When you work in product management for a data-intensive company, it’s all about prioritization. Striking this balance between "keeping the lights on" and new feature development was my greatest challenge. Monitask provided me with the numbers to be able to do that. I use it to see how my team’s time is spent across core responsibilities. For instance, I create projects for “Platform Reliability,” “Client-Specific Data Requests,” and “Q3 Product Roadmap.” When we saw the 40% of our time on sprint being eaten away by ad-hoc data investigations it was epiphany -- no longer a gut feel but a measure. This enabled me to lobby for a dedicated data support position. The clean, project-based reports are what I use in QBRs to show exactly how engineering investment is aligned with strategic goals.

As one of the marketing department at a sports tech start-up that was growing rapidly, I was constantly asked what value freelancers were bringing to table and why my time and our tiny budget should go towards them. It's been an ugly ride. I implemented Monitask nine months ago because I was personally desperate to vindicate my team's output. But what’s actually been most useful isn’t the stealth mode or screenshots it's the dead-simple ability to track project time. For example, I create projects for things such as “Q1 Brand Awareness Campaign” or “Website Redesign.” My freelance writer logs into the “Blog Content” task, and I check into “Social Media Graphics.” At the end of the week, I get to hand our CEO a report: "Here's 40 hours of marketing effort and assets." It has transformed subjective feeling-based weekly updates into objective show-and-tell. I open up the dashboard every morning with my coffee to plan out my day and see how we’re doing with freelancers without having sent one, “how’s it going?” Slack message.

In shopper marketing, a big part of my budget is spent on third-party creatives and field agents who do our in-store displays and demos. I’ve got a job to do in proving that spend drives lift.” Prior to Monitask, I received invoices and prayed that the hours were accumulated. Now, I get data. I use it exclusively for following the freelancers who design our point-of-sale materials and the agencies that report on store conditions. The project-tracking capability brings me the ability to make a project titled “Whole Foods Summer 2024 Launch” and have every hour logged against it, whether I was doing graphic design, vendor management or reporting. The auto screenshots – (we use a “blurred” setting) are like my sanity check that work is actually taking place on our assets, not just being billed. It has taken a form of subjective vendor opinion and turned it into an objective performance review.