Back to Business: prepare to get back to teamwork

A project management plan to reboot a team

Have you just been through an unusual situation that has disrupted the team's work pace? For a smooth return to work, get prepared in advance with the Back to work template.

This interruption can be due to external events, such as during the Covid pandemic in 2020, or to internal movement. First, all the team members need to meet, even in hybrid mode - with part of them working remotely and the others meeting in person - so they can restart their projects.

This project tracking and relaunch template consists of 3 steps to follow as a team to get back on track: 

• Feedback on the previous situation
• Update of the projects to be relaunched or adjusted 
• Reorganization of the workspace

It’s all about working as a team to decide on priorities and actions to be taken to effectively return to normal. With this template, everyone knows what they have to do to get the whole team back to work with peace of mind.

The benefits of the project tracking table in this Klaxoon template

When working as a team, a break of any length can have harmful effects on the effectiveness of your collaboration, and therefore on what you produce together. Using Board, Klaxoon’s whiteboard, to work as a team and relaunch your activity lets you recreate an instant and asynchronous communication space.

Whether your whole team is meeting together in person, or some members are working remotely at different times, you can reforge the team bonds with this action tracking table. Everyone participates and can track the resumption of projects or changes to workspaces, at their own pace.

Use the Question tool to share information asynchronously, as you can respond in real-time or later. The Live videoconferencing tool can also be used to facilitate this workshop if you feel the need.

In short, this is a quick and easy way to get back on track and learn how to work as a team again to get your projects successfully completed!

How to use Klaxoon’s Back to Business template

Start by connecting your entire team to the Board.

Launch the timer at the top for a 5-minute assessment. Ask participants to send their ideas to the 3 areas, following the direction of the arrow.:

• Keep doing: see what the team would miss if it wasn't there - it’s always good to start on a positive note.
• Stop doing: note any stumbling blocks or anything that is not beneficial - this helps you go further in your assessment.
• Start doing: finish with new ideas to try out, which should be beneficial and let you make projections.

During this phase, everyone has to like the one or two ideas they prefer, by clicking on the heart button, to prioritize them. You can then switch to List view, and the key ideas will stand out automatically.

Restart the brainstorming to find action items together that correspond to the top prioritized ideas. Assign each action to a team member, and ask them to send an idea with their photo and name, and connect it to their action.

Then, move on to the project tracking part, by first answering the question: "What are our projects?". Everyone responds at the same time to create a word cloud, and then they need to like the 10 prior projects to be relaunched. Next, list them in the table, and fill it in as a team. You can also use the stopwatch for this exercise, to keep control of your time for the final phase of this workshop.

Use the “Our Workspace” area on your whiteboard to reorganize the spaces to be taken over and retrieved. Use the shape and color toolbar and the icon library to draw a realistic plan of your workspace. You can also import a ready picture to represent it. 

Whether you have a hot desk or a fixed desk, each participant then has to send an idea with their photo and name, and position themselves where they would be on the plan. You can set “Occupied room” or “Office” as Categories. This way, if you have a lot of different spaces, switch to Column view to see the list of people in each room or office at a glance.

Finally, use the area to the right of the plan to add specific requests or needs in red, with the requester's name as a Dimension. Once the action has been taken over by a team member, they simply need to change the idea to yellow, and write their name as another Dimension. This way, everyone can check the project tracking.

With this scalable whiteboard, you can have a specific space for useful information too. This will definitely help you get back to work, and resume effective teamwork!