Case Study: When Companies Outgrow Basecamp, They Turn to Teamwork Projects

Bonafide is a digital agency based in Houston, Texas that focuses on a holistic and integrated approach to find customers, capture their attention, and draw them to their clients’ websites. Their work encompasses search engines, industry websites, social media, and more. Through content marketing, SEO, online PR, paid search, and social media, Bonafide delivers actionable information and services that match current market demands.

Shareef Defrawi, owner and president of Bonafide, tried different project management tools and processes for his growing company, but ultimately chose Teamwork Projects. Here’s how the software helped him improve communication, clarify deadlines – and let his team focus on getting more work done.

The Challenges

Bonafide is a digital agency facing many of the same growth issues that all successful companies have: improving efficiency, managing deadlines, simplifying messaging, and creating a record of what’s been accomplished. In the company’s early days, they turned to Basecamp to help manage the complex and evolving demands of the digital marketing campaigns that they designed.

“Basecamp’s model of simplicity was useful at first because we didn’t need to spend much time learning the system, but we but we outgrew it quickly. In less than a year, we had to look for another solution because some of our basic functional requirements were not being met.”

Managing tasks was one of the primary limitations they encountered with Basecamp because it didn’t offer advanced features for tasks. Bonafide team members needed tools that could adapt to all of the project assignments they made, like assigning tasks privately or to a group of people. And they wanted a simple way to track time on each task so they had a way to estimate how well they were staying within budgets.

Bonafide also had a laundry list of other requirements that would help keep all of their project management activities within a single software solution with an intuitive UI. They didn’t want to turn to one app for time tracking, another for instant messaging, and yet another for document and file storage.

Bonafide team members researched several leading project management systems including Asana and Trello to find the best fit, but each one had limitations that impeded their workflows. After reviewing more online reviews and soliciting referrals from colleagues, they finally found Teamwork Projects.

“The challenge of managing all the moving parts of a digital marketing campaign while collaborating internally and with clients drove us to look to Teamwork Projects for a solution.”

The Solution

Switching from Basecamp to Teamwork Projects was extremely easy due to the the custom integration that allowed all of the data to be transferred in just a few clicks. Once the changeover was made, the Bonafide team practically took care of the entire onboarding process on their own – without needing extensive training.

“The whole process went really smoothly. Adoption was quick and painless, and I don’t think we ever had to contact customer support for help.”

The first feature to catch the team’s attention was the multiple functions of the task features, which allows them to assign tasks to individuals, groups of their team members, and clients. Using the granular privacy settings, team members can assign tasks to a client without giving them access to all of the materials on a project. Task priorities allow team leaders and members to make it clear which items should go to the top of the to-do list, eliminating long meetings or back-and-forth clarifications. And when team leaders need to assess progress or workload distribution on a project, they have several reporting tools that offer project overviews selected by deadline, task assignments, time spent, and more.

“Having this much flexibility with tasks gives our team the freedom to spend more time focusing on their work instead of assessing the project to see which steps should be next.”

Time tracking is now much more accurate and functional due to the Harvest integration with Teamwork Projects. Not only is there a timer for every task and subtask, but all of the logged time can be quickly exported to Harvest to make invoicing simple.

“The whole team loves Teamwork Projects! It’s hands-down our favorite project management tool on the market and the first item on my bookmark bar.”

The Benefits

Since Bonafide started using Teamwork Projects in 2012, team members have noticed a considerable increase in on-time, smooth project completions. This increase in operational efficiency starts on the first day of a new project with pre-loaded templates and deadline parameters loaded. It continues at every stage of the project with easy-to-read reporting tools that provide a quick, accurate analysis on every team’s progress.

“I have real-time, easy access and visibility to all the projects happening across the company. Teamwork Projects saves me a lot of time because I don’t have to check in with the team for updates.”

Bonafide includes clients on Teamwork Projects, and they frequently comment on how easy it is to use the software themselves. This saves everyone time: clients ask fewer questions on where to find documents or use the software, and Bonafide team members have fewer interruptions from these kinds of questions. Referrals are also flowing in due to how quickly the Bonafide team can deliver a finished product.

“When clients can see every task and milestone, they know what to expect because they’re part of the process. This increases their confidence in us, which leads more word-of-mouth praise and repeat business.”

Today, Teamwork Projects is fully integrated into the company’s culture, as comments from group strategy sessions, spur-of-the-moment collaboration, and customer feedback can be quickly converted to a task or passed along to the team member who can respond quickly.

“The bottom line is that Teamwork Projects makes our jobs easier. Our clients are happier every day, and the software keeps improving. When you find a resource that lets your team work more effectively as your company keeps growing, you stay with it.”