Simple Task Management for Volunteers and Staff
November 22, 2016Task management can be complicated, but ProQ makes it easy. Regardless of whether you only manage your own tasks, or you manage tasks for others, it is simple with ProQ.
Associations have volunteers, committee members, board members and other people working on their goals. Companies have paid staff, contractors, interns, and other people working on their goals.
Every one of them should be doing tasks that improve your organization. Tasks like recruiting new staff or members, following up with potential sponsors, and doing all their other tasks quickly and properly.
- How do your organizational leaders know whether that is happening?
- Who is doing a good job and who is not?
- How can leaders manage all those tasks efficiently?
Management theory teaches that people only do the things that the boss checks. Other things slip and don’t get done because no one ever checks on them. With ProQ, the boss can check all of the tasks and discuss it with the person responsible.
ProQ Tasks are Easy to Understand
Below is an example of a Task that Joe Salesman created and assigned to himself. It came about when he received a reply from Carrie in his Inbox early this morning. Here reply was related to a recent newsletter she received. If necessary, Joe can easily see which newsletters Carrie received and when he sent it out.
Joe decided to wait a while and call Carrie this afternoon, so he created this task for himself to be done around 1:00 PM. He plans to “introduce yourself and offer assistance.”
After he speaks to Carrie, Joe should place a check mark under the telephone icon (2nd from left), then record and his notes. He will simply type them in the blank space and press “Add Notes.”
After that, he should adjust the “Followup Description” and “Followup Start Date.” This sets the next appropriate step in building the relationship with Carrie. All he has to do then is press “Done” to save the information in History.
Task Management After a Meeting
When Joe speaks to Carrie, he might find her open to buying a product or service. If so, he can simply click on “Add Opportunity” and put in the data about his expected sale.
- Alternatively, this might require another phone meeting or a face-to-face visit to close the sale. Joe can click on either “Followup Info” or “Meeting Info” and add appropriate data.
- Sometimes the contact this afternoon results in no further action required. If that happens, Joe can either set a new followup date some months down the road or he can archive the task.
Joe’s Manager can easily look at his meeting notes later today to see what happened. There is no need to call Joe in and ask him unless the notes are not clear. Also, Joe’s manager can see a report on Joe’s activity for each day or each week to check on his success or failure for each task.
Leader Assigned Tasks
Suppose Manager A wants a staff member (or volunteer) to call on five potential sponsors. He expects them to make contact within the next few days and see if they have an interest. Manager A can quickly create five tasks for Person B and send them. Person B will see them in their inbox and set a plan for when and how to make the initial contact for each.
Manager A can look at each of those tasks at any time and see their progress. He doesn’t need to wait until the next weekly or monthly update meeting. The Manager can check it daily or even every few hours if desired. The live data is always available on a phone, tablet, or computer whenever an internet connection exists.
Our goal is to make your individual task management easier, and to give Managers more visibility of their staff’s results. Doesn’t that sound good to you?