Outgrowing Basecamp – How to move on
There are a million things that need to be handled in an office or business. From corporate structure, to distribution of teams and projects, to the all-encompassing mess of communicating with all these people. You can be a hundred year-old business, with an ironclad structure and a great idea, and your internal communication can still be post-it notes and homing pigeons (or Basecamp apparently).
The Basecamp Problem:
Internal communication in a business is something of a problem. It generally gets forgotten when upgrading to a new platform or system for project management and helpdesk, leaving your teams to make-do with the trusted old email and instant messaging chatrooms. That works great for informal communication but handles poorly when in relation with the actual projects and solutions you already use.
The next step for most businesses big or small is to tack on a sleek looking and cutesy application to patch that hole. In walks Basecamp. Now there is nothing wrong with the application itself, it sets out to do something and it does just that. But that’s the issue, it does JUST that.
You now face a whole new set of issues, people still use the previous methods of emails and chatrooms and find it hard to switch to this new platform, and now you’re left with 3 software applications that you have to keep updated. Sooner or later the efforts of management will die down and the new platform will be relegated to a niche function until the new sleek-looking application du jour replaces the older one, for e.g. Basecamp > Midcamp > Topcamp, etc.
The point is that a business NEEDS a project management tool and a helpdesk solution and will always find something that fits that need and stay with it for a long time. A business does not think it needs a communication platform, and so it dances around this issue for eternity looking for the right foot for its glass slipper.
The problem isn’t that Basecamp is too limited (although it is) or that it is too gimmicky (taste is subjective after all), the problem is in the patchwork solution that businesses get attracted to.
The Solution:
You don’t need a patch for this, you need to rethink the way you framed the problem. Why opt for many applications and solutions which give you more work in integrations and manual data-entry versus a single all-in-one platform? Why add-on communication widgets and other things when you can have it all in one package?
There is no valid answer to those questions, you ARE better off not having to do more work, regardless of how attached you are to those carrier pigeons.
Stop looking for fixes and asking to integrate tens of applications together for your different teams and projects; opt for one which caters to all and fits most of your needs.
OneDesk does just that, we offer an all-in-one helpdesk, product management and project management solution which also handles communication via email or chat and is offered on desktop and tablets or phones. And if the integration itch is too strong, we cater for that too, not that you’d need it but we aim to please.
Don’t hoard applications and swing like a weather vane to fix your business problems, go with a strong all-in-one solution and get working!
Photo Credit: ”Base camp” / MIKI Yoshihito / CC BY