Chris & Partners Create “Smart Work” Corporate Culture With Taskworld
Korean event management firm is on a mission to be at the forefront of knowledge industry.
The world is becoming more and more connected, with the speed and span of human exchange accelerating. It is becoming a place where great amounts of knowledge is shared, as attested to by the global popularity of TED, which has experts sharing ideas from various domains.
Through Taskworld, Chris & Partners is creating a ‘smart work’ culture, realizing its mission to share knowledge and ideas at the forefront of the knowledge industry.
Q. Please give us a short introduction to Chris & Company as well as your team.
Our company plans and executes international events and fairs such as the Chosun Ilbo Asian Leadership Conference and the Korea-Indonesia Business Summit. We take care of everything, from event planning to fine-tuning the schedule, liaising with speakers and preparing the venue. More specifically, we hope to stay true to our role as a ‘knowledge sharing platform for the creation of a better society’. Our team is largely divided into the planning and management support departments.
Q. Before using Taskworld, what tools did you use to carry out your work and how did you use them?
Before Taskworld, we used Dropbox and Google Drive for file sharing, and used Messenger for corporate communications. We felt that shifting back and forth between multiple platforms made data management inefficient.
There were many instances, especially those involving urgent or trivial matters, where we spoke to each other orally. Our troubles increased and as we began to hire more people and had various projects occurring simultaneously, it became more difficult for us to see the progression of each project clearly.
Q. Was there any particular reason for your switch to Taskworld?
In order to get an accurate picture of the progress and schedule for each project, we had a discussion on whether team leaders should write a separate project log, but we concluded that it would be very inefficient to spend time and resources on the task of writing a log itself. We realized that we needed an in-house project management tool.
With various events being held at the same time, it was possible for one to be involved in one project, but not another. In such a situation, we needed a management tool that would allow us to follow-up on a project by giving us easy access to the goings-on of said project, its schedule and its status, even if one were not involved directly with it.
We wanted a software that all employees could use with little difficulty, therefore a good UX (user experience) was also a huge consideration. We chose Taskworld after considering these points as well as the feedback on the software provided by various domestic and overseas businesses.
In Korea, PCOs (Professional Convention Organizers) typically share Excel files through the old ways — USB and e-mail. Thus, as a company using Taskworld, we can be said to have introduced the most innovative and up-to-date working method among domestic PCOs.
Q. What are some of the things that have changed since you started using Taskworld?
A. In the past, we had to enter our plans on the projects we were in charge of into an Excel sheet, and our team manager would gather and look through this information, but such verification became a task in itself. There were times where it was difficult for each team member to share their work and for each team to share their progress with each other. After we began using Taskworld, it became possible for us to share even the small progress that we had made, thus increasing our efficiency.
There are many small details involved in planning and executing an event, and thanks to Taskworld, which provides us with frequent updates, we are able to deal with each and every one of them without missing out on a single one.
Furthermore, I think that Taskworld is the perfect tool for Chris & Partners’s corporate culture. It has been a great help in creating a corporate culture that emphasizes the happiness of the individual worker. Not only does Taskworld help us work efficiently, it also makes it possible to create a system that allows us to view our individual progress and to motivate each other to grow as a company.
Q. Share with us some expertise in the features of Taskworld that Chris & Partners members have gained, having come to use it so well.
A. I personally use the ‘Timeline’ feature very often as it allows me to see the schedule for our events at one glance. I think using the ‘Timeline’ and ‘Checklist’ functions appropriately is important. (Manager Jo Se-bin)
Taking advantage of the ‘tags’ feature will help you get a quick and accurate understanding of your work. (Employee Kang Su-min)
Using the tasklist flexibly, depending on the nature of your project, makes work more efficient. I am primarily in charge of managing the speakers for our events, and while it is possible to make lists based on the nature of each piece of work, I have chosen to make lists based on speaker name. This makes it easy to identify the portions that each speaker is in charge of and what I have to do for each speaker.
Q. What type of industries or businesses would you recommend Taskworld to?
A. I think that Taskworld is an indispensable tool for companies that, like Chris & Partners, have various projects ongoing simultaneously. You will be able to get an overall picture of your progress, while also being able to deal effectively with all the small details.
Q. What is Taskworld to Chris & Partners?
A. Taskworld is like a mother. Um… to be more specific, a mother’s nagging? (Employees laugh)
It’s because of Taskworld’s powerful notification feature. Just as our mothers take care of our needs without fail every day, Taskworld gives us all the important updates without fail in so that we can do our job well.
