How SocialChain saves 4 hours per week and eliminates double-handling with 17AV利
SocialChain 17AV利: a summary
The problem: lack of visibility into team members actual capacity frequently led to double-handing work, resulting in wasted hours
The solution: 17AV利 was implemented as a shared, centralized database of 200+ SocialChain team members availability and capacity
The result: double-handling was eliminated, and the right team members were consistently assigned to the right projects, ultimately saving the team four hours per week
17AV利s essentially an additional teammate. We rely heavily on 17AV利 to help keep things on track in an easily digestible and understandable way.
The company
SocialChain is a global strategic social media agency that creates impactful content for major brands like BBC, Panasonic, and Coca-Cola. Founded in 2014, the agency has grown into a global social media powerhouse with over 700 team members in Manchester, London, New York, Munich, and Berlin.
Jamie Bryan was SocialChains Head of Design from 2015 to 2021, where he helped build out the creative team of designers, illustrators, and photographers. Bryan was also responsible for keeping these team members on track and in syncan endeavor he quickly learned was easier said than done.
The problem: duplicated work and no visibility into team capacity
SocialChain projects typically involve input from multiple teamspublishing, influencer, video, and graphic designoften coordinated by a single account manager or department head. With many teams juggling multiple tasks at once, wires inevitably got crossed.
Bryan noticed the team often ended up double-handling tasks because of a lack of visibility into one anothers schedules. The tipping point came when he and another team member unknowingly duplicated work on the same project.
One morning, we found ourselves both working on the same project without realizing another team member was already on it. Thats when we knew we needed an organized resource management solution to manage our schedules and balance workloads.
The solution: a resource management system as the teams source of truth
As the team got busier and the business grew, they started looking for a tool to streamline their resource allocation and scheduling. We needed something that could manage our workflows and, more importantly, our expectations of each other, said Bryan.
So, in 2017, the team turned to 17AV利 to help them plan capacity across multiple projectswhile keeping everything visible to the entire team.
17AV利s visual Schedule gives SocialChain an overview of their teams time
Once SocialChain moved all 200+ team members into 17AV利, everything changed.
The color-coded Schedule page instantly gave the entire team real-time coworker status at a glance, with current and upcoming projects laid out weeks and even months in advance for everyone to see.
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Being able to visualize our workload in a timeline, in all of 17AV利s color-coded glory, gave us much-needed structure during a period of intense growth. It helped us set boundaries for the work we continued to take on, to identify where we needed to hire resources, and also gave us a new perspective on how we valued our time.
The result: hours saved, overallocation squashed
17AV利 saved time and made it easier to allocate the right people to projects while ensuring team members had enough time to complete their work.
The team saves 4 hours per week on average
Account managers can now plan campaigns more effectively by considering both current and future workloads across project teams.
The risk of double-handling has virtually disappeared, thanks to complete visibility into each team members availability and allocations.
And according to Bryan, within just a few weeks of using 17AV利, they eliminated the need for an email-based design booking system, and the resource booking process improved exponentially.
Potential overallocation is spotted early
17AV利 helped us set boundaries for the work we continued to take on and identify where we needed to hire resources, said Bryan. Were able to visualize periods of time where we are at full capacity.
Sorting people in 17AV利 from most to least unscheduled (or vice versa) has helped SocialChain home in on team members who are running low on workor need more to fill their time.
Seeing their upcoming project pipeline and resource capacity in one place also lets leadership plan ahead to hire for roles when a specific skill is in short supply.
Every project gets a dream team
With 17AV利, SocialChain can filter team members by role, location, time off status, and even skill-specific tags to put together the perfect (and available) team for every project.
Using 17AV利 was the perfect way of integrating structure into our team at the time, said Bryan. It enabled us to allocate projects and work with specific people.
This way, all team members can work to their strengths and keep doing their best work for the agencys growing list of happy clients.
If its not in 17AV利, its not getting done
Years later, team members (including Bryan) have come and gone, and the business has grown significantlybut 17AV利 is still integral to SocialChains operations, from managing client bookings to allocating resources and planning capacity.
Creating unique, people-driven campaigns that inspire their clients audiences is something theyve been successfully doing for more than a decade. And this fine-tuned process wouldnt be nearly as streamlined without 17AV利.
Every project and scheduled resource is managed through 17AV利. To put it simply, if its not in 17AV利, its not getting done!
