Project Porfolio Management
Keeping Records of Company Projects
ComAp manages a development project portfolio for software and hardware products. Projects of this kind require a lot of work and contain many partial tasks. Project managers must schedule, monitor, and regularly evaluate all project work, while flexibly responding to incoming changes.
Originally, ComAp used several separate systems to keep records of its projects, including both internal company systems and third-party applications: ERP and Atlassian Jira. Project data was only linked at the level of project ID numbers. Employees had to update a lot of information in the partial systems manually and the data was managed at several places at once. Also, each of the systems contained a different set of project information.
ComAp specialises in development and manufacturing of control systems used in various industries, including the energy industry. The company faced the challenge of getting a better insight into its projects, while building a reliable reporting solution for its project data.
Our solution grants a greater visibility on company projects, so the business can monitor their progress, including task progress at the lowest level, using highly intuitive visualisations and simple controls.
Efficient Planning
This made the job of ComAp managers quite difficult. They had to stay current on their projects, while different parts of the projects were handled and managed by different, isolated systems. Also, there was no clear structure and visualisation of all project tasks and subtasks. That’s why they started to consider how they could consolidate the data and project tasks, to make them available from a single place, while improving the visibility.
Our main task was to provide insight into software and hardware development. ComAp needed a simple and functional solution, providing the company management with constant visibility of the progress of each project, including its partial tasks.
Project Portfolio Management
We have chosen a solution that shall simplify the process and make it more intuitive, while linking all project records under one roof. Our first step was to select a proper platform for the solution implementation. As our client had some experience with Atlassian Jira and was happy to use it, we’ve decided to deploy our Project Portfolio Management (PPM) solution on this platform.
As per our client’s requirements, we built a project structure, implementing the project phase management logic within. Then, we put specific project delivery tasks into individual project structures. Also, we interconnected the entire structure with links, while automating some of the processes. To provide project managers with a better insight into project status, we added new visualisations, which clearly inform authorised users of the status of each project task.
Simple and Intuitive
The solution saves our client a lot of human labour, as many of the tasks are now automatically carried out by the system. Without convenient tools to keep records of project data, all project management work would take much longer. In addition to providing the company management with insight into anything it may need, the product saves a lot of time for a lot of employees. No longer must they waste their time searching for data in different systems.
“In cooperation with Unicorn Systems, we have managed to implement a practical project management solution. The solution can break down the process of project sub-deliveries into smaller tasks, facilitating cooperation across multiple independent teams,” says Jana Skokanová, R&D Business Service Owner at ComAp. “Thanks to the selected platform, the solution was adapted quickly and successfully.”
Our solution for Project Portfolio Management has improved the efficiency of project management within the company while contributing to the increased quality of project data used to make important executive decisions. The company management has gained a comprehensive view of all of company's projects in a clearly-arranged graphical form. Also, the solution collaborates and shares data with other ComAp’s systems, such as its ERP, capacity planning system, or Business Intelligence.
Everything in One Place
At present, ComAp has all the information it needs on the progress of its software and hardware development available in one place, in Jira. The company management can see what is required, what projects are currently being implemented, and how many hours have been actually worked on each task.
As a result, ComAp can use our solution for Project Portfolio Management to improve the efficiency of its project planning, execution, and record-keeping. Through Atlassian Jira, it can track all of its project tasks, down to their tiniest details.
