A Brief Course for Managers 8 simple steps to make the company two or three times more efficient The learning course on how to work in the LeaderTask Company Management and StaffLogger Working Time Control will be useful to directors, top managers and supervisors on all levels. From this learning course you will know: - how to effectively organize work inside and outside the office
- how to successfully manage several projects
- how to increase your staff's efficiency
- how to complete more in less time
- how to get accurate reports about what is done and how much time is spent
Step 1. Tracking the working time. There is a good saying: "if you want to change something, measure it". To change (improve) the efficiency of your staff, as well as your own efficiency, you need to know how much time is spent and what it is spent on. To do it, you need to track your own working time and the working time of your employees – find out how much time employees spend at their workplaces and what exactly they do. There is a special program for this purpose: StaffLogger Working Time Control StaffLogger can be installed remotely from the manager's computer on employees' computers and report to the manager's computer what every employee does with the computer. It is important that StaffLogger logs how long and with what applications/sites the user worked. After the program is installed, the manager will be able to see the following reports: - Time distribution by categories (Work, Internet, Entertainment…) Fig.1
- Time distribution by applications (Fig. 2.)
- Time distribution by websites (Fig. 3.)
- Time distribution by employees
 Fig. 1  Fig. 2 Step 2. Task list. You need a task list to be able to effectively manage projects, tasks and employees. It is absolutely necessary. And that is why: it is better to keep all plans on some paper or digital media for the mind to be always open to new fresh ideas and thoughts. It is this medium that must sacredly store the list of already developed tasks/ideas/thoughts and show you the necessary information whenever you need it. That is what the LeaderTask Company Management system is used for (www.leadercommand.com). It allows you to store all the necessary information: plans, tasks, projects, schedules, aims, contacts, any files; assign tasks to your employees, send files to them, organize the communication of employees inside a group, get reports on what has been done by employees and much more. To begin with, you should download the software distribution package: http://www.leadertask.com/download/ltcompany.zip. After that unpack the archive file and run the installation file: ltcompany.exe. The second program in the archive file is ltserver.exe. It is server software that is used to provide communication for a group of employees. You should install both programs. After you install ltcompany.exe, run LeaderTak Company Management. You will see the "Connection Settings" dialog box. Use this dialog box to enter the server connection data. If the client and the server are installed on one and the same computer, just click OK. If the server is installed on another computer, you will have to enter its IP address. To find out the server IP address, you should open the server and look at the bottom of its window - the status bar. After you click OK in this dialog box, you will see a reminder about buying the program. You have 45 days to test all program features for free, it is more than enough for getting to know the program. Click Continue in the reminder window and you will see the main window of Leadertask Company Management with demo data.  LeaderTask Company Management main window Main sections: Navigator - it is used to navigate through sections: staff, projects, categories, contacts, time periods. You can use Navigator to display tasks by employees, projects, contacts, etc. Task tree – the task tree shows tasks, notes, files with the necessary columns. You can see the Owner, Status, Name, Date, Note columns in the picture. Task calendar – the calendar shows tasks that have date and/or time specified for them. You can switch the calendar view to one day, several days, a month. In this step, you have to make up your task list. To do it, first you should create a new database using the menu: File ->Create->New. Then use the Categories section to create the "My Task List" category (to create a category, use the toolbar or the Ins key). Then select this "My Task List" category in Navigator and create your task list. There are several ways to add a new task: - press Ins
- select "Add Task" on the toolbar
- just type the task and press Enter
There can be several task lists (divided into categories). And one and the same task can belong to several context groups/kairoses. Step 3: Task order. Important comes first! Before you start to carry out tasks, you should set the task order, i.e. single out the most important task. Then specify less important tasks and at last the least important tasks. You can highlight important/main tasks in different colors for your convenience.
Task list with highlighted important/unimportant tasks If a task is divided into separate stages, you should single out these stages and make them subtasks to the main task.
Task divided into stages. When you carry out tasks, you should keep in mind that you should do the main/important task first. You will not have enough time to complete all tasks so you should do only those ones that give you the maximum result. This principle is described well in the Pareto rule: 20% of the causes give 80% of effects, the rest of 80% of the effects give 20% of effect. Step 4. Schedule. To arrange the order of tasks, you should use not only the task tree (where you can sort tasks by priority) but also the dates of tasks. You should use the calendar for that. This way you can make it more visual. Just take a look at the calendar to see what you have to do today.  Calendar The calendar shows tasks that have duration and/or the date of the start/completion. "Long" multiple-day tasks are displayed at the top of the calendar while shorter tasks (having their dates) are displayed in the timetable. Step 5. Task filter. During your work you need to get the data for a limited period of time, for example: "This week tasks", "Petrov's tasks in project "B-1" in January", "December tasks in project "B-1"" and so on. To get this kind of data (only certain tasks), use the "Filter" feature. You have to configure the filters you need only once and then open them with one click.  Filters. Step 6. Templates and recurrent tasks Everyone's work has some recurrent tasks, i.e. tasks that should be done at regular intervals (paying bills, carrying out promotion campaigns, creating backups, monthly reports, etc.). And you have to keep history of some tasks to be able to see later if the task was completed last time. LeaderTask offers the "Repeat" feature for that that you can use to organize and track not just separate recurrent tasks, but also multi-level tasks. You can call them templates.
Recurrent task history You can specify any periodicity for a recurrent task and the calendar will show all future tasks and the task tree will show only the next task. You can use recurrent tasks to organize large tasks with the help of templates and track how they are completed.
Template task history
This way you can see exactly which stages of a recurrent task have been already completed. Step 7. Assigning tasks Usually projects consist of tasks that are completed by a number of people and you have to control the tasks assigned to every employee. For you to be able to assign a task to an employee, the employee should have LeaderTask Company Management installed and configured. If it is configured correctly, a green icon and the "Connection Established" label appear in the upper-right corner of the window. To assign a task to an employee, you should specify the executor of the task in the task properties. After you specify the executor of the task, the employee you assigned it to will see the task. All changes in the task are written to its history. The executor cannot change the name, description, and the date of the task; it is possible to change only the task status for him (for example, set it to "In progress"). Whenever the owner or the executor (task status) changes the task, LeaderTask displays the following message:
Task change message The owner and the executor can communicate not only in the built-in chat but also directly in the task – it is much more comfortable and convenient this way.
Owner and executor communicating in the task. After the task is completed, the executor sets the status to "ready to be done". Once the owner learns about it, he or she checks the task and sets its status to "done" or, for instance, "delayed".
Tasks by employees The convenient thing about LeaderTask is that you can send tasks even if the executor is out of office. After the employee switches the computer on, he or she will receive all changes in tasks from all users. Another useful feature of LeaderTask is working over the Internet: employees can stay in office and efficiently do their jobs while the manager can be anywhere in the world and control work in the office via the Internet. Besides, after the manager has been away for a while, it is possible to view the entire work of every employee literally minute by minute. Step 8. Controlling employees After tasks are distributed among employees, they need to be controlled. Assigned tasks are shown whenever you select an employee. You can view assigned tasks and their statuses. You can also view the report on what an employee has already done:
Completed tasks report To see the time spent by an employee, open StaffLogger and then open the necessary report.
Report about the time spent by an employee. It is possible to use this information (planned tasks, completed tasks, task statuses and spent time) to make conclusions about how the employee works and take measures. Summary The use of LeaderTask Company Management and StaffLogger Working Time Control together makes it possible to manage the company and control the staff as effectively as possible. What these programs can do in brief: LeaderTask Company Management features: StaffLogger features: StaffLogger will help a manager: - Know what the employees spend their working time on
- Receive detailed reports about the activities of every employee in various aspects.
- Determine the most efficient/inefficient employee
Both programs can be tested for free for 45 days! LeaderTask Company Management
Website: http://www.leadercommand.com
Download: http://www.leadertask.com/download/ltcompany.zip StaffLogger Working Time Control
Website: http://www.stafflogger.com
Download: http://www.leadertask.com/download/stafflogger.exe Buy
|
Russian
Deutsch
Italiano
Francais
Espanol
English
