Right Sized Project Management for a Designer's World
March 17, 2015

Right Sized Project Management for a Designer's World

Carl Grivakis | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Software Version

Current

Modules Used

  • Previously Paid, now free version

Overall Satisfaction with Wrike

Wrike is used as a project management software within our operations department. I specifically use it to track and record details of our internal graphic design requests. Being able to assign priorities, due dates, and track time has been an essential aspect of my position and has directly influenced decisions on project scoping and control.

Wrike serves as a design tracking and job ticket service for us, we email new requests to the Wrike server directly, and organize everything as we manage the projects.
  • Time recording and reporting
  • Easy to integrate to a current process
  • User Friendly - Skill up/training can be done quickly
  • Outside collaborators may gain various levels of access
  • Free for small groups with most features in tact
  • Sometimes buggy when clicking through tool bars (not typical though)
  • Lose tracking of time if you switch to free version
  • Maintain an organized process within the department for prioritizing projects
  • Allowed for tracking internally how much time was allocated to various internal and external projects
  • Scaled to fluctuations in the work group (adding and removing team members)
Wrike is a very simple but robust tool. Podio is a nice tool as well, open source, but much easier to get lost in. There are some great features Podio has if you are looking for a free resource that Wrike users need to pay for. Wrike is right sized for a small work group to use internally.
Do you need a simple work tracking resource? Is the work force available to spend some time learning and tracking their work? Is this going to be used for a small or a large work group? For teams of 1-10 this is an ideal tracking resource?

It's better to push for the paid seats on Wrike to use more of the functionality like time reporting and posting files into specific jobs.

Wrike Feature Ratings

Task Management
8
Resource Management
5
Gantt Charts
Not Rated
Scheduling
7
Workflow Automation
8
Team Collaboration
7
Support for Agile Methodology
Not Rated
Support for Waterfall Methodology
Not Rated
Document Management
8
Email integration
7
Mobile Access
8
Timesheet Tracking
7
Change request and Case Management
Not Rated

Using Wrike

3 - Graphic Designers, and Outside Freelancers
1 - 
  • Daily management of the project list, including updates to projects.
  • Check due dates and manage any adjustments.
  • Close out or defer projects that are completed.
  • New product development punchlists.
  • Externally facing design work (tracking billable time).
  • Internal commitments to other departments.
  • Track design hours to manage design resources (how many freelancers maybe needed at any given moment).
  • Track billable time to check against time sheets and find project burn rates.
  • Further new product development.
  • Track marketing initiatives.
Wrike is a free resource for us currently, we moved off the subscription as the team had some adjustments. If we were to go back to a paid model or require more time reporting I'd have to look at alternatives such as Podio. I am the sole manager of Wrike currently internally, and would like to get more people on board to justify the cost.