Photo: Heikki Tuuli, The Finnish National Opera and Ballet
The Finnish National Opera and Ballet offers opera and ballet performances and other events to citizens of all ages. Visiting acts, school operas and televised and streamed performances are broadcast all over Finland.
Project portfolio is a tool for management and communications
The Finnish National Opera and Ballet (SKOB) is procuring Thinking Portfolio’s project portfolio in order to provide better visibility of current projects for the staff and make managing the project portfolio easier.
Every user has access to the system, piloting is done and new project plans are made in the portfolio. In other words, the Finnish National Ballet and Opera is currently implementing the project portfolio, according to Leading IS Specialist Petra Tarkiainen and Production Manager Jere Pensikkala, who were in charge of adapting the portfolio to the organisation’s needs.
“Once we had the parameters defined together with Thinking Portfolio, we began the piloting. We have not planned any actual training sessions, as the portfolio provides user guidance. We provide background support, including training if necessary, for new users. So far, no one has had any questions.
Based on feedback, the portfolio has been very well received among the users,” describes Tarkiainen.
Thinking Portfolio’s consultants know what they are doing, and the portfolio always provides a solution
Thinking Portfolio receives a perfect score from SKOB’s project team for the implementation. They are particularly thankful for the expertise, which has helped the team focus on the right things during the process.
With the portfolio being implemented more extensively in-house, Tarkiainen and Pensikkala have noticed that the same high standard of customer service has been maintained during the portfolio customisation and parameter definition stages as well. Thinking Portfolio takes care of the client, continuously providing information on various possibilities.
“The implementation went smoothly. We found the project to be well organised and managed. We had no difficulties communicating our core competences and expectations. The project has delivered well.
“I was astonished to find that the portfolio had such a wide range of features. Implementation planning and support have been good, and Thinking Portfolio carried out the project perfectly. The portfolio is very multi-faceted. I cannot remember any cases where the system could not be adapted to our needs. Every need has been met.”
The next stage is a production portfolio
At SKOB, the continuous development of the system is seen as a positive. The scalability of the portfolio for different applications is another handy feature.
“We will be exploring the possibility of using Thinking Portfolio in our production as part of our general production planning process overhaul.
Thinking Portfolio improves communications across the entire staff; including viewing rights, the total number of users is 700, although the number of users with project access rights is smaller. The production portfolio will feature two hundred active users. The experiences gained from the project portfolio are expected to be useful in the creation of the production portfolio.
Everything has been handled efficiently with Thinking Portfolio. We have not had any pending requests; all our wishes have been met, even exceeded,” Tarkiainen and Pensikkala summarise their collaboration with Thinking Portfolio so far.
Petra Tarkiainen, Leading Information System Specialist
Jere Pensikkala, Production Manager
Finnish National Opera and Ballet
