In this post we explore PaT Strategy Documents.

We refer to strategy documents as the unintended love child in PaT, I set out to create a database driven minutes application that leveraged the usefulness of the task management system (once we had the epiphany that tasks were actually action points) but what we created even blew us away.

We are currently transitioning the terminology of Strategy Documents from Minutes/Projects so if you’ve heard us refer to these as electronic minutes previously that will be why. As you can see from the image below Strategy Documents are a collection of Action Points (tasks) Comments and Topics which can be arranged in a hierarchical fashion (click the image for a large view then click back on your browser).

You can also attach documents, videos and audio files to Strategy documents as well as have high level conversations with team members regarding the document. Stepping down into the individual Action Points you can also attach documents, videos and audio files as well manage detailed conversations related to the specific Action Points.

We are discovering a good way to educate new PaT users how to use PaT is through the use of Tours. These are mini slide shows that pop up whenever you enter a new section of the software platform for the first time. For this post I thought it might be a good idea to share the current Strategy Document tour to illustrate the functionality…below these images I provide a summary.

Summary, apart from being a wonderful way to group related tasks, their file attachments and conversations all in one document,  a key advantage that Strategy Documents provide is the ability to nest Strategy Documents within Strategy Documents, this allows you manage highly complex projects easily.

The other feature we love about Strategy Documents is that you can use them concurrently as a project template and a minutes meeting tool. At the end of a meeting you have the ability to close the session and mark off who attended the meeting and who didn’t. Those that did are automatically emailed a pdf version of the minutes and any apologies are also emailed a pdf version PLUS a task requesting them to review the minutes within 5 working days which leverages the power of the task management system and the Performance KPI metric!

In practice what we are finding is that because it forces people to acknowledge they reviewed the minutes even  if they never attended the meeting we have eliminated the issue where people used to be able to claim ignorance because they were unable to attend, this keeps everyone on the same page, always. Using Strategy Documents to manage meetings is one of the functions in PaT that users warm to the fastest, it is easy and fun to use (click, drag and drop) and shows immediate benefit – everyone gets the value quickly. We recommend where possible projecting the minutes onto a screen so the meeting members can all view the document and you should type notes in real time, then when the meeting is concluded there is nothing else to do but punch the button. This is much faster and more efficient than handwritting notes then manually typing them up later.

Once we realised how powerful this function was it spread like wildfire into every area of our business, we now use strategy documents for Board Papers and Board Meetings, Employee reviews, H&S Meetings, projects (of any level of complexity), Customer reviews, Supplier reviews, software development roadmaps, surveys (you can set up a strategy document and send out one task to multiple assignees requesting feedback which is automatically collated within the document), strategies and meetings of any kind.

Lastly a key benefit of Strategy Documents is that it is part of a single system, today research is showing that users get fatigued and administrators get overwhelmed managing multiple applications, this one for that requirement and that one for this requirement etc… Strategy Documents is simply another dimension of PaT.

We don’t have a demo site up and running yet however this is due to be released for Go Live in Q1 next year, in the meantime if you’d like to learn more about PaT or you’re interested in understanding how specifically PaT could assist your business drop me a line at brad@peopleandtasks.com I can arrange to run you through the software and demonstrate the functionality using Team Viewer or get one of our team to come and present it you in person. Whilst PaT is in soft launch phase (Go Live is planned for Q1 2017) we are offering preferential pricing in perpetuity as a founding customer and if you are an SCS customer we are offering brilliant deals as a special thank you for your custom and support.

Cheers

Brad