Business Situation

• In the last five years, Progressive doubled its size, and what had worked previously for a $2 billion business was no longer working for a $4 billion business. On the IT side, there was no IT architecture, no Projects Office, and no way of seeing a helicopter-view of what was going on.
• The challenge was creating a visible IT architecture that aligned the IT strategy with the business to continually improve the customer experience.
• With IT initiatives increasingly driving business – such as online shopping and loyalty schemes – the other challenge was how to deliver more within the same budget.

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Pain Points

• No visibility or way of viewing complex information in a simpler way. No helicopter view available across IT projects.
• No single view to show projects’ status and benefits.
• No consistent applications used across the projects’ area.
• No projects office or centralised project management process.
• Reporting on projects difficult due to decentralisation and consistency issues.

The Solution

• As part of the new IT architecture, an IT Projects Office was set up. All project managers were bought together under this office.
• For governance, an IT Steering Committee was set up - including the General Manager - IT, the CEO and General Managers from the different business groups.
• A projects’ process was defined and structured. Approximately 40 active projects are on the go in the IT business unit at any one time.
• Adopted iTools’ application to get an overall view very fast. Couldn’t afford to take six months to implement the hardware and software for a project tool. Using the ASP model, iTools was running all of Progressive’s IT projects within one month.
• iTools structures IT programme information into different views and workstreams. There is an inbuilt hierarchy, with executive dashboard reporting on projects’ status and benefits.
• ITools provides an escalation mechanism if there are issues Project Managers need management or Project Sponsor assistance with.

Value to Business

• Ability to measure projects’ benefits from iTools. Helps project managers demonstrate what they’ve achieved, and keeps them focused on the original business case deliverables.
• Increased visibility, and the ability to report on Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) right across the IT business unit.
• Real-time status reporting provides the ability to detect problems – such as budget overruns - early on so that corrective action can be taken.
• Ability to p rioritise projects. The way information is presented on iTools – comparing projects on a like-for-like basis - helps with prioritising and selecting the projects that are given the green light.
• Project managers use iTools’ workflow to allocate tasks, actions, and timesheeting. iTools makes it easy for them to see what is going on with their projects – equating to less time spent on administration and more time spent managing projects.
• Makes it easier to report through to the IT Steering Committee – generating one report on iTools – rather than ringing round 20 people to compile reports.
• With past projects’ histories archived on iTools, learnings are used to scope new projects, and help decide which projects to action next.