Company | Arbella Insurance Group
Arbella Insurance is a regional firm of approximately 1,000 employees serving the home, auto, taxi, marine, and other insurance needs of MA, CT, and parts of RI. For more information, see www.arbella.com.
Foresight | Why We Chose @task
The Infrastructure Department at Arbella serves the Information System (IS) needs of the company and is currently working on about 30 projects, which span anywhere from one month to six months or a year. The Infrastructure Department has five managers and about 35 employees tackling the network and IT infrastructure. We needed a clear picture of our capacity from a human resources standpoint. We have people skilled in various disciplines and needed to understand how each role affected our overall capacity.
At that time, our Project Management Office (PMO) was using MS Server and MS Project, which I didn’t like because it gave us no ability to view our pool of resources and drill down into each resource. I had some experience with MS Project before and knew that it wouldn’t do what we needed. We had no way to monitor the status of hours each discipline (Oracle, Linux, etc.) put into each project. Basically, we didn’t know what the heck was going on. Managers would check in with their team members and ask how a project was going. The response was “good,” which told us nothing. We needed specific reporting metrics to measure and understand what was happening in all of our projects at any point in time.
When I began researching possible project management solutions, I had a list of 20-30 minimum requirements, and the list was up to 50 by the time I added requirements I would like to see, but could live without. As I went through the products out there, some of them could do some of the things on my required list, but none of them did them all. When I went through the review of @task, I liked what I saw because the software could do it all.
We needed allocation of hours for each discipline by day, week, and month; and an ability to show our capacity for handling upcoming projects, so we could prioritize and explain to corporate what our limitations were. It was key for us that the software posses a set of features that would allow us to report and drill down through current infrastructure team projects. Reporting and understanding an accurate picture of our progress were critical.
Hindsight | Why @task was the Right Choice
When corporate sends us a project, our status is so visible, we never say no. We have the information to explain our situation accurately, and quickly and efficiently gauge how the new project lines up against our groups. We have the visibility and accountability to give corporate an accurate picture of how our schedule will change if we take on the new project—that way we tackle priorities in line with our corporate strategy. @task lets us keep our finger on the pulse of the organization; collaboration is better. Now a weekly status meeting tells us which projects are in play and allows us to review all the timelines. We can quickly change views and check each phase of every project and quickly assess its status.
I would recommend @task—and have. I’ve told neighbors and friends with various levels of project management in their work. It is great to have resource status that is clear and up-to-date. We can identify where we have excess capacity, and if we need to tackle a new priority, exactly what will slip to accommodate it.
