I’ve been trying to come up with a good topic for a blog post for quite some time now. Some ideas that crossed my mind included the BP oil spill, Mel Gibson’s psychosis, and Clarizen’s Integration with Zendesk, yet none of them made it past the first paragraph. For some reason I was uninspired by writing about the ranting and ravings of a clearly sick man, nor the horror that is the worst environmental disaster humanity has ever seen. And while the Clarizen/Zendesk Integration is a phenomenal tool, it too failed to inspire my writings.
Today however, I got inspired! Inspired but what you may ask? Let me start at the beginning. Amongst some of my other duties at Clarizen, I am responsible for all things Salesforce. This includes writing workflow rules, creating company dashboards and the like. Today it came to my attention that one of my workflows was not functioning as I had hoped, in fact, it was creating false data in my lead analysis. I realized that I had a major issue to resolve and while attempting to figure out the fix for my problem I doodled the following:
Helena’s Issue ≤ Mel Gibson’s Issues ≤ BP’s Issues
Yes, I do refer to myself in third person at times; I find it comforting but prefer not to discuss that issue. Anyway, my doodle made me realize that both Mel Gibson and BP are linked if you consider the fact that both of them require an issue management system and fast. And as you probably guessed, this is also directly related to the fact that the Clarizen/Zendesk integration brings together help desk ticketing and issue management. Without even realizing it, I’ve been trying to write about Issue management for a while, but never had the right words, until now.
In a world filled with issues don’t we all need an issue management system? I mean I certainly need one to keep track of everything that’s going on, or should I say going wrong.
Being that I work at Clarizen, and have full access to the Issue Management subsystem within our application, I am constantly finding myself creating new issues and linking them to my daily tasks. Doing so not only helps me to stay on top of my work, but also alerts me to which issues need to be resolved and when. An added bonus is the fact that it allows me to direct issues to responsible team members. When I have a PC issue, for example, the fact that I have yet to figure out how to properly work my MacBook Pro, I can assign it directly to the IT team.
Much like organizing your projects and tasks, organizing your issues and linking them to the work items to which they relate to is a great way to keep yourself on the ball. Another great addition to our Issue Management system is the introduction of Request Management, which will be released along with V4.8 later this month. Request Management will allow you to keep track of all of your new ideas, changes and other such requests. I currently use it to help me keep track of my blog and marketing project ideas, as well as all the change requests I receive from the sales team for new Salesforce fields and reports.
If only Mel Gibson used some sort of issue management tool, perhaps he wouldn’t find himself with a collapsing career. And BP? Well, frankly, I think it’s pretty obvious that they need a tool to help them keep track of their damage control. In fact, I can honestly recommend the Clarizen solution to anyone looking to manage their work. So if you haven’t done so already be sure to sign up for a free 30-day trial and start keeping track of your work, issues and requests.
Do you have any innovative ideas for the use of Issue Management? I would be happy to hear about them!