Business Situation

• AUT had grown to such a sizeable business that adopting a consistent project management approach across the university had become critical to its future - with major projects such as the university-wide Voice Over IP project at stake.
• The university environment is disparate. Run across five faculties and several campuses, instilling project management disciplines in an institutional environment was a real challenge for the newly formed Projects Office.

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Pain Points

• Manual tools increasingly inadequate to manage and control projects. The static nature of the tools impeded the natural workflow in project teams.
• No central place to communicate or access project information - shared directories and email increasingly clumsy to use.
• Impossible to see what was happening within and across projects. Management had no top-level view, and could not see problem hot-spots.
• No consistency - different tools used to manage projects and for reporting purposes - a Projects Office' nightmare for central co-ordination.

The Solution

• A hosted, web-based solution providing a central, consistent platform for teams and external contractors to access information.
• A communication tool that automates workflow within project teams.
• An inbuilt information hierarchy, allowing project data to be 'rolled up' for consolidated views across programmes.
• An executive dashboard for senior management providing real-time status reporting on key performance indicators.

Value to Business

Today, AUT has:

• A Projects Office' support service that has supported hundreds of projects across multiple programmes.
• Successfully implemented iTools Control to automate projects' workflow, facilitate communication channels, and track and monitor programmes of projects.
• An online reporting facility providing senior management with a 'dashboard' view of what is happening in real time.
• Facilitated cultural change with strong uptake of project management principles and iTools across the university.

Pain Relief

• Dynamic Workflow: Project managers and team members have personalised views showing the tasks, issues or risks they are responsible for. After a task is completed, actions and comments are automatically forwarded to the next person in the workflow.
• Visibility: All staff can see a list of projects so they understand some of the changes going on in the university.
• Accessibility across a disparate environment: The web interface means that AUT staff and contractors can access project information anytime and from anywhere, making it ideal for users spread across faculties, locations and contractors.
• Reporting: AUT staff have substantially reduced the time to produce Project Status and summary reporting through iTools and Crystal Reporting systems.
• Consolidation: Management see a rolled-up view of all projects and can quickly prioritise which projects, risks and issues most need their attention. The reporting dashboard and KPI reports are cornerstone to embedding a culture of project management across the university.
• Managing Complexity: Whereas once there was no central record of what was going on and where in the university, AUT can now handle a high volume of projects more efficiently.