Excited to introduce NikaTime to your team? Here are a few tips on how to get them off to a good start.
Start by testing NikaTime with a group of key people – if you have a big team, it's a good idea to start off with a small group of people. Get a few other managers on board and start using NikaTime for a few days. It'll help you all become familiar with the tool and make any setup decisions before rolling it out to everyone else.
Establish conventions – Sit with your team and develop conventions on how to use NikaTime. Decide the level of granularity you expect, project naming conventions, how you'll be using the notes, work hours policy, etc. Communicate this clearly to your team.
Create projects in advance – Make it easier for your team members by removing all the obstacles. People will be frustrated if they need to log time on a project that is not yet in the system, so make sure any project that is ongoing or about to start is already created in NikaTime by the time people start working on it.
Agree on the special cases – Logging hours spent on a client project is easy and non-ambiguous. Try to think about the out-of-the-ordinary cases, such as logging travel time, meetings, internal tasks, downtime, over-hours, etc. You should create some catch-all projects and instruct your team on what to do in those situations.
Talk to your team – Having your team on board will make all the difference in the results you get. Make sure everyone understands how to use NikaTime and more importantly, what you'll do with this data and why you'll do it. Let them know who'll be looking at their data and how they can change their own preferences if they'd rather be asked at different times.
Follow up closely and keep the data clean – this is especially important during the first few weeks. Make a habit of checking on your team report regularly and steer them in the right direction: make sure no one skips days or leaves missing hours, clean up the keep list of projects if you see any mistake, etc. Some people always take longer than others to adopt new tools and processes, maybe just sit with those who offer resistance and show them how easy it is to use NikaTime.
Keep an open channel for questions – appoint a person or a channel where people should present their questions regarding their first contact with NikaTime. Feel free to use (and abuse!) our Customer Support channels.
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