Blue to make changes according to your needs and as your company grows.