How We Train Teams on Wrike: the Method for Real and Widespread Adoption
- Roberto Benanti
- May 15
- 4 min read
Training a team on Wrike isn't difficult. The problem is that in most cases the training works for the first two weeks, and then the team falls back into old habits: email, chat, Excel. Wrike stays open in a tab nobody looks at anymore.
Working with Italian SMEs, we have come to understand that the problem is not the training itself. It is that training is designed as an event rather than a process. In this article we share the method we use to ensure that Wrike is genuinely adopted, not just installed.
Why traditional Wrike training doesn't work
The most common model we see is this: two hours of training with a consultant, an overview of the main features, some hands-on exercises, and done. The team leaves the session motivated. After ten days, half of them haven't created a single task.
The reasons are always the same. Training shows the tool in a vacuum, not in the real context of that person's actual work. Old habits are stronger than any training session. And there is no mechanism that makes using Wrike necessary: as long as email works, email stays.
Our method: three phases for real adoption
Over the years we have developed a three-phase approach that has proven effective across very different contexts: engineering firms, marketing teams, operations offices.
Phase 1: configuration before training. Before the team sees Wrike for the first time, the platform must already reflect their real work. Real projects, real tasks, real statuses. Not an empty demo. When someone opens Wrike and finds their own activities already there, the cognitive leap they need to make is minimal.
Phase 2: contextual training, not generic. The training session doesn't explain Wrike in the abstract. It explains how to do the specific things that person does every day. The project manager learns to manage task dependencies. The team member learns to update task statuses. The admin learns to use intake forms. Each person learns only what they need immediately.
Phase 3: side-by-side support in the first four weeks. This is the most critical phase and the one almost always skipped. In the first four weeks after go-live, we support the team with brief weekly check-ins. Not to teach new features, but to resolve the concrete blocks that emerge in real work: a task that can't be configured, a workflow that doesn't add up, a colleague who can't get access.
The role of the internal champion
One of the elements that makes the biggest difference in adoption is having an internal champion: someone on the team who believes in the project, learns Wrike before the others, and becomes the go-to reference for colleagues in the first weeks.
The internal champion doesn't need to be the most senior person. Often it is the most digitally curious person, not the highest in the hierarchy. Their role is to answer colleagues' daily questions without having to involve the external consultant every time.
In implementations where we worked with an identified and trained internal champion before go-live, the adoption rate is significantly higher than in cases where this figure doesn't exist. Not because the champion knows everything, but because their enthusiasm is contagious and their availability lowers the resistance threshold for colleagues.
How we measure adoption
We don't measure adoption by the number of features used or session time on the platform. We use three far more concrete behavioural signals.
• Questions about the project are asked inside Wrike, not via email or chat.
• Status updates are entered autonomously, without external reminders.
• New team members are introduced to Wrike by their colleagues, not by the consultant.
When these three behaviours are consistently present, adoption is real. Wrike has become part of the way that team works, not an additional tool some people use and others don't. For a broader view of what successful adoption looks like from day one, read Wrike for Teams Who Have Never Used a PM Tool: Where to Start.
"The signal that convinced me we were heading in the right direction was when a new colleague asked about a project and a team member sent them the direct Wrike task link without even thinking about it." Operations manager, B2B consulting firm.
What changes compared to standard training
The main difference between our approach and standard training is not the number of hours dedicated. It is the timing: we work before the team sees the tool, during the first weeks of real use, and not only at the moment of training.
This requires a slightly greater time investment in the initial phase. But the return is an adoption that holds over time, rather than training that produces enthusiasm for two weeks and then fades. The ROI calculation for this type of implementation is almost always favourable: to explore the method we use to estimate it, read ROI of Digitalisation: the Formula We Use.
Implementing Wrike and want the team to actually use it?
At SBK Solutions we support Italian SMEs not just in configuring Wrike, but through the entire adoption journey: from choosing the pilot process to contextual training, through to post-go-live support. Our goal isn't to train the team on Wrike: it's to make Wrike the way the team works.
Or read all articles in the Wrike & Project Management category.
