Helsinki Region Environmental Services, HSY, is a municipal federation which provides services in water supply and waste disposal as well as information on the metropolitan area and environment. HSY helps residents to act better on behalf of the environment.
Small projects follow large projects
HSY development projects are managed in the Thinking Portfolio project portfolio. The subjects and budgets of projects vary a lot and they are made in several lines of business and production areas, development expert Susanna Hietanen from HSY tells us.
We started using Thinking Portfolio less than six months ago, when the biggest projects began their lives in the portfolio. When our experience grew we realised the benefits brought by the application in the lifecycle stages of the project management as well as the planning and the whole project. This tool found to be so efficient is now being implemented to be used more widely.
– We will also enter small projects into Thinking Portfolio, because we have found that completing even a simple project in Thinking Portfolio is easier than with the other tools we have been using so far.
– When we get all projects into one portfolio, transparency with our development projects will improve even further.
The HSY Thinking Portfolio has as many as 250 users and we continuously invest in training.
– although we receive feedback from users saying that because Thinking Portfolio is so easy to use there is no need for training, we still go ahead with training. This way we get an opportunity to share the best practices and small tricks, which could benefit everyone.
Thinking Portfolio helps to challenge things
The most active user groups are project managers and enterprise leaders. Management groups utilise the prospects of the portfolio as a support for decision making. Management groups have given positive feedback about the ability of Thinking Portfolio to present information as well as analysed and understandable prospects.
– Information can be brought into view better than before. Thinking Portfolio supports challenging the information. For us it is also positive that the missing projects will now be noticed during reviews more easily.
This is worth embarking on
The current development needs for Thinking Portfolio are prospects relating to reports on working hours. We need more of these, because different financiers have different wishes for these reports. Other wishes for finishing touches can also be presented better at this stage, when we have had more user experiences, Hietanen says. There is no threshold in progressing these wishes, because the co-operation between HSY and Thinking Portfolio supplier has continued smoothly after the implementation project as well.
Photo: Susanna Hietanen (photographer: Oxana Litvinenko)
– We are happy with the Thinking Portfolio’s “blessed eternal guarantee”, which means that as though all issues could not be addressed at testing stage, we can still address them in future.
– We also liked the fact that the supplier asked us separately and that we could give feedback about the project.
– To others who are thinking of doing the same I can say that this is worth embarking on.
Contact information:
Susanna Hietanen
Development Specialist
Helsinki Region Environmental Services
susanna.hietanen@hsy.fi
