This new feature lets you create a customized window into your work, so you have all the information you need to maximize visibility and drive smarter decisions.

Sights is available on the Business Plan and Enterprise Plan

Smartsheet Sights, a simple way to get quick, visual status updates of any combination of your team’s work and projects.  See live summary reports of goals, get reminders of important deadlines and follow links to key documents – all in one customizable view.

Explore the Smartsheet Sight Gallery

With Sights you can create more than just a snapshot update of the work being done daily; you get deep insights at a glance. Smartsheet Sights empowers you to make smarter decisions faster to improve your business’s performance. All of this is achieved with an intuitive and self-configurable interface that puts you in control of your work.

Interested in learning more?  Contact Us, we’d love to hear form you!

An example of a Sight as an IT project program tracking expenses, head count, resources, and status reports.

An example Sight showing team resources and tasks, live status, and key metrics.

Self-service customization in an intuitive interface

Our continual goal is to keep Smartsheet a self-service, intuitive platform that requires no training. No code hacking, no waiting for a homegrown solution — our Sights interface provides customizable widgets, a simple drag-and-drop interface, and stylistic options that go right down to your font size. Managers can drill into specific data elements to easily find out more information without interrupting their team’s work.

An example of a Sight tracking key milestones of 750 site installation projects.

All of this provides a way to organize and draw attention to whatever information and data you believe is most important. What’s more, this launch is paired with another new feature to share your team’s workspace or Sights for one more way to increase collaboration. With the freedom to change how you see and share work, you’ll enhance your organization’s speed and performance by empowering leadership and your team to make better decisions.

The post New in Smartsheet: Make Smarter Decisions With Sights appeared first on SmarterBusinessProcesses.

When you’re managing a complex project and working with different departments, external collaborators, and hundreds of details, mistakes are bound to happen.

Smaller mishaps, like a missed deadline or misunderstanding between teams, can be resolved and usually don’t derail the entire project.

The #1 Thing That Kills a Project

Thankfully, there are experts we can learn from. So, to help you keep your project intact and avoid those mishaps, we asked six project management experts to share the number one thing that kills a project.

Here’s what they had to say:

1. “The biggest thing that derails a project is poor communication.”

“It affects everything from the perception of success to team morale to getting action on project risks. Good communication is possible when the team trusts each other and has the tools they need to actually communicate – both in terms of technology-mediated communication and the soft skills that give them the confidence and abilities to have difficult conversations when necessary.”

Elizabeth Harrin, A Girl’s Guide to Project Management 
Twitter: @pm4girls

2. “It’s lack of clarity.”

“When people work on the same project but have different notions for what the goals are, what their roles are, and how or why to help each other when things go wrong, it creates the friction that makes projects fail.”

Scott Berkun, best-selling author and popular speaker on philosophy, culture, business, and more.
Twitter: @berkun 

3. “The biggest ‘project killer’ I believe is a lack of expectation management.”

“I describe the early part of any project as the ‘journey of expectation management’ as all of the project representatives and stakeholders come to learn about each other and understand what the project truly aims to deliver. The critical message being that nobody understands everything at the start of the project. The biggest ‘project killer’ I believe is a combination of lack of expectation management at this key point accompanied with a rush to action.”

Peter Taylor, The Lazy Project Manager 
Twitter: @thelazypm 

4. “The silent project killer, and in my experience the thing that kills more projects, is multitasking.”

“When people lose focus, they create defects. They don’t test everything. Everyone feels as if they are always running to catch up—and they are. The person you need to ask a question of is working on something else. Even though that person was supposed to be on your project. If you want to give your project a fighting chance, make sure your project has all the right people assigned, and that they are not trying to split their focus.”

Johanna Rothman, management consultant for software leaders.
Twitter: @johannarothman 

5. “The single largest project killer is uncontrolled scope creep and churn.”

“Changes happen and are to be expected. However as changes are identified and added to the requirements or to the backlog, they need to be prioritized based on value. Chronically saying “yes” to everything without evaluating the value of the change and the impact to other components of the project is a killer!”

Thomas Cagley, process improvement consultant and blogger.
Twitter: @TCagley

6. “The biggest thing that kills a project is not assigning roles and responsibilities.”

“If you put everyone in charge, you are putting no one in charge. Team member may assume that someone else is taking care of an important detail – and in the end the ball gets dropped and the project suffers. In your project plan, define who is going to do what and stick to it –  holding people accountable for the delivery.”

Steven Baker, oil and gas project manager.
Twitter: @StevePMP 

 How to Avoid These Threats to Your Project

The key to a successful project starts with a strong foundation. Make sure you include the right people on your team and help them stay on track. There’s no point in trying to consolidate team members to just a couple people if they’ll be drowning in work and forced to multitask. You’re better off including more people on your team who will be able to contribute in clear, specific ways and stay on track.

To Peter Taylor’s point, set expectations at the beginning of the project. Take the time to understand the companies, external collaborators and vendors involved, and establish realistic outcomes.

Then, find a management tool that will improve team communication, provide visibility into the project, and define clear roles and accountability. Keep all your project information in one central spot, so everyone stays on the same page and has access to all the key details.

Don’t let one seemingly small mishap turn into a silent project killer. 

The post 6 Experts Share the #1 Thing That Derails a Project appeared first on SmarterBusinessProcesses.

Cell linking to the rescue! Let us show you how to make a “Master” Gantt chart – perfect for rolling together calendars or project schedules.

What is a Gantt chart?

A Gantt Chart is a bar chart that indicates a project’s progress. In this chart format, a series of horizontal lines shows the amount of work done or production completed in certain periods of time in relation to the amount planned for those periods.

In simpler words Gantt charts are a visual view of tasks displayed against time. They represent critical information such as who is assigned to what, duration of tasks, and overlapping activities in a project.

Key features and benefits of Gantt Charts

There are many points to note about the structure and function of a Gantt chart that help a project manager in particular, such as tasks, milestones, task bars, due dates, dependencies and task IDs.

With complicated projects involving multiple players and sub projects to be able to link Gantt Chart cells to real time data feeds helps to automate updates, and keep the project running more efficiently.

Smartsheet Gantt Chart Case Study

One group that has become the master of Masters is the marketing team at Behr.  Lisa Kudukis, director of professional products and services, shares one of her Gantt Chart examples.

She uses a Master Dashboard in Smartsheet to keep a handle on her team’s widespread projects. Kudukis left Excel spreadsheets in the dust and is able to keep her team all on the same page, with a holistic project view using Smartsheet Gantt Chart online.

“It’s been a tremendous help for me when I’m reporting to the executive team.  I can easily show the task lists that demonstrate my team has thought through every detail for each event,” said Kudukis when she explained her Master Dashboard.

The benefit of cell linking from individual cells

With cell linking, cells from individual sheets with critical data (like status information) are linked to the Behr’s Master Dashboard, and automatically updated whenever a team member makes changes.  

The Behr team is saving time, money, and stress with this simplified system.  <Read the full case study>

How to create your own Smartsheet Gantt Chart

Here are some steps to create your own Master Dashboard:

1. Create a new project sheet  

This will be your “Master” sheet.  One of the easiest ways to do this is to click the “Plus” tab at the top of your account and create a new project sheet.  This sheet comes pre-loaded with dependency columns and a Gantt chart ready to be filled in.

2. Double-check the order of the columns in your project sheets

Project sheets have certain columns that communicate with their subsequent Gantt charts.  Make sure that all of the columns are in the same order in the project sheets you are planning to link to your Master Dashboard.

One thing to note about Predecessor columns: Predecessors indicate task-specified dependencies, so cell linking is not allowed in this column.

3. Start linking cells.  

Pretty simple – click on the first cell in your new sheet, and then click the Cell Linking icon in the left toolbar. 

A screen will pop up and display all of your other project sheets.  Select one sheet from the left panel to display its content on-screen in the right panel.  Just click and drag your mouse around the cells you want to display in your Master Dashboard.  

Then click Create Link at the bottom of the form.  The cells you select to link from the pop-up screen will appear in the same order in your Master Dashboard.

Rockstar Tip:

Simplify cell linking to your Master Dashboard by taking advantage of parent rows from your project sheets (learn more about parent roll-up functionality).

In this Smartsheet Gantt Chart example, I’m only linking to a single row from my project sheet, because it is a top-level parent row, meaning it gives an overall indication of the entire project’s progress.  It’s the only row I’m really interested in seeing from each of my project sheets.

Keeping linking!  

Now that you’ve linked your first project sheet to your Master Dashboard, move on to the next one.  Remember how convenient it can be to have an online Gantt Chart, linked to data sourdes.

Click on the next empty cell – which in this example is Row 2 – and then click the Cell Linking icon again to pull in data from the next project sheet.  

Keep going until you have all of the data from your project sheets reflected in one easy-to-access location.

What is displayed in the Gantt Chart?

Information from the rows you’ve linked will be displayed in the Gantt chart, and you can open the Calendar view to see task plotted out in the calendar as well.

See more about our Smartsheet Consultancy to learn about our expertise in Smartsheet.

CONTACT US to make an appointment so we can help you in person, we’d love to hear from you.

The post Smartsheet – How to Use Cell Linking to Create a Master Gantt Chart appeared first on SmarterBusinessProcesses.