Best practices for managing offshore team task and schedule?

BarbaraT

We need to overcommunicate and manage our offshore teams better.

What are best practices in terms of tracking and managing ALL the schedule and tasks using Smartsheet? One master schedule containing the details of every task (which we want individuals to go in and update status with comment)? Or separate the schedule from a task management page?

Concern with multiple sheets is that the data from one could be lost.

Concern with one single sheet is we don't want users to have update ability on the entire sheet, only their assignments. One sheet could also get long and messy...

Thanks!

Mike Wilday

We have practiced this a number of ways.

Method One - One spreadsheet, multiple reports
Originally, we began using a master sheet that fed into several reports based on the user assigned. Users of reports had access to the master spreadsheet but we had to inform them NOT to edit it. Their reports display only tasks that are assigned to them.

Drawbacks.

•Reports do not allow you to add rows

• Adding rows is performed with web-forms which assigns information to users. •

•fields containing formulas are uneditable from within the report.

This has worked pretty well for us but as our processes developed we have moved to another process.

Method 2: Many spreadsheets gathered into one report.

Because of these limitations, we are preparing to move to individual sheets which are assigned to an individual. Our users carry the primary responsibility for their projects. We let users add to their sheets as they see fit. For reporting purposes, we gather data from all of the individual's sheets into a single report.

Drawbacks:

• Adding additional columns to the master spreadsheets requires updating each sheet.

• Users have the power to edit the information at their will.

• We haven't fully implemented but believe there will be headaches with collaboration.