Gantthead’s CEO, Dave Garrett, just posted an interview he had with Jim Herries, Program Manager, Business Products at ESRI discussing ESRI’s adoption of Clarizen in their organization. In this excerpt from the full article, he focuses on user adoption and how Clarizen’s user interface, usability and functionality made the introduction and adoption within the organization seamless.
To hone in on that topic a bit more closely, here are some Clarizen features designed specifically to compel project managers and team members alike to use the Clarizen platform for all areas of their daily work.
- Clarizen enables the integration of every day work emails and documents into the structure of a project plan. All the actual work performed – writing documents, sending emails and preparing deliverables are now linked and associated with the relevant task assigned in the project plan. No need to send large attachments to multiple recipients and get confused with document versions – use Clarizen to upload documents and email stakeholders about relevant issues. It become easy to access and track all the work that has been performed and decisions made concerning each task and project.
- Team members or “Light” users receive real time, tailored reminders of all their ongoing tasks, including their expected progress and can update their progress directly from their email without the need to login to the application. This helps focus their work and makes sure communication flows seamlessly throughout the organization – each employee knows what's expected of him and each manager knows exactly what the status of his or her project is at any given moment.
- Adoption is also encouraged by exposing each user only to the project information relevant to them. There's no complex navigation of a huge project plan to locate a specific task within a specific project. With just one click a user can see their to-do items and items they are reviewers of.
Now, onto the Q&A from the Gantthead article.
Q. Prior to your most recent implementation, what were your experiences with PM software adoption?
Prior to Clarizen, we used Microsoft Project but team adoption was not sufficient enough to meet the demands and expectations we set on our company and products. Our team consists of 50 people across eleven cities and thirteen time zones – without constant guidance and monitoring, it was difficult to communicate effectively between teams to meet deadlines and deliver products on time. Microsoft Project limited our team’s potential – even the most effective project manager can spend time and resources on creating a plan and, for various reasons, fall victim to not executing the plan effectively and efficiently. Clarizen’s focus on execution won us over – the features and functionality that the solution provides ensures that our teams followed the plans that they spend time creating.
Q. What are the top three things to keep in mind, relative to adoption, when implementing PM software?
1. Choose a solution that does not require extensive training. Employees are already set in their ways and comfortable with past methods of planning and working on a project, even if the methods are not effective. By implementing a solution that is user-intuitive and easy to understand, team members are more willing to exchange their old tricks for better solutions that save time and resources. Online demos, tours and resources for training, that are insightful to the everyday user, are also helpful if a project leader is not available to train an entire team.
2. Choose solutions that integrate with everyday tools. Clarizen’s integration with Microsoft Outlook, for instance, ensures that team members who are hesitant to use the new solution will jump right in because it is a comfortable medium. Our teams and various project constituents receive email updates pertaining to their activities, and with multiple projects going on simultaneously among team members in offices across the country, this feature facilitates clear communication on deliverables and deadlines without overwhelming the team with unnecessary details.
3. Choose Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solutions because it is constantly available from any web browser, allowing project managers and leads to communicate, update, add tasks, etc., from anywhere in the world. This reliability for on-demand and real time updates becomes critical to day-to-day activities and long term success. Clarizen’s “Roadmap” feature allows PMs to easily monitor the status of the project with a real-time view of where items stand, behind or ahead of schedule. This allows us to be nimble and alter the plan as needed. By inputting and tracking the milestones of each phase of the project in the Roadmap, our team is keenly focused on each step, helping create and follow a meaningful plan.
Q. How did the Clarizen software suite facilitate better user adoption? Was it more about the software’s functionality or your approach to implementing it?
Clarizen is intuitive to our user needs and this eased the process of getting our team up to speed on the solution. Since February 2009 when our software development team started using Clarizen, our level of team effectiveness has improved drastically. Now PMs structure meetings around Clarizen, which helps them remain focused on primary issues and not get sidetracked by updating status items. This level of focus and efficiency alone has reduced time, money and resources spent on a project, ultimately encouraging company-wide adoption.
Particularly, the PMs benefit from the scalability of the interface, allowing them to see issues and delays in schedule in a matter of seconds. This level of accountability has improved meetings exponentially and resulted in more meaningful discussions about the status and progress of a project. Because we are able to focus less on updating the team and more on developing products, we are hitting all our release dates. Subsequently, the team is pleased and clearly working more efficiently because the projects are going much better overall. Even those who were skeptical about using the tool at first are now eager to use it.