Projects to be visualised and agility to the management of procedures
Guided by the Group Management Unit, City of Tampere took Thinking Portfolio project portfolio application into use in November 2015. The implementation of the application was a follow-up to the development of a project management model started in 2014.
The City of Tampere project portfolio deals with all projects relating to the development of services, operations and management and all projects containing ICT development, as well as research projects. The portfolio also contains regional development programmes with their projects. Currently there are three of these programmes.
Service manager Sirpa Kolehmainen, who started work in the beginning of the year, has been responsible for the implementation of both the project model and the application. We acquired the application to help the realisation of the project model and project procedures. Kolehmainen is happy with the application and says it helped the personnel to internalize the project model in addition to bringing agility to managing procedures.
– Thinking Portfolio project portfolio as a tool concretises and visualises our project management procedures.
– The application tool gives the monitoring possibility to all city employees as well as to the interest groups participating in the project.
Thinking Portfolio frees time for development
In addition to the fact that improving the visibility of projects has made it easier to implement project models, Kolehmainen is pleased that more time remains for actual development and that it is easier to make comparisons and choose right development projects into the implementation in real-time.
– For us the most important thing is the value brought by Thinking Portfolio in monitoring the realisation of project strategies.
– Thinking Portfolio also brings fluency to management group work. The visibility of the application and its ease of use enable quick adoption of information and with it the time saving virtual meetings.
Encouraged by positive user feedback we are now training new groups
There will soon be an internal customer survey among the users of City of Tampere Thinking Portfolio, which will gather more detailed information on the users’ experiences and wishes for the application. However, the free feedback we have received so far has been positive. Project managers, amongst others, have taken to the ease-of-use of the application and the portfolio management groups to its visual informativeness.
Project managers have also been happy with the features of Thinking Portfolio project management. These include the possibility to visualise the dependencies between projects, management features of tasks as well as resources planning and hourly recording functions. Kolehmainen feels that a big leap forward has already been taken in the management and guidance of the project portfolio, but the intention is to provide further training to the users of both the project model and the project portfolio. People preparing projects are especially wanted to take part in the user group.
– With the preparatory group we can enter the information on the projects being prepared into the portfolio at the earliest stage possible.
Interactive implementation project was a great experience
The Thinking Portfolio implementation project and co-operation with the supplier’s experts went without a hitch. The project was a pleasant experience.
– This was a fun interactive project. We were able to use the application immediately and at the same time we could still fine-tune the application and make last minute changes which the Thinking Portfolio consultants realised at once.
Photo: Sirpa Kolehmainen
Contact information:
Sirpa Kolehmainen, Service Manager
Project Management Office
City of Tampere
sirpa.kolehmainen@tampere.fi
