[Community Member Spotlight] Pietro Poli โจ
Angeheftet Angesagt
Hello Community ๐
Today, we're very happy to share the latest spotlight article from one of our newest Community Black belt members, Pietro Poli ๐ฅณ
Many of you have already had a pleasure discussing all things Wrike with Pietro. Comment below to say hi or ask Pietro questions ๐
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Tell us a little about your role and industry.
My name is Pietro and I am from Bergamo, Italy. I am currently the COO and Content Team Manager at Yourbiz.
I have been working in the digital industry for about 20 years. I started as a programmer, then transitioned to marketing, and later became a Project Manager and team leader.
In the last 2 years, I have taken on the role of COO. I work at Yourbiz, one of the first specialized Demand Generation agencies in Italy. We work primarily with B2B manufacturing companies that produce in Italy and sell abroad. We specialize in providing digital marketing services such as website development, ecommerce, landing pages, SEO, SEM, Inbound Marketing, Social Media Marketing, CRM, CRO, etc.
We focus on conversions and bringing the ROI of digital activities into positive territory.
In my personal life, I am the father of 2 children (7 and 4 years old), I am married, I play the trumpet in various musical groups (from 70s disco music to Klezmer to blues), and I love the mountains. I go there whenever I have free time, both for hiking and rock climbing.
Why do you/your team use Wrike?
In July 2021, we felt the need to provide our company, which consists of 35 employees, with more robust software for task management. We wanted to give order and method to our PMs to help them avoid hours and hours of task management and creation, but at the same time, we wanted to have a good overview of the workload with a 4/6 month perspective. After careful consideration, I understood that Wrike could be the solution, so I started a 4-month test to get to know the features well and in January 2022, we officially activated the platform for the entire company. Migrating from the old software was not easy, but we were repaid with excellent performance throughout 2022.
What were you doing before Wrike?
Before Wrike, we were using Trello, with exports to Excel to keep track of urgent tasks to be delivered during the current week. There was chaos, no trace of how much time was spent on each task, no trace of urgencies, and many deadlines were not met. It was unsustainable.
What is the top thing that makes you productive?
The ability to use blueprints makes me productive. We have long processes that can last up to a year, and after mapping them in all phases, we are able to schedule about 80% of the actions that we will take in a year, in less than 1 hour. This translates to saving time for us, prevents us from forgetting things and gives rhythm to all our work.
What process/setup that you do in Wrike are you most proud of?ย
The process/setup that I am most proud of in Wrike is integrating TIMELOG with our billing software. This combines information on the budget available for each project with the hours that we schedule (effort) and the hours actually used. This allows us to know in advance if we will "overrun" or not when entering the project. It's incredible!
If someone was thinking about using Wrike what would you say?
If someone was thinking about using Wrike, I would tell them to be patient during the migration process and to take the time to fully understand the platform's features. The investment of time is worth it in the long run, as it will greatly improve task management and overall productivity.
What value do you get out of the Community?
I love the Wrike community, there is always someone who can help you and I see it as a great school for me. I have the goal of entering it every day and answering all the questions I know and don't know. It pushes me to improve and discover features that I don't use or don't know. It's my KAIZEN.
Fun question: If you had to be a Wrike feature which would you be and why? (Ex. @mentions, Gantt Chart, search, etc).
If I had to be a Wrike feature, I would be Wrike Analyze. I have always loved numbers and statistics and I have always had difficulty getting data on our productivity before using Wrike. Having an integrated BI is truly valuable for us and that is why I chose to be a COO.
Lisa Community Team at Wrike Wrike Product Manager Become a Wrike expert with Wrike Discover
Lisa Wrike Team member Become a Wrike expert with Wrike Discover
Bravo!
Thanks Lisa , Kelly R
Love it, and appreciate all your insight in the community! Thinking of the time it takes to transition, what was the most helpful things you did to get your colleagues onboard and into Wrike? We are still struggling with this.
Congrats on the Black Belt!ย ย Before Wrike, we used lots and lots of Excel. Wrike is one of the best decisions we have made!!!
Congratulations on the black belt, Pietro!ย
Prior to Wrike for us we were using classic SharePoint lists and excel to track everything, which made it ten times harder!
Congrats on earning the black belt and for being successful with integrating Wrike into your Workplace!ย ย
Thanks to everyone!!ย
Why does our team use Wrike? To stay organized plus cut down on emails and meetings!
Congrats Pietro!ย
We were using Kanbanize, emails, trello, excel, notes & post-its (lol) prior to using wrike.
Congrats Petro and a good story.
Congrats Pietro Poli!ย
We where using excel and PowerPoint before Wrike. We are still progressing and glad Wrike is helping in our transformation.
before wrike we were using trello also!
The migration process is a little bit of a rough patch. There are varying levels of excitement to learn. Do you have any tips on how to get your team excited about learning Wrike and onboarding?
Hi Kat Riddler, thank for you question.
First of all I made mini corporate ambassadors who co-created some blueprints with me. When everything was ready I did this:
1- Wrike presentation meeting with the features and what it would have helped us with (I did it team by team) then collecting information on any needs
2- Feeding needs into Wrike to give teams what they need
3- Check with team managers
4- Preparation of a document on Notion (summary of the functioning and of the information we needed)
5- Preparation of a blueprint to carry out the basic training on the use of Wrike
6- Migration from Trello (made by me + 1 other resource)
7- Kick Off
During the Kick Off I was available for 2 days to the whole team to answer questions and give help.
I then have an always open channel for:
- welcome new ideas
- respond to requests
If the ideas are actually useful, they are implemented by communicating to the team and pointing out that the idea is not mine but that of a specific person.
Hi Pietro Poli, congrats on the Black Belt.
Would love to know more about your integration of effort planned in wrike with your billing software, can you elaborate on that a bit more?
(or point me to threads to read if you've already done so in the forum before)
Congratulations, Pietro Poli ! I absolutely agree that blueprints are key to productivity, as they provide a full list of what's required every time. Can you go into more detail/share best practices around some of your longer processes? How do you accommodate changes throughout the year (if applicable) through your blueprints?
Congrats on the Black Belt, Pietro! I 100% agree that blueprints are a major key to a team's productivity! Blueprints + three advanced Wrike users = success! You can't do it all yourself, so it's a great idea to train a handful of other people in the organization so they can help keep things organized, streamlined, and field questions for their teammates.
Hi Angela Kennewell
Thanks for your question, here's some more info.
For many years we have had internally developed software, called "reports", which allows us to enter work reports for each individual customer / contract we have in place.
Every moment worked, for all employees, must be reported to allow us to have a view of how much time we have consumed compared to the sold and, if the contract provides for it, to invoice the "extra project" hours.
In fact, this software has been integrated with our billing management for about 5 years.
In 2022 we introduced Wrike and we wanted to make the most of Timelogs (for analysis logics - I will write a post about it in the forum), so we integrated with Wrike APIs Timelogs (create, modify, delete) with our reporting software , so as to allow each employee to no longer worry about knowing where he had to report his hours (we often had errors), but simply to declare the time spent on each single task.
In order to communicate well, Wrike and Software Rapportini needed unique keys to declare where the TIMELOG should be inserted, so we defined a structure for our PROJECTS that would allow us to obtain these keys.
Each single task is inside a FOLDER (which must be inside a PROJECT), this folder has 4 custom fields (Customer, Job Order, Cost Center, Cost Item) which are populated every night with the entered values to Management.
For each timelog inserted in WRIKE, an API call starts which retrieves (the task, the folder in which it is contained and the 4 custom fields), then we write the timelog in the report software with the time inserted in the timelog and the comment.
If you want more details I can write a specific post in forum
Hi Carolanne Mak, thanks for your question
In addition to international digital marketing, our company is specialized in the implementation of HubSpot (CRM) and from this year also of Wrike.
In order to best implement a CRM, it is necessary to design the processes that are carried out in the company (marketing, sales, post-sales, operations, etc.)
We have therefore devised a method, called DAM (Demand Acceleration Method - https://www.yourbiz.it/demand-acceleration-method) which allows us to:
1- better analyze company processes
2- design and optimize them by removing any frictions
3- define KPIs and OBJECTIVES
4- implementing them in HubSpot or in Wrike
So to get back to your questions:
- best practices are these I do a deep analysis of all the steps, of all the tasks that we have to deliver and that we know are mandatory points
- implemented a specific Blueprint and use it for every project that starts
If the BP should change over time, and it obviously happens, I'll update the BP and check the status of the projects already started with that blueprint (modifying them, only if necessary with the changes in the original blueprint)
Hi Pietro,
wow, overwhelming feedback here for you!
Thanks for supporting the community with your knowledge!
Florian
Thanks Florian Kislich
Awesome!ย
Before, we used excel to track our project progresses. Thanks to Wrike, makes our life easier!
Congrats Pietro Poli great story