What Makes WorkMesh Different?

What Makes WorkMesh Different?

When people ask me what makes WorkMesh different, there are probably three things I come back to first: flexibility, user experience and action focus.

WorkMesh has been built around those things from the beginning.

It is not designed for a single industry or a single use case. It is designed as a true no-code system that can support a broad range of different business and project processes, including the edge cases that normally start causing problems once you move beyond a simple register.

We have also built it with the future in mind.

WorkMesh today is only part of where we intend to take it. We have big plans for a wider suite of integrated products, all working from the same application foundation rather than becoming another collection of disconnected systems.

But the real difference for me is not just what WorkMesh can store.

It is what it helps people actually get done.

Flexibility without needing to call the software developer

One of my biggest frustrations with a lot of existing systems is the lack of flexibility.

You buy a product because it does 80 or 90 percent of what you need, and then eventually you find the thing it cannot do.

Quite often the answer is something like:

"We don't have that feature, but for $20,000 we can build it for you."

Then, of course, that feature becomes part of the product and gets sold to everyone else.

I have never really liked that model.

Businesses change. Projects change. Processes change.

You should not need a major software development project every time the way you manage something changes.

That is one of the reasons we have focused so heavily on no-code configuration in WorkMesh.

We want businesses to be able to build and adapt systems around the way they actually work without needing to call a developer every time they want another field, a different workflow or a change to the process.

And we have tried to think beyond just the easy use cases.

It is easy to build something that works when every process is simple.

The real challenge is dealing with the edge cases: different access requirements, different users, different workflows, different approvals, different ways of handling information and different ways of getting an outcome.

That flexibility is a big part of what WorkMesh is intended to provide.

The Action engine is probably the biggest difference

If I had to pick the biggest difference, though, I would probably say it is the shared Action and escalation engine.

A lot of software is very good at recording things.

But recording something does not necessarily mean anything happens.

I have seen this many times on projects.

You might need somebody to sign off a change before work can progress. The change is ready, the information is there and everyone knows it needs to be approved.

But the person who needs to sign it is busy.

The request sits there.

Someone follows it up.

Then follows it up again.

Meanwhile, the project is waiting.

WorkMesh is designed so that these Actions do not just disappear into a register.

The Action goes to the person responsible. If they do not deal with it within the required timeframe, it can escalate.

That escalation can go to their line manager, who now has real information about where work is getting held up and who is not keeping up with the required paperwork.

That gives the manager the opportunity to do something about it.

Maybe the person genuinely has too much work.

Maybe the Action needs to be reassigned.

Maybe it just needs a reminder from their manager.

Whatever the reason, the issue is visible.

For me, that is a much more useful outcome than a system simply telling us that something is overdue.

Work should not stop because someone is away from their computer

The phone applications are another important part of where we are taking WorkMesh.

A lot of project managers and supervisors are not sitting at a desk all day.

They are on site.

They are walking through the project.

They are in meetings.

They are moving between locations.

But the work does not stop just because they are away from their computer.

I have seen plenty of situations where we need a signature or approval to progress something, but the person we need is out in the field and will not be back at their computer for another two hours.

That delay can have a real impact.

The principle for the WorkMesh phone applications is simple.

Where it is safe and practical, the phone should let you achieve the work outcome, not just look at the information.

Pull out your phone, review what needs to be reviewed, complete the Action or approval where that workflow supports it, and get back to work.

That is the experience we are building towards across the mobile applications.

That convenience adds up very quickly across a project or business.

Reporting should not be a monthly administrative exercise

The other area where I think there is a lot of wasted time in businesses is reporting.

Most people working in projects have probably experienced the end-of-month reporting cycle.

Someone takes a snapshot of the data.

Someone checks it.

Someone updates the report.

Someone copies information into another document or presentation.

Then everybody does it all again next month.

There will always be some reporting that needs human input and judgement, but there is also a lot that should simply happen automatically.

This is where the WorkMesh reporting and snapshot approach becomes important.

For example, we can set a reporting schedule around an end-of-month date.

At the required time, WorkMesh can create the controlled snapshot that becomes the reporting position for that month.

Reports can then be generated from that position and distributed without somebody having to manually rebuild the same report every month.

Backups and recovery points are also being built into the wider platform so that preserving the information does not depend on somebody remembering to do it manually.

Set the process up properly once and let the system do the repetitive work.

That is the type of automation I like.

It is not automation for the sake of saying something is automated.

It is about getting rid of work that people should not need to keep doing manually.

Cost and complexity still matter

There are plenty of powerful systems in the market.

But power by itself does not make a system good to use.

Some systems are incredibly complex.

Some take a major implementation just to get started.

Some become expensive very quickly once you need additional functionality.

And sometimes, after you have spent all that money, the customer support still is not particularly good.

Those were all things we thought about when building WorkMesh.

The aim is not to make something simple by removing capability.

The aim is to make something powerful without making it unnecessarily difficult.

There will always be complex processes.

There will always be complicated business rules.

But using the system should still make sense.

One foundation, with much more to come

Another important part of WorkMesh is that we have not built it around one industry or one type of process.

We already see applications across projects and enterprise businesses, and we are continuing to add more.

But the longer-term plan is much bigger than individual WorkMesh Systems.

We are building a wider suite of integrated products around the same application foundation.

The benefit of that approach is that we do not need every new capability to become another completely separate product with another login, another set of users and another collection of disconnected information.

The products can work together.

The users can work together.

The Actions can work together.

And the information can be connected where it makes sense.

That is the direction we are building towards.

Saving time and making it easier to get things done

For me, the value of all of this comes back to something pretty simple.

I want WorkMesh to make it easier for people to get their work done.

If someone can deal with an approval from their phone rather than making a project wait for hours, that has value.

If an overdue Action automatically escalates to the right manager instead of somebody manually chasing it for a week, that has value.

If a monthly report can be produced automatically from a controlled snapshot instead of somebody spending hours recreating it every month, that has value.

And if a business can adapt its system itself instead of paying thousands of dollars every time it needs another feature, that has value as well.

That is what I want people to think about when they look at WorkMesh.

Not just another place to store information.

A flexible system designed around getting things done, reducing administration and giving people more time to focus on the work that actually needs them.

Build better processes. Drive action. Reduce cost.