You might wonder if, after more than 15 blogs in our Championing Change series, I might get bored with writing about how teams around the world are adopting Wrike. The answer is a resounding (and nerdy) no. And that’s because every team’s experience is so unique that learning how they conquer change management successfully remains a really fascinating part of my job.
This installment of Championing Change is different, yet again, from our previous features. This time, we’re learning from Ann Staniger, Program Director at the Archdiocese of Denver. Ann was in a position that many Wrike users find themselves in — she joined the organization when it had already been using Wrike, but really hadn’t been maximizing that usage.
Ann took Wrike and ran with it, improving its application to ensure it really worked for the organization’s teams, finding ways to increase usership and efficacy of the platform, and leveling up cross-collaboration as a result.
Adjusting Wrike to work better
The Marketing and Communications team at the Archdiocese of Denver supports and promotes the non-profit organization’s range of ministries. It manages projects involving graphic design, video, public relations, publications, campaigns, and website implementation and development throughout the year.
Ann explained how Wrike was already being used when she arrived at her position as director. “Some of the basic organizational folders had been created, but automation, naming conventions, and fully managed custom fields had not yet been used,” she said. Cleaning up tasks and aligning naming conventions wasn’t a short process, but it was hugely valuable to the productive use of the Wrike platform. “It took some time to slog through old tasks, but doing so made it easier to see which workflows might be helpful for the team.”
Ann dove into Wrike’s custom fields, which had a ripple effect through the team’s work. After creating custom fields listing the ministries and departments along with their acronyms, Ann automated task names using those acronyms, which in turn led to table views being even more streamlined with task lists organized by group. “We also use custom fields to streamline our dashboard views,” Ann mentioned. “[They] allow us to more easily sort by area, deadline, and even track project value.”
Setting up request forms was another game changer that improved Wrike use at the Archdiocese. Ann reported:
We moved our request intake process from emails, chats, and hallway conversations to Wrike request forms.
Ann Staniger, Program Director
This standard request form includes an initial set of questions for each enquiry, such as custom fields and automation, which are assigned to the right person. Certain triggers send tasks immediately into the design queue, and are often requested and finished in the time it takes to hold a staff meeting.
Wrike request forms prevent small needs, like website updates, from being held up by the same intake review process as a large campaign. “This is all due to custom fields and assignment automation,” Ann explained. “And it’s been a huge time saver for these intake forms to be linked to blueprints and auto-created subtasks with dependencies enabled.” 
Creating weekly opportunities for Wrike learning and practice
But adding naming conventions and setting up request forms alone didn’t improve Wrike usage across multiple teams. That required a concerted effort that involved a cute name for the Archdiocese’s Wrike champions. And what exactly is a Wrike Wrangler at the Archdiocese of Denver? “Anyone who uses Wrike in any capacity is a Wrike Wrangler,” Ann explained.
We began by holding Wrike workshops to explain how to use the system and what our new fields and intake forms could do to streamline not just marketing and communications, but also our cross-collaboration with other departments. More and more areas within the organization became interested in learning more.
Ann Staniger, Program Director
Ann’s team began by holding Wrike Wrangler workshops, or short collaboration sessions, every other Friday for 20-30 minutes, virtually. They’d start the meeting by explaining a couple of Wrike features spurred by questions that came in over previous weeks, then open it up for questions. “These sessions were a great place for administrators to point folks when they asked about Wrike, and new folks as they started to become familiar with the software,” Ann reflected.
Once it was clear that many people were familiar with most of the features, Ann’s team changed it up a little and moved to a team-by-team approach, holding quarterly two-hour workshops with each area of the department. “For example, the designers meet all together and ask me questions and provide me with feedback on what improvements can be made,” Ann reported. “We have used the time to update dashboards, fields, workflows, and anything that would benefit their team collaboration.” Outcomes are shared via a departmental OneNote notebook so team members have a single location to learn about the latest updates made, internal documentation, and the latest Wrike feature links and videos from Wrike.com.
Every individual is different, and when an individual has a Wrike dashboard that was built for their way of thinking, the entire team benefits.
Ann Staniger, Program Director
The benefits of a structured, inclusive Wrike experience
These improvements have brought more users at the Archdiocese of Denver on board, with other teams becoming interested in using Wrike for their work. “We have certainly increased our visibility as a team that gets a lot done, and people have noticed,” said Ann, who credits that success to their improved organization with Wrike. “We are able to pass tasks more easily between one another,” she recounted.
“We were already aligned with our missional values, but now we can make those values visible and share all of the great work being done to match them!”
Implementing the wider range of Wrike features has made the Marketing and Communications team’s processes cleaner and more organized and has resulted in clearer hand-offs, especially in cross-team collaboration. But they came to that cross-collaboration in a methodical fashion: “We started very small, engaging with people quite slowly. We’d share PDF files with requesters to get their feedback. Then, they’d wonder how they could see more, and we’d add them as collaborators. Eventually, these folks wanted the software for their own teams, and it spread.”
Growing their reputation as a highly productive team, and helping spread the Wrike way across departments so even more teams can boost their productivity, are results worth striving for.
Ready to give Wrike a shot? We’ll give you a go for free: try Wrike for two weeks and watch your workflows improve.
