What is a Teambox?

In his own words

When looking at user and case studies, I usually ask a set of questions, take the responses, and create some pretty story. I am a marketer and a salesman, copy and messaging are after what I am tasked to do. In this particular case, I do not think I could do anything to improve what Andy Peters from Ninth Division shared. Therefore, I decided to leave this in an interview format and allow readers to read the words of a happy Teambox customer. It is his raw reply, so it is a little choppy, but its authenticity would have been lost in my attempt to ‘clean it up’. Andy’s voice speaks to the way we aim to help all of our clients find it easier and fun to get things done. I hope you enjoy the read as much as I did. -- Karl Goldfield, Collaboration Agent 001

Who is Ninth Division?

We are a couple software developers in Omaha, NE. Ninth Division was started by in Jan 09 and since then we have done a ton of client's iPhone and iPad applications. We handle anything from design, coaching, marketing to the development. As we have been maturing, we have begun work on a few internal products to be released under the Ninth Division name.

What led you to Teambox?

Before my business partner (Hasani Hunter) and I joined forces we both used our project management software and methods. So finding something that fit into the way we wanted to progress was tough. Basecamp didn't work great for us, we just didn't use it in a way we thought was right. We bought ActiveCollab thinking that would be perfect and after 2 months of using it, we found that it was just too many features that we didn't use; which caused us (and our clients) to stumble around in it too. I stumbled on Teambox one day by accident while I was looking for something else that could work.

When you started using it, what did you do first?

We setup a few internal projects (not client facing yet) and gave it a whirl. We figure if it worked well for us internal, we could try and integrate clients with it later. We managed tasks, put status updates and create a few conversations. For us internal status updates and tasks were best. When we integrated clients we started using Conversations and File sharing a lot.

How did Teambox improve communication and collaboration?

With clients, emails are pretty worthless. They get lost, deleted, skimmed, or worse. So we prefer to put all our communications in conversations and status updates. Everyone who is part of the project can login (or if they prefer) get an email update of all parts of the project. We are quite transparent and everything goes in Teambox for the team; thoughts, ideas, problems, current timelines, estimates, etc.

Internally, it helps us keep on task with all things that aren't programming. We'll create tasks lists for products we are working with deadlines and the person who is supposed to do them. Any communication regarding that task, tasks place in that task; very nice. If we need to change the deadline its no big deal. I also do a lot of research and I'll post all my links, thoughts, etc on there for Hasani to read up on. Typically we'll talk about whatever the conversation is the next day; as they are just research items (glorified bookmarks), but super important for our product development.

What are the three things you like most about Teambox?

Timeline with RSS integration. Both Hasani and I subscribe to our own RSS feeds in an RSS reader that we have open all day. Not all the time do we have a web browser open.

Tasks with iCal integration. Same as above. We both use iCal alot, so it’s extremely handy to have our tasks listed in the calendar as well.

Just being able to post quick status updates/messages. Not all the time do you need to have an entire conversation on something. We only need to ping the team and have it be viewable anytime from the website... as opposed to an email blast to everyone.

How do you use Teambox?

We take on clients regionally and nationally. Also, we don't have offices and work from home or coffee shops. So having the right tools to enable good communication is very important.

Every client project gets a Project in Teambox. We invite everyone (client, even contracts, etc) to the Teambox project. Everyone communicates via conversations and posts status updates. All files get uploaded (and versions of files) here with notes. If the client just doesn't use Teambox (maybe old fashioned) we'll put copies of email conversations (etc) in the Teambox project. This way we can refer to it at anytime.

Also, we typically use the iCal integration and RSS feeds to integrate into the Mac applications we are using at the time. We don't like hanging out in web browsers all day long so this is helpful. Most people will use emails to start and reply to conversations.

What were you using before Teambox to manage this work?

We used ActiveCollab for about 4 months. At first we liked it. After we started to really use it, we struggled. It was just too much and poorly designed.

Who are you using Teambox with?

Anyone associated with the project as well as all of us at Ninth Division