Challenge
Project teams and senior leadership did not have the proper information to make trade-off decisions in regards to launching projects. Resource capacity to take on new and existing work was unknown, therefore commitments were being made with assumptions that adequate resources were available to plan and execute the work.
Solution
In partnership with Wrike, we developed a new way of working using Wrike blueprints to create resource loaded detailed project schedules without invoking Wrike notifications to task assignees. We also developed resource capacity reporting for launched projects so we can get a full picture of our resource constraints (blueprint projects plus live launched).
Value
I have found Wrike to be extremely valuable in supporting our new ways of working. We have a much better handle on our inventory of projects. We have a way to intake new work and make informed decisions before we live launch any project into the business. This reduces project risk and increases the likelihood of project success.
“The Wrike team and Wrike project software has been instrumental in supporting our new ways of working with a focus on resource capacity management. For the first time, we now have a way to provide visibility to our project teams and senior leadership on task assignee effort in the detailed Wrike schedules. This supports better decision making before a project gets live launched into the business to ensure we have the right people working on the right projects at the right time.“
Challenge
Visibility and accountability across our business.
We had 4 goals.
- Drive efficiency
- Improve collaboration
- Maximize communication
- Simplicity
Solution
We have brought visibility and accountability to our business. Wrike has improved collaboration and communication and increased efficiency. It provides leadership with a real time status of our remodel program.
Value
- We are able to perform virtual site visits using our new platforms (Wrike and HoloBuilder)
- Real time scheduling has reduced time waiting for an update
- Updates reduce the need to return to site in order to verify corrections. Pictures of corrected issues are easily uploaded into Wrike.
- Issues are quickly resolved due to real time information, thus reducing the time spent researching the issue.
“Wrike is highly customizable platform that can be used across several different disciplines“.
Challenge
How can we give visibility to existing work to various stakeholders and use that information to understand true capacity and ability to take on new work.
Solution
Using a mix of interlinked spaces and dynamic reporting we allow projects to move from intake to completion bringing in stakeholders as needed but not overwhelming everyone with unneeded data.
Value
Better visibility and understanding of other teams work along with their capacity constraints and ways of working. More collaboration due to the ease of tagging and sharing key elements of projects and centralized location for everyone's work to live.
“Wrike allows our entire department to have visibility to work being done and to move large projects through the various processes. The flexibility and customization options allow us to make the program work for us instead of forcing our work into a set layout“.
Challenge
Little to no visibility to project work for Senior Leadership or other DC teams, this lead to duplicative work and inability to quantify impact of the teams work.
No single source of truth for project work, this lead to teams having different views of project work and locations for tracking project completion/success.
Ambiguity around project work expectations/standards, this lead varying quality in project work.
Solution
We used Wrike to standardize how project work is initiated and what information is required by project.
We created a request form for project intake, custom workflows for each phase a project could be in, custom item types to identify specific project attributes, automation rules to reduce manual movements, custom fields to track unique project identifiers, and blueprints to prescribe tasks and templates that project managers need to consider when completing project work.
We have also used the tools within Wrike for executive summaries and ease of use.
Value
While there are still opportunities for our team to improve and evolve in Wrike, we have seen an improvement in collaboration and ease of administrative work for our teams. With the data we have already put into Wrike we have built out reports, dashboards, and analyze reports to share with our Senior Leadership.
“Wrike has enabled our team of over 300 associates in over 60 different Distribution Centers and Home Office locations to collaborate and improve communication of project work.
Prior to Wrike our team was working in silos, using Excel or other Microsoft tools to manage project work with no overview of the positive impact they have had on the company. This caused duplicative work and unnecessary administrative tasks.
Now, with Wrike, each DC team has the ability to work seamlessly with team members in other DCs across the network and Senior Leadership has visibility to and can quantify the impact of our team.“
Challenge
Clear, one-stop-shop for project progression.
Solution
We are able to have 1 page analytics that shows everything we need regarding the status of every project as well as understand the workload on the engineers.
Value
The alignment of my team and the needed support on projects has very much improved.
“Be ready to get organized!“