7 Tips for improving productivity through web-based software

Change of Command

by Patti Anklam

My brother, Chris, just turned over the keys for the USS West Virginia (a nuclear submarine) to its new Captain during a moving ritual celebration called a Change of Command. As the program states, the Change of Command is a transfer of “total responsibility, authority, and accountability from one individual to another. The heart of the ceremony is the formal reading of official orders by both the relieving officer and the officer being relieved:
West Virginia Change of Command

“I relieve you.”
“I stand relieved.”

And its over, 2 and a half years of being absolutely and completely accountable for one of the most complicated collections of machinery in the history of the world and of the 130+ officers and seamen on the submarine.

The work, the roles, the responsibilities of each and every man are carefully delineated. No room for ambiguity.

While in Georgia during the celebration of the event, LinkedIn told me that a colleague had a new position, a job title I had never heard before. I thought it was a made up title (though Google has since relieved me of that misapprehension) and was struck by contrast in official and formal duties with the emergent and informal roles in the networks that I write about so enthusiastically. Do made-up job titles come with a bounded set of job responsibilities and expectations?

And what happens when a project group forms? How do those in the project articulate their assumed responsibilities and overlaps? It feels counter to the spirit of self-generating networks to get all explicit about who does what, but I’ve recently seen some local volunteer groups falter because it was not clear, for a given task or project:

  • Who was Responsible for each of the necessary tasks required (and who was responsible for coordinating those tasks)?
  • Who was Accountable to the group for ensuring that the goals were met?
  • Who was needed to Support each task, and the project as a whole?
  • Who was available to Consult to those responsible for the task?
  • Who needed to be kept Informed of the tasks process, issues, and status?

The acronym of these bolded letters — RASCI — may be know to many as a fundamental organizational development tool that I think is probably underutilized in the context of working in both ad hoc as well as formal production-oriented networks. Not that we all need the degree of specificity for maintaining a smoothly running submarine underwater for 2 months or more, but we do need to internalize the RASCI questions when we start a job, a task, and assign ourselves a title that we think corresponds with a role.

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Online Database Reviews

Be sure to catch Bill Ives' ongoing review series in which he looks at online, sharable database apps. The focus of Bill's reviews: web-based business software that enables companies and individuals to better organize, track, and share information, as well as better manage projects, processes and workflows.

Among the Web-based tools he's reviewed: Zoho, QuickBase, and TrackVia.

New Whitepaper on Optimizing Project Team Productivity


Intuit QuickBase recently wrote up some thoughts, compiled into a white paper, on seven ways you can improve team productivity with customizable web-based software. The first of those tips is shared below. Access the first, and find out more about the series, here.

Or, if you’d like to get all the tips now, click here to request a copy of the white paper – “7 Ways to Optimize Project Team Productivity: Using Customizable Web-based Software to Your Business Advantage.”.

The AppGap Webinar Series

The AppGap has hosted a series of discussions with leading thinkers and doers intended to illuminate how new apps and approaches are changing the way we work and help companies and individuals implement better collaboration, project management, and productivity practices and solutions. Access, via the links below, the recordings, each about an hour long, of the discussions.

- 5 Big Ideas for Getting All That Work Done
- Should Your Business be Friends with Facebook
- The Future of Work

New free web app from Intuit to help you get more done

Need help in getting organized? Want to keep things from falling through the cracks? Check out this free and simple to use online "To-Do List" called Intuit Task Manager, offered by our sponsor Intuit QuickBase. Sign-up is easy so you can get started with it right away.

Check out Appopedia, a new section of The AppGap we've just launched that pulls together the scores of app reviews we've published here since we launched. Appopedia organizes the reviews into a useful directory that breaks down tools by category and function, e.g., online crm, project management, human resources, security, etc. Check it out here.

QuickBase wins PC Mag Editor's Choice!

Intuit's QuickBase, the sponsor of this blog, has just been named an Editor's Choice by PC Mag. Check out the review which calls QuickBase a "a surprisingly simple and elegant application."

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