How American Capital's IT PMO was revived with AtTask

CATCHING THE VISION How enterprise work management revived American Capital’s IT PMO

American Capital

•  Industry: Financial Services

•  Employees: 300

•  Manages $18.6B in assets

•  In 2012, IT PMO handles $9.9-million budget

CUSTOMER BACKGROUND

By the fall 2011, the American Capital IT PMO was busy but with no visibility into project status or resources. Nine months earlier, they’d spent $40,000 on project management software that failed to produce a single useful report.

Q3 2011: ZERO VISIBILITY

CIO Kim Jacques lost 2 weeks every quarter on data-gathering alone. Despite being busy, the PMO couldn’t provide her with a simple list of projects being worked on.


“We had no way of knowing how taxed individuals were on one project versus another. We didn’t have a line of sight on budgets. We didn’t have scope of what was coming up. We didn’t have any of that data.” –Kim Jacques, CIO


In October, Jen French started as PMO senior manager and commenced formalizing data-gathering, defining projects, and collecting timesheet information via Excel spreadsheets.

Q4 2011: DATA STRUGGLES

This process consumed 60% of Jen’s time per week.

Reports to executives were outdated.

The PMO lost productivity maintaining spreadsheets.


“I didn’t have time to think strategically, ‘How do we improve the PMO?’ It was just, ‘How can we get some kind of reporting out there?’” –Jen French, Senior Manager


Jen set out to find a new project management tool. But after evaluating several tools, she was inspired by the end-to-end visibility the AtTask enterprise work management solution offered.

Q1 2012: GOING SHOPPING

An on-site AtTask consultant set the PMO up in 3 short weeks. The team picked up the intuitive tool quickly. Kim was delighted as AtTask instantly began producing invaluable reports.

Q1 2012: RAMPING UP

With real-time reporting, Jen could see project status, budgets, and team member workloads.

Q2 2012: INCREASING VISIBILITY

With less time spent on data-gathering and reporting, Jen could spot opportunities to increase PMO efficiency and align efforts to company goals.


Clear visibility made it easy for Kim to justify PMO resources and budgets to senior management.


Real-time reports on project status, resource workloads, and project expenditures allowed management to make smarter, data-driven decisions.


The PMO saved $160,000 per year on status and time collection.


The CIO got back 10% of her workweek.


“If I have a new project manager, I can sit with them and train them. I can think about how we’re going to expand our PMO expertise.” –Jen French, Senior Manager


“The value I get from AtTask is the data to market IT. We’re running 40 active projects at any given time. Ninety-five percent of those are within budget. I couldn’t say that without making up the numbers until now.” –Kim Jacques, CIO


How American Capital's IT PMO was revived with AtTask

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