Trinetix boosted design efficiency, reducing meetings by 50% with ClickUp

Trinetix provides full-cycle design and development solutions for enterprise companies like Coca-Cola, McDonald's, and Procter & Gamble. With its impressive client roster and busy project queue, seamless project execution is crucial.

But this was hard to do when the company’s Design Operations team was struggling to get new designers onboarded and work-ready. What's more, long-time design team members were finding it difficult to use complex project management tools effectively.

“We were cobbling together multiple tools for internal learning and development purposes,” says Trinetix Portfolio Manager Kateryna Sipakova. “This resulted in information loss and less focus on the goals set for each designer’s role.”

At the time, Trinetix was using Jira and Confluence—but it was difficult and time consuming, both from a functionality perspective and because it required the team to have numerous meetings to get work done.

Scaling with Jira and Confluence was also cost-prohibitive, requiring two separate subscriptions as well as paid plugins. So Trinetix began the search for an easy-to-use, cost-effective solution that would suit its team of nontechnical designers and streamline internal processes.

A single platform to scale design operations and project execution

Trinetix's DesignOps team searched for the most suitable task and time-tracking tool for their needs. They compared various tools based on their features, agility, adaptability for different project types, and pricing model.

They were especially looking for a tool that could consolidate multiple necessary features, such as documentation, table view, Gantt charts, and integrations, into one platform. When the team took a closer look at ClickUp, they liked what they saw from the very first interaction. Today, Trinetix uses ClickUp to run its high-performing Design Operations team along with Product Development, Marketing, and Business Development teams. From improving efficiency and output to creating a culture of knowledge sharing and accountability, ClickUp offers four key benefits to Trinetix, all while keeping the team motivated and satisfied.

1. A flexible platform to support career development

Before ClickUp, personal development plans for Trinetix’s employees were housed in many different places, including Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Documents, and Google Spreadsheets. Now, these plans live entirely in ClickUp.

“Our previous approach had disadvantages for management because it was hard to find anything. That’s why we came up with the idea of the Personal Development Space in ClickUp,” Kateryna says.

Now, Trinetix leverages ClickUp Gantt Charts and Board views to create powerful visual plans that enable each designer to map out a personalized career path. Each plan contains tasks, timelines, goals, and milestones to help designers get where they want to go.

2. Automated workflows that keep client projects moving

ClickUp Automations also help Trinetix save time by automating routine work such as communicating handoffs with project managers.

“Any task that goes from ‘in progress’ to ‘review’ triggers a notification to the design lead who needs to review the task after the designer has completed it. After that, the task is auto-assigned to the business analyst on the project,” says Kateryna.

Once an automation is created, the new process is set from then on—helping optimize Trinetix’s workflow, relieve employees of communication overwhelm, and reduce the chance of work falling through the cracks.

3. A single source of truth for all project documentation

Centralizing project documentation with ClickUp Docs and Templates has been a game changer for Trinetix. All information on any given project is collected in one place, and it only takes 15 seconds to create a new template.

“Everyone filling out a template uses the same approach,” Kateryna says. “Because of that, people from other teams can find the same kind of information about different projects in the same place, even if they’re unfamiliar with the documentation.”

4. Increased transparency and ownership around OKRs

Trinetix also leverages ClickUp to set OKRs for each member of the design team. Defining the OKRs was a collaborative process that involved the entire team choosing the targets they wanted to work toward.

The company uses ClickUp to set yearly OKRs as well as sub-OKRs. For example, an annual OKR related to boosting the team’s growth and satisfaction contains sub-OKRs such as creating individual growth plans. And what's more, team members can assign themselves to any component of an OKR.

“This approach allows everyone to take ownership of OKRs, not just the design leads,” Kateryna says. “It's really important for the team to make their own decisions and make an impact, because when one person decides everything for the team, it stifles creativity.”

Driving client satisfaction with a more efficient design team

Onboarding, project management, and learning and development are now a breeze with ClickUp. Information is templated and centralized in one place, improving focus for the designers—as well as their ability to work toward their personal goals and company OKRs.

The team is no longer bogged down by complicated tools and context switching between tools. Instead, they’re now thriving with a user-friendly and cost-effective solution that enables them to execute seamlessly on client projects and drive better performance for the business.