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8 Productivity Hacks for Web Development Agencies

Productivity means profitability. The more efficient you become at completing billable tasks, the more valuable client work you will manage to do. This results in satisfied customers, new opportunities, and better revenue.

But how to increase team productivity in your web development agency, so you can scale your business?

Regardless of the type of business you own, you should always look for new ways to help employees retain the energy and motivation to perform better. There are several key factors that allow you to achieve that and boost productivity – meeting deadlines, maintaining high-quality work, and utilizing resources. Balancing them all efficiently is essential for your business’ health.

To help you make the most of these operations, in this article, we have 8 actionable tips. Following these hacks, will enable you to improve the motivation of your employees, manage tasks more efficiently, and improve the overall productivity of your web development company.

Without further ado, let’s get right into it.

1. Put the Pareto Principle into Practise

The Pareto Principle

If you are not familiar with the Pareto Principle,in short, the idea is that 80% of your output is the result of 20% of your efforts.

For example, for your team, this could mean that 80% of their work takes up 20% of their day. Or that 80% of your profits come from 20% of your projects. Or that 80% of your setbacks come from 20% of your clients.

By evaluating performance and analyzing the results you can identify where both your successes and issues come from. Leveraging this information, you can obtain a better idea of where to focus your team’s energy, and significantly increase productivity.

As the Pareto Principle can be applied to any area of your operations, it can provide you with a better scope of how efficient any process is. To make the most of the 80-20 rule, focus on replicating what works for the top-performing projects and/or clients, as well as managing the most prominent troublemakers.

As a result, you will be able to offset the negative factors while reinforcing the work that supports your business’ growth.

2. Be Selective of Your Clients

Why You Should Be Selective of Your Clients

Web development agencies, especially those that are just starting out, more often than not feel pressured not to turn any work down. However, this is an outdated view, and for good reasons.

  • Quality clients create a good reputation. The goal of any venture is to grow overtime. So even if you start small and take on smaller clients, if they have a good reputation in the industry it may rub off on you. This, in turn, can help you close larger and better businesses in the future.
  • Great clients bring more than just profit. While profit is very important for your web development agency to survive and thrive, so is working with customers that allow you to showcase and grow your expertise. After all, a project will only be successful if you play to your strengths, understand your clients goals, and deliver on them.

The most successful web development agencies decline clients that aren’t right for them. If you are new to business, it may take you some time to learn to say no. However, when you grow more confident in your capabilities you should have no problem cherry-picking your projects.

3. Track Time and Prioritize Smartly

Track Time and Prioritize Smartly (First Option)

Time is an extremely important indicator when it comes to team productivity, and this goes double for web development companies. There are various pricing models you can choose as such – hourly rate, project rate, performance rate, ratiners based, and so on.

However, whichever approach you choose, the time it takes to implement the project is pivotal in setting the price. After all, we only have 24 hours in a day and to achieve great results, it’s essential that we use them right (remember the Pareto Principle?)

So how do you track time to improve your agency’s productivity?

The most effective way is to use a time tracking tool that:

  • Generates reports on how resources are allocated during project implementation.
  • Helps with billing and operational efficiency.
  • Improves planning and budgeting.
  • Creates work process transparency.
  • Instills team accountability.

There are various options available on the market and they all have different features. Which one you choose depends entirely on your needs and preferences.

4. Structure Your Team Properly

Structure Your Team Properly

A crucial prerequisite for any business to perform smoothly is to employ qualified people and have the right work structure in place. This means having clearly defined roles, a team structure that enables you to meet your client’s needs, and an appropriate management style.

Furthermore, to make this happen, you also need to ensure effective communication, collaboration, mutual support, and strong leadership within your organization.

Another very important aspect is delegating responsibilities to the right team members. The goal here is to assign tasks to those who can deliver the best results. Done right, it will not only allow your web development company to grow, but it will also ensure that all resources – time, skills, expertise, etc., – are utilized efficiently.

5. Learn How to Delegate and Outsource

Learn How to Delegate and Outsource

If you need expertise that you do not have in-house, you have two options – either hire a person/team, or outsource it. Which one you choose depends on the type of project, deadlines, and budget constraints, as well as on how often you might need the services of a particular professional.

One of the best productivity tips that any web development agency can benefit from, is learning how to delegate and outsource tasks. If you’re bringing in more clients than you can handle, then hiring new talent is worth it. Instead of overstretching your team or turning down business, it’s much better to distribute the workload among more people and keep them onboard for future projects.

Alternatively, if you’re working on a one-off project that requires the expertise of a whole team that you don’t have the time and/or budget to hire, then outsourcing to a third-party is a great option.

6. Host Productivity Workshops

Host Productivity Workshops

The more your team is involved in improving your web development agency, the more motivated and dedicated they will be to being more productive.

More often than not, people want to be part of a company that values their personal and professional development, and that provides various opportunities for them to grow.

By offering productivity workshops, you can help your employees learn new skills, improve their efficiency, and prepare them for more responsibilities. This, in turn, will ensure better quality of work, increased company morale, and more retained clients.

Additionally, you can also host team building activities. This can easily be one of the most important investments you make for the employees in your company.

In fact, according to Forbes, these types of events create trust, improve communication, increase collaboration, and mitigate conflict. Furthermore, they make your team members more engaged, and, as a result, strengthen your work culture, boost performance, and increase your bottom line.

7. Create an Instant Messaging Policy

Create an Instant Messaging Policy

Messaging tools have taken over a large part of business communications over the years. While they may be invaluable for remote teams, they also tend to create unnecessary distractions.

The issue with instant messaging apps is that when a notification pops up, people have the urge to respond to it right away. This can be greatly beneficial in quickly solving urgent problems, but can hurt productivity when employees start to send direct messages to each other just to chat.

A great way to off-set this negative effect is to implement an instant messaging policy. This can help your team set healthy boundaries so they can prioritize their work more efficiently.

Here’s an example of what these policies can look like:

  • Move important client communication to email or a product management tool like Monday or Asana.
  • Remove distractions by turning off push notifications for messaging channels that are not essential for completing your work.
  • Encourage batch checking of all communications – i.e. check email, instant messages, social media, etc. at predetermined times.
  • Leverage the Do Not Disturb mode on messaging apps and on different devices.
  • Incorporate a “third space” for critical thinking – i.e. try to find a quiet room in your office or negotiate to work from home for some time.

8. Upskill Your Team

Upskill Your Team

The digital economy changes at a remarkable rate, which means that even if you have assembled a team of highly adept professionals, eventually they will need to upgrade their skills. Therefore, to help your employees keep their competitive edge and improve their productivity, we highly encourage you to provide additional training and mentoring.

As a high-paced industry, web development thrives on hustle, ambition, determination, and positive energy. Hence, such training sessions will not only be educational and practical, but also motivational.

By learning new skills and getting to work on projects they feel passionate about, your team’s confidence will be boosted.

To determine which skills your people need to improve you can perform a skill gap analysis. This will show you the core capabilities your employees should have, how many of those they actually possess and which ones they are missing but need, so they can perform at their best.

Wrapping Up

Productivity is an essential part of the success of your web development agency. In fact, it’s the key ingredient to ensuring that all operations run smoothly and all completed projects achieve the desired results.

If you want to enhance your overall team’s productivity, then the tips discussed in this article are a good place to start. Implementing them will not only allow you to get more work done in a cost-effective way, but it will also raise employee morale, strengthen your work culture and boost your team’s motivation.

We now pass the baton over to you. Let us know in the comments below which of our tips you are going to apply, and how are you planning to do that? We would love to hear your thoughts and insights.