WIPTRA: Super simple project tracking tool for creative teams and their clients.

Every innovation begins with a pain point and a vision to solve it. In our case, the pain point was the struggle with complex, inflexible project management tools that failed to make sense to our clients or adapt to our needs. The vision? WIPTRA.

The Birth of WIPTRA

We, like many creative teams, were grappling with existing project management software. It felt like we spent more time trying to fit our work into the constraints of these tools than doing the work itself. We needed a tool that was both simple and effective, allowing us to focus on our craft instead of wrestling with project management.

This led us to create WIPTRA. Designed by creative teams for creative teams, WIPTRA is an uncomplicated and flexible project tracker that helps you manage client expectations and provides a bird’s eye view of your project’s progress. It keeps things simple, without demanding the administrative overhead or rigid complexity of other project management software.

Supporting Linear and Iterative Approaches

Not all projects conform to an agile approach. Often, small to medium creative and digital teams work with clients and budgets that necessitate a fixed price, fixed outcome solution more aligned with a waterfall approach. However, a purely waterfall methodology may not cater to the occasional need for iterative client involvement at different stages of project delivery.

This is where WIPTRA shines. It’s been carefully crafted to support those projects that run in a more linear fashion, but still allows for client feedback along the way. This hybrid approach provides an opportunity for iterations, whilst keeping the project within a known trajectory of cost and scope. WIPTRA is built to help teams that work in this way to bridge the gap between the predictable, linear progress of waterfall, and the adaptability of the agile methodology.

What’s wrong with a Gantt chart?

The classic Gantt chart, while a tried and true tool, often falls short when it comes to accommodating project fluidity. The nature of creative and digital projects often means that timelines and scopes evolve, and unforeseen issues arise. Gantts are typically mapped out well in advance and depend on a series of projected calendar dates that may not all be met, causing frustrating knock-on effects.

The continual need for adjustments soon throws into question the usefulness of the Gantt chart altogether. WIPTRA, on the other hand, understands these fluid dynamics and facilitates easier, more adaptive project management, saving teams from the constant remapping and recalibration often associated with traditional Gantt charts.

What Makes WIPTRA Different

Most existing project management tools, like those using Gantt charts, create complexity with their mapped out timelines. Their rigidity can lead to eventual inaccuracy and mismanaged expectations as project scopes and issues evolve. WIPTRA, however, introduces a simpler, more flexible solution.

WIPTRA supports a linear, waterfall-like delivery of project milestones, providing a clear path to the project’s end goal. however, unlike the one-size-fits-all approach of many tools, WIPTRA allows you to define your process and deliver it in a more hybrid way with your own set of projects steps and deliverables. Specifically, WIPTRA focuses on the work-effort involved for any particular stage, rather than a projected date on a calendar. A hold-up on the client end doesn’t change the required work-effort and so nothing needs to change on the WIPTRA schedule.

Moreover, with WIPTRA, you can upload delivery links for each project step and provide your clients access without needing an account. This creates a centralized reference point for the project progress, making it easier for everyone to stay on the same page.

How WIPTRA Addresses Pain Points

WIPTRA is designed to combat the common challenges teams face in project management, offering meaningful solutions to persistent problems:

Complexity: Traditional project management tools can overwhelm teams with their overblown features, laborious set-up, and steep learning curves. WIPTRA eliminates these complications with its simple high-level focus that provides a birds-eye view of the project stages, their status, and access to key deliverables.
Early Planning Uncertainties: As creative projects evolve, so too should your project management tool. WIPTRA accommodates changing timelines, project scopes, and unforeseen issues, ensuring your production plan remains as dynamic as your project. WIPTRA focuses on work-efforts over calendar dates (though you can add those too if you like!)
Communication Barriers: Miscommunication and misunderstanding can derail even the most meticulously planned projects. By centralizing all project details in one place, WIPTRA facilitates seamless communication among the production team, managers, and clients, ensuring everyone stays informed and aligned.
Client expectation issues: Keeping clients informed is a critical aspect of project management, yet many tools unfairly expect clients to be familiar and engaged with the process. With its client-friendly design and birds-eye view, WIPTRA simplifies client access to project details, improving their experience and enhancing their understanding of your team’s process, what’s been done, and what’s left to do.
Waiting on client resources: One of the persistent challenges in project management is the need to ensure client engagement and awareness of their crucial role in advancing the project. Oftentimes, clients are unaware of the significance of their input or approval in the overall progress of the project. This lack of awareness can lead to frustrating delays as the project team waits for client responses or approvals to proceed.

WIPTRA is designed to tackle these core difficulties faced by creative and digital teams in project management. The mission is clear; to simplify project scheduling, align everyone’s understanding and expectations, minimise the impact of unknowns, and ultimately to provide ongoing ease and clarity for all stakeholders.

The Key Benefits of WIPTRA

WIPTRA offers benefits to everyone involved in the project – teams, managers, and clients alike:

Simplicity: WIPTRA streamlines project tracking without overwhelming users with unnecessary complexities or demanding commitment to a complex ecosystem. It focuses on high-level progress tracking, with a simple client-friendly UI that makes project management a breeze for everyone involved.
Visibility: WIPTRA ensures clear visibility of project progress for all stakeholders, allowing clients to easily visualise the project steps and the current progress in an easy top-down view.
Productivity: WIPTRA streamlines workflows and boosts team efficiency by acting as the central hub for deliverables, making sure everyone has clear access to the latest approved project resources.
Client Engagement: With easy access to project details, WIPTRA enhances the client experience, providing them a clear view of progress and boosting their confidence in the project’s direction. WIPTRA helps keep everyone’s understanding and expectations about your projects on the same page.
Adaptive project tracking: Unlike traditional tools, WIPTRA accommodates changing timelines, project scopes, and emerging issues, making it ideal for dynamic creative and digital teams. By Leaning away from the uncertainty of future calendar projections, WIPTRA focuses instead on the tangible work-effort required to meaningfully and realistically measure project progression.
Use your workflow: WIPTRA allows you to define your own process, supporting a hybrid approach that blends the best of agile and waterfall project management strategies.

This unique blend of features makes WIPTRA an easy to integrate solution that’s designed to transform the way creative teams manage their projects, without demanding a complete buy-in to an specific workflow or ecosystem.

Try WIPTRA: Manage your projects and keep all your stakeholders expectations aligned

WIPTRA is not just a project management tool, but a way to foster a culture of transparency, collaboration, and efficiency. It allows teams to focus on their productivity while ensuring smooth project management.

Our goal with WIPTRA was to offer a solution that’s not just different but better. By focusing on simplicity and flexibility, we believe we’ve built a tool that can redefine project management for creative teams everywhere. Embrace the simplicity of WIPTRA and let your team do what they do best – create great work!

Are you ready to experience the difference with WIPTRA? Learn more about WIPTRA – Simple Project Management Software for Creative and Digital Teams.

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Creative Digital Agency

Code and Visual works with clients around Australia to create and build outstanding and accessible digital services. If you want to discus a project contact us now for an initial consultation.