Projects 

Scenario
ABC Suites (Pty) Ltd
"Operations keep the lights on, strategy provides the light at the end of the tunnel, but project management is the train engine that moves the organization forward" — Joy Gumz

The Challenge:
At his previous company, Stu Pendous, (Ops & Project Manager) used various Project Management tools but invariably got stuck in the complexity. What he was looking for was a simple feature that could help him consolidate all project related activity (Individual Objectives & Actions) in one place, under the various Projects and then track progress.

In addition to this, there was a need to have a high level dashboard view of each Project that could be expanded to view the detailed activity aligned with each project.

Further to this, the accounts department needed a Timesheet Management solution aligned to Projects. Finally, from a Quality Management point of view there was a need for a Risk Register per Project.

How ABC Suites uses epic:
Stu started using the Project feature in epic and immediately saw results.

Because everyone can simply ‘link’ their existing deadline-driven Objectives & Actions to Projects there is no need to develop a separate project report. This means that Project Managers have access to live reports on their specific projects. As individuals update their progress this automatically pulls through into the relevant project report.

Project management meetings are simple to conduct as all the information is already there in the form of a live Project report which forms the agenda for the meeting. Each Project can be expanded to view all objectives aligned to the project (including progress). This can be further expanded to view the aligned actions.

The result is a simple cascading view of 3 levels (Projects; Objectives; Actions). Individuals continue to concentrate on their allocated objectives, in the knowledge that their recorded progress is reflecting in the relevant project/s.

Everyone feels fully engaged and committed to the various projects as there is clarity, line of sight and team support for one another. Project delivery has improved in terms of both time and budget as a result.

The next need aligned to Projects was for an automated Timesheet solution. ABC Suites had until now been using Excel spreadsheets to try and capture weekly timesheets from everyone, collate the hours attributed to each project and use this as a basis to bill clients.

It was an overly complicated process with a high error rate. The automated Timesheet solution was exactly what they had been looking for, where individuals could capture and submit for approval billable hours per project on a weekly basis (along with Non-Billable) hours and the resultant report automatically collated the timesheets per project and per individual.

Finally, the Quality Manager needed a Risk Register per project - another feature that was quickly made available by the ever efficient epic developers, customised to the exact needs of the organisation.
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