by Stephen Danos

The benefits of building and maintaining a culture of quality can be measured in dollars. According to a 2014 study, companies that emphasize quality, and ultimately make fewer mistakes, can save an estimated $67 million per every 5,000 employees.

At a time when customers increasingly use social media and online reviews to make informed purchasing decisions, the pressure is increasing for businesses to continually raise the quality of their offerings. This emphasis on quality — combined with pressures to respond to changing demands at speed — can lead to more mistakes for companies that lack a clearly defined doctrine of quality.

So, how do effective leaders build and sustain a culture of quality — without sacrificing speed? Here are some ways business leaders can get started.
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by Stephen Danos
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Before founding his own company, Kevin Carroll led and contributed to teams of all shapes and sizes. He served in the Air Force as a translator, was Head Athletic Trainer for the Philadelphia 76ers, and facilitated change at Nike as a “Katalyst” — a role where he helped leaders and teams reach their creative potential through balancing play and productivity.

Suffice to say, Mr. Carroll knows the value of how clear communication, visibility, and creative confidence make teams of all types productive.

After giving a guest talk at Smartsheet, he took time to chat with us about his philosophy on structured play, what makes for successful teams, and how leaders can create a positive environment for speedier business execution. Out of this talk emerged three traits that impactful leaders need to build trust and stay motivated.

In addition, he shared how to build an inclusive, winning workplace culture, and some relevant books that all leaders should read.
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by Stephen Danos
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Earlier this month, we posted an interview with author and speaker Kevin Carroll that delved into three traits that all successful leaders have that help motivate their teams.

When it comes to company cultures, there is another concept Carroll espouses that helps to unite and motivate teams — play.  

“What I love about play is it allows you to have a level of confidence, especially creative confidence, and agility and nimbleness. As far as play, you have to problem-solve on the fly.”
—Kevin Carroll

Purposeful play can organize teams around common goals, then motivate them to problem-solve, create, and collaborate more effectively and quickly than before.

by Stephen Danos
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Many powerful business leaders no longer leave their work at the office. Instead, they’ve intentionally embraced work-life integration over work-life balance, and expect their employees to follow suit.

Work-life integration is a more harmonious approach, entwining career and personal activities so that professionals can make decisions wherever they are in order to execute on business objectives. Basically, if you are productive, excited, and joyous at work, the thought is you will bring that home with you, and vice versa.

For those who embrace work-life integration, here are some tips and tools that free you up to move faster on higher impact work throughout your day.
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by Stephen Danos
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by Stephen Danos
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In order to gain a competitive advantage in today’s business world, companies need to make speed a habit and accelerate workflows, all while avoiding the Red Queen Effect: working faster and harder to stay in the same place.

As pressure to innovate grows, companies need to continuously improve on their products and processes, taking in to account internal observations and customer feedback. This means being proactive and, like experienced chess players, thinking several steps ahead to compete without sacrificing quality.

The combination of a clear foundational vision, organizational alignment, and emphasis on speed allows business leaders to build successful, cross-functional teams. Once these are firmly in place, businesses can run faster and smarter.
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by Brendan Reed
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When it comes to getting work done via mobile devices, you often need to update content or data, and make quick, simple changes on the go.

We spoke with customers, gathered feedback, and created a mobile app experience that helps them stay in step with their work.

Today, we are proud to release the next version of the Smartsheet mobile app — available for iOS and Android — that will help you get more done, wherever you work.
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by Staff Writer

Project managers at companies of all sizes have to choose from an ever-evolving collection of work management techniques. Out of the gate, they need to know if a given methodology — whether it’s Lean, Waterfall, or Agile — fits with their company and cross-functional department objectives, culture, and speed of business.

So, how do you know which work management techniques are the most important? And which ones will actually help make your project a success? Many factors can hinder the success of a project,  but the critical path method can help keep projects on track and budget.
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While it was originally a time-consuming, hand-drawn set of diagrams, today you can use Smartsheet, a work execution platform, to instantly track the critical path or the most important tasks that, if missed, will delay your entire project — with just a click of a button.
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Here’s what you need to know about critical path, why you should use it in your next project, and how Smartsheet helps you tie critical path to automated actions, status updates, and approvals to help your team move faster than ever before.
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