Time management and productivity are two ingredients for success in teams, organizations, and individuals, with time management being a factor of productivity itself. We all have our own way of doing things when it comes to achieving optimum productivity, or “X-efficiency”, as a Managerial Economics course will have you calling it. The use of productivity tools are therefore a very useful way to achieve this “X-efficiency”. Throughout my MBA program, and during my career, I’ve enlisted the help of a wide variety of productivity tools for tasks such as project management, documentation, agile management, and communication. In this article, I’d like to talk about Slack, Trello, and OtterPilot – three free productivity tools that offer great value.
Slack: Keeping Communications Organized and Flowing
Slack proved very helpful in courses where we worked extensively with external clients. For our “Managing Global Enterprises” course, we used Slack to communicate with our client who was over 4000 miles away. The differences in time zones and our incredibly complex schedules meant that Slack was the best way to ensure fast communication and sharing of important documents. Slack’s user-friendly UI and instant messaging functionalities facilitated swift updates and conversations. One very impactful feature which we learned about towards the end of the project was Slack’s integration with Trello, which allowed members of a channel to be notified on Trello updates – another tool which we used for project and task management.
Trello: Breaking Down Tasks and Managing Team Projects
When it came to the consulting project itself, Trello helped us keep track of progress internally. We used it break large deliverables into smaller chunks, assigning them to members, and keeping track of their progress as well as any bottlenecks set to emerge. By integrating Trello, we were able to organize projects effectively and guarantee on-time deliverables. During initial meetings with the client, we developed an overall plan complete with deliverables and deadlines. We then set out to break them down and turn them into small, trackable and measurable tasks (SMART goals) which were converted into cards and put into the Trello board. This board served as a live dashboard which we used to update our progress on each task and allowing the team to have a bird’s eye view on progress, quite similar to agile tools like Jira or Azure DevOps which are used by software development teams.
OtterPilot: Focusing on Conversations and Brainstorming Whilst AI Takes Notes
Throughout our projects and group assignments, we held numerous meetings throughout the week. Keeping stock of all that had been discussed during them proved difficult and writing meeting minutes for each of them was not an option. Enter OtterPilot, our trusted ally in capturing and transcribing important discussions during team meetings. Regularly utilized for crucial brainstorming sessions and strategy meetings, OtterPilot’s transcription feature provided a reliable repository of insights and action items. These meeting notes became invaluable resources for task breakdown, defining project milestones, and assigning tasks to each other.
All of these productivity tools have a free version that are good enough for individuals or small teams to use, with paid versions that offer greater functionality and capacity. These premium features are not required for the workload that we go through in a graduate level program or for personal use. One cool premium feature that I would like to highlight however is Otter’s multi-meeting feature that allows the tool to join multiple meetings and take notes simultaneously. Of course, that feature only becomes useful when you have overlaps in your meeting which are rare.
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About the Author
Hailing from the vibrant city of Dhaka in the heart of Bangladesh, Faraz Shafiq earned his Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from the Institute of Business Administration (University of Dhaka) in early 2021, majoring in Marketing. He briefly served as a Content Lead in the events and publications industry at Bangladesh Brand Forum. In late 2021, Faraz joined Daraz, a South Asian e-commerce marketplace, where he collaborated with a talented team to develop engaging solutions in workforce management and food/grocery delivery platforms across South Asia.