How a Cross-Functional Team at Nasdaq Built a Scalable System with Todoist

Play video

In his role as Head of Revenue Intelligence Financial Technology at Nasdaq, Ben Haaland is used to juggling. His global team of five builds and manages the internal analytics that power Nasdaq’s financial technology division, which sells financial technology to exchanges and banks around the world.

“I need a quick way to assess where we are,” he says. “And Todoist helps me get that view quickly, so I’m not spending all my time just figuring out where we are with everything.”

Because the team is responsible for critical internal analytics that the business depends on to understand how it’s performing, the day-to-day work and stakeholders involved are rarely the same, Revenue Intelligence Specialist Grace Thomas says.

“We’ve got a lot of stakeholders, which can make the job a little bit harder,” she says. “There’s a lot going on at once, but it also is what makes it so rewarding.”

Alignment without micromanagement

The team uses a Kanban board setup in Todoist – with columns for backlog, executing, waiting on others, and done – plus has a daily stand-up, which can vary from 15 minutes to an hour.

“It’s really important for us to understand what we’re waiting for from other groups,” Ben says. “So on the daily stand-up, we go through that list. Each project has a definition of done and it’s got a priority, so I can help the team understand what they should be working on and what can fall below.”

Since the team is constantly fielding requests from across the organization, Todoist gives Ben a top-line view of everything in motion without him needing to micromanage.

“I do not want to prescribe how people keep track and execute on their work,” he says. “That’s not my job. We do it at a much higher level.”

A reputation as a proactive and efficient team

Grace says Todoist helps the team run efficiently and avoid unnecessary calls. 

“Ben can hop in Todoist and see that there’s already a couple of things he needs to review,” she says. “It just saves having to talk through things when the status is already updated, the latest comments are in there, and there are links to what needs to get reviewed within that project.”

When Ben went on parental leave, the team kept moving and he could check Todoist whenever he wanted.

Other internal teams have started paying attention. Ben has shown his management team how his team operates and colleagues sit in on stand-ups just to see how they do things.

“I think we’re a pretty efficient and effective team,” Grace says. “People are interested in how we run.”

A tool simple enough to actually stick

Grace started using Todoist upon joining the team 4 years ago and found the setup took almost no time.

That simplicity is exactly what Ben says keeps him from looking elsewhere.

“I just love that it’s super simple,” he says. “That’s why I’ve always loved Todoist over all the competitors. It answers: who owns it? When does it need to get done? What’s its priority? And then you give us total flexibility to put whatever we want in the comments.”

Nowadays, Grace has Todoist open all day: “It helps our team operate in a much more efficient way, which saves the day sometimes,” she says.

Three tips from this Nasdaq team’s Todoist setup

1. Use a Kanban view to keep the structure high-level, with clear visibility into blockers. Knowing exactly what’s in someone else’s court is crucial for cross-functional teams. The board tracks what matters like who owns it, what the status is, and what’s blocking it, yet leaves flexibility for how each person actually gets their work done.

2. Put dates and deadlines on all tasks, and treat them differently. A date tells the team when you’re working on the task. A deadline tells them when it actually has to be done. Using both means nothing slips through. “I love the date/deadline feature,” Ben says. “We have a date we can speak to and check in on, and then a deadline for when it actually needs to be executed on.”

3. Add comments and documents directly to the Todoist task. Instead of starting a separate thread or sending a follow-up email, the team keeps everything in the relevant task. That way, when someone needs to check in, it’s all already there.