Teamwork

You'd like to limit the number of internal e-mails in your company? Yet, you want to improve the information flow? This actually works.

There are two basic ways to communicate tasks in a team. On the one hand, all tasks can be managed in a central file which can be accessed by every team member. Alternatively, each team member can be considered as independent, thus responsible for their goals and tasks. In this case, tasks and goals concerning the team are exchanged between the team members.

Lets see, how this latter, much more effective way, is provided in meineZIELE.

How does it work?

meineZIELE offers a simple tool to map your team electronically. Tasks can be delegated almost automatically and meineZIELE allows for status reports and information exchange. Moreover, the team development chart, available in mZ Pro, helps you bring out the best in your team.

Step 1: Creating a team

a. In meineZIELE's team functionalities, you are recognized under the name you entered as user name. Therefore, you should enter your full name (in the Help/Info menu) to avoid confusion.

b. Create a directory for meineZIELE's teamwork files on your personal computer or, better, on your file server. Only small Disk space is needed, if You just exchange tasks and events. If You expect to exchange a lot of large documents, then please provide enough disk space.

c. The creation of the team is done within meineZIELE:

Click the "Team" button, as indicated in the screenshot. The team functionalities window opens. Since you do not have any teams yet, the window will appear rather blank.

To the top left, you find your user name (adjust it in the Help->Info menu).

The white space will later display team structures. Since you do not yet have a team, names will only be displayed here if you have already used them in the columns "Who?", "With whom?" or "Origin" in the goals view. As soon as you've created your team, its members will be displayed here. This can be seen in the screenshot below.

Join an existing team by clicking the button at (1). If necessary, icons can be created with (2). More informations on icons can be found below on this page. Synchronizations are carried out by clicking the button at (3).

Further functions appear when you select a person from the list. These are shown in the screenshot below. The list with existing teams is shown at (1). To the right, at (2), contact information of the chosen team member is displayed.

For a simpler team construction you can create a team as above and then use button (6) to add/remove names. If a team member is highlighted, the meeting modus (5) can be used in this simple case. But Exchanges of tasks or messages (3) or the agreement on passwords (4) do only work when the other team members join an existent team. ( This is how mZ learns about the connection)

Now some details:

d. Button (7) opens a file dialog:

e. Now navigate to the recently created team directory. This should be a folder on any computer in your network that can be accessed by every team member. All existing teams will be shown then. Join one or more of the existing teams or create a new one. Your team could have the name "Marketing", for instance. You will automatically be member of any team you have created.

Step 2: Make use of images

Orientation can be difficult when you work in a large team. To make the "Who is who" easier, meineZIELE provides images. For example, mini photos can be used as icons.

In the examples above, icons containing the team members' faces can be seen. Even when photos are that small, they still have a high recognition value and simplify navigation. Of course, these icons are optional. If you decide to use them, please use meineZIELE's icon generator. It generates the icons in all required sizes with the right name and puts them in the right place. If You highlight not a person but a team, the generator will produce an icon for the team.

mZ will automatically transfer the images to other team members, when they enter a team.

Obs.: meineZIELE uses the license numbers for assignment. Therefore, each team member does need an individual license number. Otherwise, loss of data is possible.

Step 3: Security

In most teams there are situations where not all information shall be visible to anybody. So, you may want to protect your team communication. meineZIELE provides passwords for private communication. Once combined with your colleagues, the password is needed to read the messages which are transmitted encrypted. The password is saved on your computer and used automatically. It will be stored within your mZ file which can itself be saved encypted if necessary.

a. Go to the team configuration window and click on the desired partner. Some additional buttons will appear in the header of the window. Click the "encryption" button, as indicated in the screenshot.

b. Enter the password you have agreed with your team colleague. Click the "Eye" button to make it visible.

 

 

 

 

 

Step 4: Delegating tasks

MYou want to delegate tasks with just a few mouse clicks?

a. Please go to the "Team" view. (Or go to the "Goals" view and click the "+" sign in the header to make the column "Who" visible. Optionally you can make use of the "With whom" column as well.)

b. At any goal or task, click into the desired column. The list of your team members will appear. Select any person from the list or type their name in the text field.

c. Use the "Who" column to determine who is responsible for the task. Only one team member can be responsible. However, several people can be involved in the task. Use the "With whom" column to determine the assisting team members. To add people, use the two buttons indicated at (2) in the screenshot to the right. If you type the names, separate them with a ":".

Step 5: Exchange tasks with the team

Do you want to delegate or to assume tasks, to create or to receive feedback? Best all together with three clicks?

a. Open the team functionalities.

b. Click the desired team member or the whole team.

c. Click the data exchange button in the header. Exchange will be carried out automatically. Information on once received and assumed tasks is reported back to the "client" automatically. The following information is given back to the person who created the task:

//  Status
//  Feedback commentary
//  Actual Budget

Recommendation for the "status" field: Use as few statuses as possible. Usually it should be sufficient to use three: "Indeterminate", "In progress" and "Done". In any case, the different statuses have to be clear to every team member.

The content of the 1-click-filing will also be delivered, provided network paths or web addresses are used. mZ does not automatically transfer private files, but there are functions (right mouse button in the 1-click-filing) to publish files or transfer them from team to private.

Please consider that the entry in the field "Origin" cannot be edited.

Where does meineZIELE store the tasks?

meineZIELE creates "roles" or "spheres" for each of the teams where you are member. This is done automatically. The spheres are nominated with "Team" and the original team name, in our case "Team marketing". Tasks assumed from your team members are stored within the respective sphere.

Step 5a: Alternative: Contributions

Usually, any subtasks created by the task recipient are not reported back to the supervisor. This is meaningful if these subtasks are individual steps of the main task and only interesting to the executing person. However, there exists the case that a task delegated to a team member is an invitation to contribute to a certain topic. In such a case, subtasks shall be reported back. This can be set in the Options/Teamwork/Team menu.

Step 5b: Alternative: Transfer tasks

If you want to collect and transfer tasks centrally or You just took a phone call for a collegue, you can pass on feedback. For that, click a name in the "Who" column while holding down the "Shift" key. Tasks will be transferred instantly. As soon as the recipient accepts the tasks, these will appear strikethrough. Now you can delete the tasks without any impact on your colleague's task list. (meineZIELE checks for transfers when you open your file again)

Step 5c: Special case: Combine delegating and project files

Some users want to combine delegating and project files. This can be quite complicated because tasks of different projects would be mixed up. (Just using the multi project view may be a much better way to deal with a big number of projects) But there is a "simple" solution: Create virtual team members ("Project manager xy") for each project file. If these virtual members exchange tasks, the tasks will always match the right project since there is only one for each virtual member.

Step 5d: Special case: Collecting completed tasks

 Sometimes tasks, which are already done, are not deleted but crossed, just to have an easy overview on the progress of a project. In an environment, where tasks are delegeted this would mean that the executing person would get these tasks again and again, since You would not want to delete the entry in the who?-column. To easily avoid this, use the option in Options/Teamwork/Team for entries, which are ticked of by the tick-off- icon. Crossed feedback lines can (option) automatically get the tick off icon.

Step 6: Leaving a team / deleting members

You need to delete a team member?

It is sufficient to click the "Delete" button at (3). However, this only works if the person has already left the team. Otherwise they will appear again automatically.

You can leave a team by clicking first your name within the team and then the "Leave team" button.

Step 7: Selections for meetings

You have an individual meeting with another team member?

meineZIELE helps you focus on what is important for you and your partner. Click on the desired team member and then the selection button (2). Then, all relevant entries will be selected and displayed. This is quite useful if you want to discuss just the tasks where only you and the respective team member are involved. This kind of Selection can also be done by clicking into the "Who" column in the team- or goals view.

Step 8: Less E-Mails

E-mails make up a large part of our day. Limiting them to a minimum can considerably increase productivity. Perhaps using the messaging function (chat) of meineZIELE can be part of the solution:

Team-Reports

Yet, there is another simple alternative to the task exchange: Maybe a team does not work on common projects, for example an it team in which every member takes care of a different application. If team members shall only get insight to the progress of the team members top tasks, a simple report might be sufficient. Whether an entry shall appear in a report or not can be set in its "Details" window. Up to ten reports are possible. Further settings, such as the paths are done in options/teamwork/reports.

Team reports serve for the overall view about pending tasks and progress in a team, if no entries shall be transferred. The corresponding settings have to be done for each entry individually. As soon as a report is active (Button left), a corresponding button will appear in the "Details" view of each entry. Report numbers and paths must be the same for all participants. The reports are updated automatically as soon as you save your file. The content of the reports (only status and task) can be seen in the lists menu.

Reports are .csv files that can also be read by other programs. The fields used are:

//  Goal description
//  Date of creation
//  Documentation
//  Date
//  Budget
//  Actual budget
//  Who?
//  With whom?
//  Case No
//  Time
//  Finishing date
//  Duration days
//  Duration hours
//  Duration minutes
//  Status
//  Name of reporter

Reports are not enciphered. So, every participant can read the reports.