MondayWiki

I need your opinions. (Possibly your strongest opinions.)

I've spent an embarrassingly large chunk of my life/bank balance trying project management software. It's basically a hobby disguised as "research."

Here's my question...

If monday.com vanished overnight (don't panic, it's only a thought experiment 😅), what would you replace it with?

I'm not talking about a simple to-do list.

I'm talking about something that can genuinely handle complex business systems, relational data, workflows, automations... the whole enchilada.

I've been rambling about this over on the MondayWiki community after monday.com's increasingly enthusiastic AI adventures sent me down another software rabbit hole.

I'd love your recommendations.

Comment below, or if you're in the community, jump into the discussion there (link in comments). Convince me there's something out there that's actually worth learning.

(And before anyone asks... no, I'm not leaving monday.com. I complain about it like family, but I'm still weirdly obsessed with it. 🤓)

Shiny toy syndrome...the struggle is real!

It never made sense (even to me) until I figured out last year that I have ADHD. And I don't just have ADHD, I have ADHD up the yin yang!

Which probably explains both my fascination with digital systems (especially task/project managers, productivity apps and time tracking tools) and also why I have constantly tested, adopted then cancelled tool after tool for as long as I can remember.
(The amount of money I have wasted on software subscriptions over the past 10 years or so would be enough to feed a small island nation for a year!)

Monday.com is actually the ONLY tool I have stuck with consistently in my business and life for any length of time.

And ironically, it's NOT because it's so amazing that I just can't leave. (Sorry monday).

It's actually the challenges, limitations and frustrations that monday presents to users that keeps me coming back for more and experimenting with new and better ways of doing things.

That and the fact that you can build and re-build monday however and whenever you want.

Those two things are actually what keep me coming back to monday.

And it's precisely because of my ADHD brain that I have learned to do things in monday natively that other monday experts and monday support will tell you are 100% guaranteed impossible.
(Like set up fully automatic native time tracking with accurate time sheets, or enable the ability to use cross board automations even when multiple boards are connected to the same connect boards column).

So I guess, until Monday eliminates the many challenges and frustrations that users run into time and time again, I will keep doing what I'm doing - testing, tweaking, trying things that are impossible and building solutions, hacks and workarounds for monday users that help them get more done with monday with less stress and frustration.

Dear Monday.com users - please stop doing this! (It's killing your systems).

🚨 Stop turning your Status column into a colourful freestyle note-taking competition.

I see it all the time.

Someone wants to remember one little thing...

"Commercial Job."

New status label.

"VIP Client."

New status label.

"Waiting for Deposit."

New status label.

"Large Project."

New status label.

"Customer called."

New status label.

Fast forward three months and your Status column looks like someone emptied a bag of M&Ms onto your board.

🌈 47 colours.
🏷️ 33 labels.
🤷 Nobody knows what happened before.
🤔 Nobody knows what should happen next.

One of my favourite examples is when people start entering the type of job into a column that's supposed to show the status of the job.

Those are two completely different things.

A Status column can only answer one question.

✔️ Where is this job in the process?

OR

✔️ What type of job is it?

The moment you try to make it answer both...
..it answers neither.

Sometimes the best monday.com upgrade isn't adding another feature.

It's deleting 20 status labels.

monday.com

One of the most expensive mistakes I see people make in monday is building boards before they've figured out what the hell they're actually trying to manage.

The sequence usually goes something like this:

👉 Sign up for monday

👉 Get excited

👉 Build a Projects board

👉 Build a CRM board

👉 Discover automations

👉 Build three more boards

👉 Wonder why everything still feels messy

The problem isn't the boards.

The problem is that most people start designing the system before they've understood the business.

Who owns what?

What actually happens next?

What does "done" mean?

What information needs tracking?

Where are things currently falling through the cracks?

Those questions aren't particularly exciting.

Building automations is much more fun.

Unfortunately, the boring questions are the ones that determine whether your monday account becomes a superpower or a very colourful collection of confusion.

I've lost count of how many businesses I've seen rebuild the same boards over and over again.

Not because they built them badly.

Because they built them before they had clarity.

It's a bit like arguing over paint colours before you've decided how many rooms the house has.

So whether you're brand new to monday or you've been using it for years...

Before you build the next board, spend a little time understanding the work you're trying to support.

Future You will be extremely grateful.

Current You will probably ignore this advice and build the board anyway.

That's fine.

Future You and I will be here when Board Rebuild #7 inevitably arrives. 😅

One of the biggest surprises I had when I first started using Monday CRM was discovering that it isn't really a CRM.

At least not in the way most people think about a CRM.

I know that sounds strange.

After all, it's literally called Monday CRM.

It has contacts.

Deals.

Activities.

Sales pipelines.

All the CRM-shaped things you'd expect a CRM to have.

But after spending years building systems for clients on monday, I've come to realise that Monday CRM is actually something else entirely.

It's a business systems platform that happens to come with a CRM pre-installed.

That's a very different thing.

A traditional CRM is usually designed around a specific way of working.

You sign up.

Import your contacts.

Configure a few settings.

Maybe add a couple of automations.

And away you go.

Monday CRM is more like being handed a workshop full of tools and materials and being told:

"Build the CRM that works for your business."

For some businesses, that's brilliant.

For others, it's a nasty surprise.

Because they thought they were buying a CRM and accidentally signed up for a system design project. 😅

And honestly, that's where I see many organisations get stuck.

They spend weeks tweaking boards, creating automations, redesigning workflows and trying to make everything fit together.

Not because they're doing anything wrong.

But because they're solving a much bigger problem than they realised.

They're not configuring software.

They're designing operations.

Once you understand that, monday starts making a lot more sense.

The learning curve makes sense.

The flexibility makes sense.

The setup effort makes sense.

The fact that two businesses can both use Monday CRM and end up with completely different systems makes sense.

I'm curious...

When you first signed up for Monday CRM, did you think you were getting a CRM?

Or did you realise from day one that you were actually buying a platform for building business systems?

monday.com

I've always known this day was coming.

Not next week.

Not next month.

But eventually.

The day when monday stopped being a system builder with AI super powers and became an AI super power that could build systems.

I've been expecting it for years.

What I wasn't expecting was to be sitting here after the latest product updates wondering if that day might be arriving a lot sooner than I thought.

Like next month "sooner".

Maybe I'm reading too much into it.

Maybe I've spent too many years staring at workflows and automation recipes and my brain has finally turned into a dependency column.

But I'm starting to wonder...

What happens to Monday CRM?

What happens to Work Management?

Service?

Dev?

Do these remain products in their own right?

Or are they going to disappear and instead you simply type:

"Build me a CRM for my business."

And then p**f... 🪄

The AI disappears behind the curtain, pulls a few levers, releases some steam, and assembles an entire system.

But what about that entire system you build in monday CRM? What happens to that when AI takes over completely?

To be clear, this isn't an anti-AI post.

I use AI every day.

I think AI is incredible.

This is more of a practical question.

Because I work with businesses that have spent months, and sometimes years, building systems around monday's current products.

They've mapped processes.

Documented workflows.

Built automations.

Trained teams.

Created reporting structures.

Connected half their business operations together with varying degrees of hope and cable ties.

These aren't systems you casually replace over a long weekend.

Which is why I'd love some clarity from monday about the long-term vision.

Is AI becoming an assistant that helps us use the products?

Or are the products themselves being absorbed into the AI experience? (And if the answer to that question is "yes" then the next obvious question is "When?").

Because if the destination is a fully AI-driven platform, some organisations may decide that's exactly what they want.

Others may not.

And if people need to make that decision, a year's notice isn't actually a very long time when you've built a significant chunk of your business on top of the platform.

And I'm guessing, at the rate monday is going, we have far less than a year before this becomes reality. If my suspicions are correct (and I'm not just a "big monday" conspiracy theorist).

Curious whether anyone else is wondering the same thing after the recent announcements.

Am I spotting genuine signposts here...
..or am I just the guy standing in a field shouting at a cloud that turned out to be a sheep?

monday.com

Back when monday Sales CRM first appeared, I watched a lot of people walk into exactly the same trap.

It went something like this:

"Great. We've bought a CRM."

Spoiler alert:

They hadn't bought a CRM.

Not really.

They'd bought a giant box of Lego and somebody had stuck a "CRM" label on the front. 😅

At first glance it all looks reassuringly CRM-ish.

Leads.

Deals.

Pipelines.

Nice colours.

A few templates.

Everything appears ready to go.

So naturally people start customising.

A new status here.

A couple of automations there.

Maybe an extra board.

Maybe seven extra boards.

Then a few weeks later they're sitting in front of a monday account wondering why something that looked so simple now resembles a conspiracy wall from a detective movie.

Strings everywhere.

Connections everywhere.

Nobody quite sure what's connected to what.

The funny thing is, monday wasn't the problem.

monday was being completely honest.

It was saying:

"You told me to build this. So I did."

The reality is that monday isn't really a CRM.

It's a system-building platform that can become a CRM.

Or a project management system.

Or a client portal.

Or an operational command centre.

Or a very expensive collection of boards nobody understands.

That's both the magic and the danger.

It's why I often say that monday's greatest superpower is also its kryptonite.

Bring clarity into monday and it'll amplify that clarity.

Bring confusion into monday and it'll amplify that too.

Very efficiently.

With dashboards.

And automations.

And colour coding.

One of the most common things I see isn't businesses running out of features.

It's businesses running out of clarity.

They spend three weeks debating statuses when nobody has agreed what the sales process actually is.

They build automations for decisions that haven't been made yet.

They create reporting for workflows that only exist in theory.

The software gets blamed.

The real culprit quietly escapes through a side door.

These days, whenever someone tells me they're evaluating monday, I care far less about how many users they have than whether they've actually mapped the process they're trying to manage.

Because somewhere out there right now is a monday account containing:

• 14 status columns

• 63 automations

• 4 duplicate pipelines

• A board called "NEW CRM"

• A board called "NEW CRM V2"

• And a board called "USE THIS ONE"

Let's not make another one of those. 😂

monday.com

One of the biggest mistakes I see new monday users make happens within the first hour.

They sign up.

Open the CRM template.

And immediately start customising it.

New columns.

New statuses.

New automations.

New boards.

A few weeks later they're wondering why everything feels more complicated than it did before.

Here's the thing...

The CRM template isn't "the monday way."

It's just *a* way.

And if you haven't yet figured out how your business actually works, what you're tracking, who owns what, and how work flows through the business, you're basically decorating the house before you've decided where the walls go.

This is one of the reasons people get frustrated with monday.

They think they're configuring software.

What they're actually doing is designing an operating system for their business.

That's a very different exercise.

The funny thing is that monday's greatest superpower is also its kryptonite.

You can build almost anything.

Which means you can also build an incredibly sophisticated mess. 😅

So before you start tweaking templates, adding automations and creating seventeen different status columns...

Take a step back.

Figure out what problem you're actually trying to solve first.

Your future self will thank you.

Your future self is also probably still trying to work out why Automation #47 is firing every Thursday at 3:17pm.

monday.com