From Features to Outcomes: What Stayed With Me from Our Smartsheet Empowerment Session

By: Vivien Chong

Last month, we ran a Smartsheet Empowerment session with a simple goal:

Start with how work actually flows — then explore how Smartsheet can support it in a practical, meaningful way.
Of course, like most good working sessions… it didn’t stay “simple” for very long.
​
And honestly, that’s what made it valuable.

The Moment That Stuck With Me

​During one of the group discussions, a participant shared a challenge:
“Smartsheet doesn’t quite fit what our team needs.”

Instead of jumping straight into a solution or demo, we opened the conversation to the room.

That’s when the session shifted.

People started sharing ideas.

Not polished “perfect answers”, but practical, real-world approaches:

• Small adjustments to workflows
• Creative workarounds
• Alternative ways to structure the process
• Different perspectives from teams facing similar challenges

And suddenly, the energy in the room changed.

Because once the workflow became clear, the conversation stopped being about the tool.

It became about:

• outcomes,
• constraints,
• collaboration,
• and possibilities.

​
That’s where the real ideas started flowing.

When the Conversation Goes Deeper

We covered everything we planned for the session.

But naturally, the discussions went deeper where they mattered most.

And that tends to happen when teams move from asking:
“What does this feature do?”

to asking:
“How do we make this work for our team?”

That’s a completely different level of conversation.

It’s less about learning buttons and features, and more about understanding how people work together day-to-day.
​
And those conversations? They take time.
But they’re usually the ones that create the biggest breakthroughs.

What Really Mattered

By the end of the session, one takeaway stood out clearly:

It’s rarely about needing more features.

Most of the time, it’s about:

• getting clear on what the team actually needs,
• understanding where the bottlenecks are,
• and finding a practical way forward.

The tool supports the process.
But the tool usually isn’t the real challenge.

After the Session

We shared additional resources with the team so they could continue exploring and applying what they learned.

Because the real work starts after the session:

• testing ideas,
• adjusting workflows,
• seeing what works,
• and improving along the way.

And honestly, sessions like this are always a good reminder:
​​
You don’t need a perfect setup to move forward.

You just need enough clarity to start, and a team willing to figure things out together.

A Note from Our Side

This is something we see often at 57Network.

What begins as a “tool session” usually becomes something much bigger:

• a conversation about how work actually runs,
• where processes feel unclear,
• where teams get stuck,
• and what can be simplified.

We’re less focused on adding more complexity into systems.

More focused on helping teams make sense of what’s already there, and shaping it into workflows that genuinely work in practice.

If your team is exploring ways to improve collaboration, workflow clarity, and operational visibility, we’d love to help.
​
Connect with us today and let’s build workflows that work for people — not just processes.