Regional Office Süderbrarup: Smart City Project with Stackfield

About the regional office Süderbrarup

The regional office Süderbrarup consists of 13 municipalities in the district of Schleswig-Flensburg, in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, and leads the way in modern work and digitalization with an extensive Smart City project, a digital center and other innovations.

Nicole Döpp has been managing the Smart City project, funded by the Federal Ministry for Housing, Urban Development and Building, and implements comprehensive digitalization projects along with her team.

The initial situation

Before Stackfield emerged as the first collaboration tool, emails, paperwork and Word documents dominated everyday working life in the regional office Süderbrarup. Email correspondence was mostly bilateral and the lack of transparency made teamwork difficult. Self-organization was mainly handled analogously and meetings with the management level took place in a continuous Word document. As the number of employees in the teams grew, it became increasingly complex to maintain an overview and ensure smooth collaboration. The need for a collaboration tool that could support and relieve the team members in their day-to-day work grew, and the decision was finally made to introduce a suitable solution.

Why Stackfield?

As a public office, highest data protection requirements were top priority and therefore more common software was quickly ruled out. Suitable alternatives were gathered via internet research and evaluated in test phases. Stackfield stood out as a data protection-compliant solution with a high level of user-friendliness and a straightforward structure. After an additional exchange with another local authority that was successfully using Stackfield in its own administration, the choice ultimately fell on Stackfield.

First steps

Stackfield was first only introduced to the Smart City team in order to gradually familiarize with Stackfield's functions within a reasonable scope. Once initial experience had been gained, Stackfield was gradually extended to other areas and teams were integrated on a project-related basis.

Today, Stackfield is used throughout the entire local authority. Döpp advises other authorities to first put together a group of interested employees to test the tool together. In addition, trainings for other teams help to ensure a smooth and pleasant start.

Team-internal organization of Smart City topics

The processing of various topics within the Smart City project is now carried out entirely via Stackfield. All relevant topics are collected and processed in a central room. With the help of individually created lists in the task board, topics and tasks are clearly structured, for example in categories such as to-dos for the team, topics to be worked on and topics to be brought to the leadership team.

To further enhance the overview, tasks can be divided into smaller sub-areas using subtask lists. The subtasks are then assigned individually to different team members and given deadlines. Döpp is particularly fond of the task cards: “Working in a team has become much more effective. Questions are clarified quickly and topics are assigned directly.”

Döpp emphasizes how much Stackfield has improved communication and organization compared to previous email exchanges. The current status of individual tasks and projects can be viewed by all team members at any time, which eliminates the need for time-consuming queries via email and has accelerated processes many times over. “This is incredibly helpful,” praises Döpp.

Collaboration with municipalities

Projects and topics that are worked on in cooperation between the office and municipalities often require a more intensive exchange. Stackfield acts as a central interface and enables a seamless and efficient flow of information.

Representatives from various municipalities are integrated into the Stackfield organization as guests with limited rights and can thus follow relevant processes in the relevant rooms and exchange information with the office in an uncomplicated manner. Döpp is enthusiastic about the smooth communication with external parties via Stackfield. She likes to actively involve external partners in her projects and uses both shared rooms and the private chat for this purpose. “I find that very charming,” she praises and emphasizes how much Stackfield supports documentation and transparency in collaboration.

Integrating specialist departments as teams

To simplify the management of specialist departments by the administration, each specialist department is defined as an independent team in the settings of the Stackfield organization. This way, the individual members no longer have to be laboriously added manually to each relevant room, but can be managed centrally as a team.

This division into teams is also a great support for personnel management, explains Döpp. If a person leaves a department, it is sufficient to remove them from the relevant team. The person is then automatically removed from all associated rooms, which saves time and reduces errors.

Self-organization in Stackfield

Stackfield can be beneficial not only for teamwork, but also for self-organization. Each person has the option of creating their own rooms to clearly manage personal tasks and notes. Döpp particularly appreciates the tasks in this context. “I have a very structured way of working with the tasks and subtasks, which is very effective,” she says. Each upcoming task is immediately created in her personal room and all relevant information such as PDFs and emails are bundled in there so that no detail is lost. Dated tasks automatically appear on the corresponding day in Döpp's “My Week” dashboard. This gives her a clear overview of upcoming tasks and allows her to work through them in a targeted manner.

Stackfield as a multifaceted solution

Today, Stackfield is used throughout the entire regional office Süderbrarup and provides support in numerous areas: clearly defined structures for onboarding, centralized and efficient communication with the management level and uncomplicated transmission of sick notes to the HR department - without the hassle of long emails. When asked what Döpp appreciates most about Stackfield, she replies: “Everything. Stackfield is a real success.”