CATCHING THE VISION How enterprise work management revived American Capital’s IT PMO
American Capital
• Industry: Financial Services
• Employees: 300
• Manages $18.6B in assets
• In 2012, IT PMO handles $9.9-million budget
CUSTOMER BACKGROUND
By the fall 2011, the American Capital IT PMO was busy but with no visibility into project status or resources. Nine months earlier, they’d spent $40,000 on project management software that failed to produce a single useful report.
Q3 2011: ZERO VISIBILITY
CIO Kim Jacques lost 2 weeks every quarter on data-gathering alone. Despite being busy, the PMO couldn’t provide her with a simple list of projects being worked on.
Q3 2011: ZERO VISIBILITY
“We had no way of knowing how taxed individuals were on one project versus another. We didn’t have a line of sight on budgets. We didn’t have scope of what was coming up. We didn’t have any of that data.” –Kim Jacques, CIO
Q3 2011: ZERO VISIBILITY
In October, Jen French started as PMO senior manager and commenced formalizing data-gathering, defining projects, and collecting timesheet information via Excel spreadsheets.
Q4 2011: DATA STRUGGLES
This process consumed 60% of Jen’s time per week.
Reports to executives were outdated.
The PMO lost productivity maintaining spreadsheets.
Q4 2011: DATA STRUGGLES
“I didn’t have time to think strategically, ‘How do we improve the PMO?’ It was just, ‘How can we get some kind of reporting out there?’” –Jen French, Senior Manager
Q4 2011: DATA STRUGGLES
Jen set out to find a new project management tool. But after evaluating several tools, she was inspired by the end-to-end visibility the AtTask enterprise work management solution offered.
Q1 2012: GOING SHOPPING
An on-site AtTask consultant set the PMO up in 3 short weeks. The team picked up the intuitive tool quickly. Kim was delighted as AtTask instantly began producing invaluable reports.
Q1 2012: RAMPING UP
With real-time reporting, Jen could see project status, budgets, and team member workloads.
Q2 2012: INCREASING VISIBILITY
With less time spent on data-gathering and reporting, Jen could spot opportunities to increase PMO efficiency and align efforts to company goals.
Q2 2012: INCREASING VISIBILITY
Clear visibility made it easy for Kim to justify PMO resources and budgets to senior management.
Q2 2012: INCREASING VISIBILITY
Real-time reports on project status, resource workloads, and project expenditures allowed management to make smarter, data-driven decisions.
Q2 2012: INCREASING VISIBILITY
The PMO saved $160,000 per year on status and time collection.
Q2 2012: INCREASING VISIBILITY
The CIO got back 10% of her workweek.
Q2 2012: INCREASING VISIBILITY
“If I have a new project manager, I can sit with them and train them. I can think about how we’re going to expand our PMO expertise.” –Jen French, Senior Manager
Q2 2012: INCREASING VISIBILITY
“The value I get from AtTask is the data to market IT. We’re running 40 active projects at any given time. Ninety-five percent of those are within budget. I couldn’t say that without making up the numbers until now.” –Kim Jacques, CIO
Q2 2012: INCREASING VISIBILITY
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