We are excited to announce our new partnership with Google Cloud Partner and authorized G Suite Reseller, Symfoni Next. With years of experience developing software, implementing and delivering services in Europe, Symfoni Next is now focused entirely on Google Cloud and delivers everything from basic cloud hosting to custom development projects on desktop and mobile devices on the GCP platform.

“The collaboration with Symfoni Next means that we are now taking our G Suite offering to the next level. Upwave has been a Google Cloud Technology Partner since 2018, and offer several G Suite integrations. Symfoni Next, in turn, is a Google Cloud Platform Collaboration Partner and authorized G Suite reseller. Together we can, therefore, offer our customers the right expertise and a solid overall collaboration package.” says Kjetil Moløkken-Østvold, CEO of Upwave.

Upwave integrates with G Suite, Google Drive, Google Calendar and Google Hangouts Chat, enabling effortless collaboration on tasks and projects throughout your organization.

“We’re excited about our collaboration with Upwave because it means we can extend our package of collaboration solutions. G suite provides a ton of benefits of its own, but it doesn’t offer collaborative task and project management functionality. Upwave’s seamless integrations with Google, and the visually pleasing look and feel of the platform, makes it a perfect complement to G suite. Together with Upwave, we can offer expertise on a platform that can be used by the whole workplace.», says Tord Ripe, CEO of Symfoni Next.

We look forward to taking our G suite offering to the next level and delivering a solid overall collaboration package together with Symfoni Next!

We are happy to announce that our Teams app is available on Microsoft AppSource and as an app within Microsoft Teams.

This integration comes in addition to the existing Office 365 Single Sign-On and OneDrive for Business integration. You can now use Office 365, Teams and Upwave in combination for a seamless collaborative experience.

Manage and collaborate on tasks and projects directly inside Teams

Upwave is a productivity platform that lets you organize, plan, track, collaborate and get things done – all in one place. The intuitive and user-friendly interface makes it easy to get everyone onboard – no extra training needed. You can easily and securely involve outside collaborators.

Add Upwave boards as Teams tabs

Visual boards helps you focus your attention, both at the task at hand and on your workflow as a whole. Keep all information in one place, and simply drag and drop tasks to visualize progress.

Inside your channels in Teams, you can embed Upwave boards as tabs by clicking on “+” and selecting Upwave. When using Upwave inside Teams, you will have access to all board features, including time-tracking and progress reports.

Collaborate on tasks and projects in real-time

Create teams for various departments, project groups or external partners. Break down silos and share knowledge across different teams. Assign tasks, comment, drag and drop files, and get feedback from your team.

While working with your colleagues in your Upwave board in Teams, you can also chat in real-time by clicking on the text box icon in the right corner.

Track time, set estimates and create reports

Easily track hours and set estimates on tasks inside Teams. See where time is spent and turn the data into insightful reports. Export timesheets to CSV or PDF with a single click.

Work with strategy canvases like Business Model Canvas

Upwave lets you brainstorm, collaborate and innovate in real-time with a growing number of predefined strategy canvases, including Business Model Canvas, Lean Canvas, SWOT and Risk Matrix.

See the big picture and discover new opportunities in a visual manner – without leaving Microsoft Teams!

How to use Upwave for Microsoft Teams

1. Sign in to Microsoft Teams and add the Upwave tab

Open the Microsoft Teams, go to the channel where you want to link an Upwave board, and click on the “+” symbol in the toolbar. Select Upwave and click “add”.

2. Sign in to Upwave or create new account

Click on “Sign in with Upwave”. In the next step you can either log in or create a new account. Setting up an account takes just a few seconds via Office 365 login.

3. Select your board or create new

When you are logged in to Upwave, you will see a list of all boards in your workspace. Select the board you want to connect to Teams or create a new one.

4. Start working!

Voila – you’re all set up! When actionable items comes up in your Teams channel, put them right into your Upwave board without having to switch between apps. And whenever you need to discuss something related to an Upwave board, just start a tab conversation. Now, go get things done together!

«Productivity is the deliberate, strategic investment of your time, talent, intelligence, energy, resources and opportunities in a manner calculated to move you measurably closer to meaningful goals.» – Dan S. Kennedy

The concept of productivity has existed since the late 1800s in both verbal and mathematical forms, but all the different definitions and interpretations out there can make the term hard to comprehend. To understand productivity, let’s start with some definitions.

The general definition of productivity is related to output and input:
Productivity = the amount of output created per unit of input

A different approach to defining productivity by Jackson and Petersson (1999) takes into account both efficiency and effectiveness:
Productivity = Efficiency x Effectiveness

Efficiency vs. Effectiveness

Let’s have a closer look at efficiency and effectiveness. According to professor David Sumanth, efficiency reflects how well resources are utilized to accomplish results, while effectiveness reflects how well a set of results are accomplished.  

Peter F. Drucker (1964) has an easier way to explain this: “ Efficiency is doing things the right way; effectiveness is doing the right things”.

Example:

Let’s say the goal in the image above is to move as many of the square-shaped objects over to the assembly line in the shortest amount of time.

1. Effective: By simply shoving the square, you are effective, because you will reach the goal eventually. However, it’s not the most efficient way.
2. Efficient: By shaping the square into a circle, you can move the objects over to the other side faster, thus being more efficient. However, you are not being effective, since the goal was not to create circle shapes.
3. Productive: By using a trolley to move the shapes, you can move several squares at the same time and at a faster pace – making you both effective and efficient, also known as the definition of productive.

We can translate this example into a real-life situation. Let’s say that you’re working on a marketing campaign. If you have done everything right in setting up the campaign, creating the content and analyzing the results, then you’ve been efficient. However, if this campaign has been targeting the wrong customer group or has the wrong Call-To-Action based on your business goals, then you haven’t been effective. You can be super efficient by executing numerous task in the correct manner, but it doesn’t make you productive if these tasks shouldn’t have been prioritized in the first place. 

To summarize, in order to be productive, you must be both effective (do the rights things) and efficient (do things the right way). This leads us to the following explanation of productivity: Productivity is doing the rights things in the right way.

So, how can you be more productive?

One way of increasing your productivity, is to implement tools or methods that help you prioritize the right things (increase effectiveness) and/or execute tasks in the most optimal way (increase efficiency).  Some frameworks that can help increase your productivity are:

You can either use a physical version of these methods, by using pen and paper, or you can use a digital tool, like Upwave, that supports these frameworks. We have written an eBook that explain the most popular methods to increase personal productivity – you can get it for free by clicking the banner below.

We are excited to announce our newest member of the Upwave family, Christer Husstøl, joining as our new VP of Business Development. His expertise within project management and sales will be a huge asset when scaling Upwave globally .

Christer is an avid reader who is passionate about traveling and sailing, in addition to project management, technology and startups. He holds a degree in Management from the BI Norwegian Business School. His background includes both supply chain and project management within the oil industry, as well as sales and business development for the hydro power sector.

The combination of his experience and his interest in the use and implementation of task management tools will be very useful in helping Upwave drive further growth.

Interested in finding out more about Christer? Then visit his linkedin page – here.

In this article we will show you how to export your Trello boards as JSON-files, and how to import these files to another tool.

Export a board from Trello

Step 1: Go to the board menu and click on “more”

Step 2: Select “Print and export”

Step 3: Select “Export as JSON”

JSON stands for JavaScript Object Notation and is a lightweight data-interchange format. The Trello board will be displayed in your internet browser in JSON-format looking something like this.

Step 5: Download the JSON-file

To download the JSON-file, just right-click on the page, select “Save as” (or “Archive page as”) and choose format “File source”.

Since you’re looking at how to export your boards from Trello, you might want to know how to import your boards somewhere else. Let’s go through how you can import your Trello boards to another tool.

Import a board from Trello to Upwave

If you’re looking for a visually pleasing and powerful alternative to Trello, where you can easily import all your Trello boards and continue working on them, Upwave might be just what you need. Now that you’ve exported your Trello board as a JSON-file, just follow these simple steps to get that board into Upwave.

Step 1: Create an Upwave account

Go to www.upwave.io and sign up – and don’t worry, you don’t have to commit to anything! The 14-day free trial lets you try and see if the tools is right for you, no credit card needed.

Step 2: Select (or create) the team you want to import your board to

Step 3: Click on the three dots next to the team name and select “Board import”

Step 4: Select the JSON-file you downloaded and click “Start import”

Trello does not include user information in their export. Therefore, when you import your board to Upwave, you get the option to add name and email address for your Trello board members, inviting them to your Upwave board. This ensures that comments and assigned cards will be mapped to the right person.

Voilá – your board is now imported!

PS: Upload your own background to make it even more visual!

What gets imported?

• Cards (including cover photos)
• Subtasks
• Due dates
• Members (by manually linking names of Trello users to Upwave members)
• Comments
• Attachments
• Labels (turns into color categories)

Do you need to export and import multiple boards from Trello?

If you have a Trello Business or Enterprise account, you can export all your Trello boards and data in a single export. Contact us directly and we will help you select, import and organize your data into Upwave.

The Kanban method was originally invented as a part of the famous Toyota Production System in the 1940s. In the 2000s, Kanban was adopted into software development when Microsoft’s software development team wanted a better system for fixing bugs in their product. Today, Kanban helps teams manage both daily tasks, big projects, bug tracking, editorial workflows, hiring processes, marketing scheduling, UX design and much more. 

What Is Kanban?

Kanban is a popular framework for managing your workflow in a visual way. The underlying concept of Kanban is that all work starts as «To-do» and ends up as «Done».

The word Kanban (かんばん) is Japanese and means «Visible card» or «Signal card». In manufacturing, a fixed number of cards was set in circulation based on capacity. Each card was then attached to a physical work item. When this piece of work was finished, the card was detached and recycled, freeing up capacity for starting a new work item from the queue. In other words, work is pulled from the queue and into the system only when there is free capacity, which is known as a pull-system.

In software development and knowledge work,  the cards are the actual work items, and they’re not used a a signal card attached to physical items. The cards are usually placed on a Kanban board, with different columns representing the different stages of the work. This lets you visualize your entire workflow. The signal to move a card from “To do” to “In progress” incurs when the visual quantity of work in progress is less than a set capacity.

Advantages of using Kanban

1. Visual boards provides more information than just text
2. Kanban is intuitive and easy to use
3. Can be adapted to fit almost any process
4. Increase productivity and reduce workload stress
5. Improve team communication and collaboration
6. Eliminate bottlenecks and optimize everyone’s capacity

How To Get Started with Kanban

In his book, “Kanban – Successful Evolutionary Change for Your Technology Business”, David Anderson identified five key properties for a successful implementation of Kanban:

1. Visualize Your Workflow:
A workflow is a representation of the different stages in your work work from start to finish. A typical workflow is “To do”, “In progress” and “Completed”. Some people prefer to have several stages between “To do” and “Completed”, for example plan, test and deploy. This visualization helps you see the big picture, enabling better decision-making and increased effectiveness.

2. Limit Work In Progress(WIP):
A WIP-limit is the amount of tasks you can handle at once. Start with a number that is realistic, and adjust as you go. If your WIP-limit is 3, you should never have more than 3 tasks in the “in progress”-column.  Limiting work in progress enables you to focus on the tasks at hand and increases your efficiency.

3. Manage the Flow of Work:
By flow, we mean the movement of work items between the various stages of your process. The flow should be fast, smooth and predictable. The goal is to maximize value delivery, minimize risks and avoiding delays. Identifying and addressing bottlenecks and blockers are therefore important aspects of managing flow.

4. Make Process Policies Explicit:
It’s key that there is a common understanding of how works gets done in the various stages of the process. This makes it easier to discuss issues and come to an agreement on what needs improving. Examples of policies include: the definition of done, capacity allocation and WIP-limits.

5. Improve Collaboratively:
When everyone focus on the workflow, ideas about improvement will start popping up, especially if the WIP-limit is reached. It forces the team to focus on resolving issues regarding bottlenecks and blockers that impede the flow of work.

Digitize your Kanban Board with an Online Tool

In our modern day world, where employees are scattered in different locations, we need digital solutions for collaboration. There are a lot of tools based on the Kanban method, that lets you create the workflow that fits your need, collaborate on cards in real-time, and drag and drop cards between columns to represent progress. One of these tools is Upwave, which lets you create beautiful Kanban boards customized with your favorite colors and background images.  Get started for free with our 14 day trial!