Sospro provides child protection foster care and aftercare services as well as versatile outpatient services. (www.sospro.fi)
Sospro’s aim is to be a pioneer in the social field. Achieving this goal and growing the organisation requires continuous development of operations. Development work must be planned and implemented systematically. For this, we needed an IT tool to support the management of development projects. We also wanted a tool to collect data about our development projects in one place, Development Manager Elina Ikäläinen summarises the background for the procurement of the Thinking Portfolio project portfolio.
– We were looking for a tool that supports the implementation of our vision and strategy. The Thinking Portfolio project portfolio provided a fine solution for this. For us, the project portfolio is a tool for managing projects. In addition, the project portfolio is important for communication.
– Management, in particular, needs a good overall picture of the development work we do. The portfolio shows the phase and status of each development project and highlights the dependencies between the projects. The portfolio views and reports summarise how projects promote our strategy.
The structure of Thinking Portfolio supports the deployment of a project management model
Sospro has also created a project management model in connection with the deployment of the project portfolio. Thinking Portfolio’s structure, which also supports the Project Management Body of Knowledge model (PMBOK®), created a solid foundation for the creation of a project management model. This structure has also worked well when Sospro modified the menus and terms of the portfolio to match the look and feel of their organisation. Sospro gives praise for how both the structure of the project portfolio and the ability to modify the content of the portfolio supported the development of their development activities management.
Both the use of the project portfolio and the project management model are implemented for Sospro’s management and project management through induction sessions provided by the portfolio’s key user. In addition, Elina, who acts as the key user, has included guidelines for the organisation’s working methods in the views of the portfolio.
– Help texts in the software assist the portfolio users. It is great that there is no separate manual, but when a person works in the portfolio, he or she can easily display the help text with a click.
Thinking Portfolio enables participation in development work
The project portfolio delivery also included an Idea Portfolio to support the collection and management of development ideas. Sospro has taken the Idea Portfolio as a common tool for all personnel.
– One of our values is “inclusion”. To us, inclusion means things like being heard and included in the community. The Idea Portfolio greatly supports the realisation of inclusion in development work. With the help of the portfolio, all Sospro employees can propose ideas and read and comment on presented ideas. Now that the use of Idea Portfolio has started, a few ideas have appeared in the portfolio every week. This makes me happy, because at this rate we will receive a good amount of great ideas in a year.
At Sospro, a group meets once a month to discuss the ideas in the portfolio and make decisions on how to proceed. The chairperson of the group prepares the processing of ideas and finds out the necessary background information before the meetings. Once an idea has been discussed in the group, the feedback on each idea is recorded in the portfolio, available to everyone.
– This mode of operation also supports the realisation of our values. One of our values is “trust”, which means open interaction to us. The Idea Portfolio helped us create improved opportunities for successful development cooperation.
Thinking Portfolio has responded to the needs
Elina confirms that Thinking Portfolio has met Sospro’s needs.
– We wanted a tool to support project management and to obtain an overall picture of the development – and we got the right tool for that. As a bonus, we also got the idea portfolio, which we are quite excited about. I’d like to thank the Thinking Portfolio consultants for the good cooperation.
Elina usually has the Thinking Portfolio portfolio open the entire work day. In this way, she can easily handle development project tasks, support other users of the project portfolio as a key user, and keep track of ideas coming to the idea portfolio.
– We have only started to use the portfolio, but we are also grateful for the Thinking Portfolio user support. It is great that the key user receives a quick response to questions about use and small improvements.
