Virgin Blue Airlines Group and Daptiv Present ‘A Real World Approach to PPM’ at PMI Global Congress 2010 - Asia Pacific

Daptiv co-presented an educational session with customer Virgin Blue Airlines Group at the PMI® Global Congress 2010 - Asia Pacific. The session demonstrate a 'real world' approach to project and portfolio management maturity improvements using Daptiv PPM. The presentation took place from February 22-24, 2010 at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre in Melbourne, Australia.

Virgin Blue Airlines Group’s Åsa Lyall-Wilson, project services manager, and Andrew Mason, manager, commercial portfolio, presented along with Charl Morkel, CEO of Bluenova, Daptiv’s partner serving the Asia-Pacific region. The Virgin Blue Airlines Group includes award-winning Virgin Blue, Pacific Blue, Polynesian Blue and V Australia, Australia’s newest international airline. Virgin Blue Airlines Group provides domestic and international services to 45 destinations across 13 countries throughout Asia-Pacific.

The case study session showcased Virgin Blue Airlines Group’s approach to PPM maturity improvements and how Daptiv PPM assisted with the process. The session delved into the importance of being able to accommodate changes and improvements in methodology with a flexible technology solution. The Virgin Blue Airlines Group now directs, manages and executes approximately 300 projects in Daptiv across four major organizational groups: commercial, corporate, operations and its subsidiary airline, V Australia.

Read the Virgin Blue’s case study about the impact of Daptiv PPM on their organization.

Here are some pictures from the event:

 

Meet the 10,000th Registered Member of the Daptiv Community!

In March the Daptiv Online Community reached a major milestone with our 10,000th registered community member. Mike Jensen, VP of Community Development, had a chance to talk with Elaine Steele, Project Scheduler for Transport Canada, and ask her some questions about Daptiv and Community. Congratulations to Elaine and the entire Community for making the online community a success.

What is your background?

"I have been a Project Management Consultant for over 25 years, the last 9 on my own. My primary focus is on Cost Schedule Management and I am currently working with Transport Canada on a major project managing the high level schedule."

How long have you been using Daptiv PPM?

"I have been on this current project for over two years, and have used Daptiv PPM since day one. We have been very happy with the solution."

What are you using Daptiv PPM for and how is it contributing to your organization?

"We have about twenty-five licenses for Daptiv used across the project team, chiefs and end users. We use the solution extensively for schedule management, tracking risks and issues, processing change requests, routing reporting through custom views and work intelligence. It provides the visibility necessary to ensure we are meeting our objectives."

What were some of the adoption challenges?

"Like many things, change was our biggest challenge. Getting people to accept a new way of tracking information, and learning a new tool. Many had experience with Microsoft Project, so this was different. Also, it was decided early on that overall schedule management would only be at a high level (milestone), and for those of us used to managing at detailed level, it was a big shift. Overall it has worked very well and we have created sub projects for areas that need more detail."

You mentioned managing at a high level, how has that been?

"Overall I think this is easier for everyone on the project so they can see the complete picture. However, if you are a detailed person (like me) it is a big change. I see the benefits, and as I said before, for more detailed areas of the project we have started to create sub projects to get to that level."

You also mentioned previously using Microsoft Project, what are some of things that you like about Daptiv compared to MS Project?

"Daptiv is a much more diverse tool than MS Project. With Daptiv, we have the ability to track schedules, costs, issues, and change requests all in one tool…and all of the managers have access to Daptiv so they are now more hands-on. We are also introducing weekly timesheets in Daptiv for each resource on our project. Daptiv is a great multi-user collaboration tool!"

How did you find the Daptiv Community?

"A few of my colleagues had mentioned the online community and I had looked around a few times but never signed up. I then attended a webinar for the Spring 2010 release and the community was mentioned there so I decided to officially join."

Where sites/communities do you typically go to online to help you with your role?

"In general I usually spend time in the communities that are related to the tools I am using. These are the most relevant and helpful to me. Outside of communities around the specific tool being used, for methodology information and insights, PMI.org is probably the best place for me as our methodologies follow their recommendations. I would love it if Daptiv could point me in the direction of other key resources out on the web that could benefit me on a day to day basis."

What are your initial impressions with the Daptiv Online Community?

"I initially went to the community to get more information about your webinar series. After that, I returned to dig into what users were saying and what all was available to community members. After being able to spend some more time in the community there was some good discussions in the forums that helped. I was surprised there wasn’t more content out there as I was looking to see what others have experienced with the tool, lessons learned, etc."

What do you hope to get out of the Daptiv Community?

"With an online community, my first expectations are that it can be the first stop for researching issues and submitting ideas to Daptiv, even before engaging with a support rep. My hope would be that the community is active that we can learn from each other, and that Daptiv is active within the community answering questions as well. I would also like to see information about local user groups for in-person networking opportunities. Lastly, either online or in-person, I would like to hear experiences from other users about what works, what doesn't and any recommendation for how to use the solution in new ways."

Daptiv PPM Improves Operations Across Industries, Departments

Land Development Firm Uses Daptiv PPM to Simplify Business Operations, Increasing Productivity by 200 Percent

Meet Tim Forehand, Director Technical Support at Daptiv

I was born and raised in Wilmington DE, mostly. There was a short period of time that I lived in Leavenworth, KS growing up, not "in Leavenworth", but in the actually city of Leavenworth. I went into the Navy as a DK (Disbursing Clerk) about one month after I graduated from high school. A Disbursing Clerk is the person who maintains pay records and performs a variety of pay related tasks. After boot camp and training, I was stationed in Winter Harbor, ME. After two years in Maine, I was transferred to San Diego. I finished my four year enlistment in San Diego. Soon after leaving the Navy I went back to school pursue my Business degree. I went the non-traditional route as far as my college education goes, with that, I probably attended no less than seven different schools. Oddly enough, as I closed in on my last year of school, I decided to take up acting, a choice I am still glad to have made.

After relocating to Tucson, AZ for one year for a job transfer with Intuit, I discovered that I really didn’t like weather temps over 120 degrees. So with a job offer in Seattle, I moved here sight unseen back in 1995, and I have loved it here every day since then. There are endless activities here in Seattle that are at the very most a sort drive away. I really enjoy sports, anything that gives you an excuse to run around on a field or court. The lakes and mountains are beautiful, and so is the never ending green.

Most of my professional career experience has been in the realm of Technical Support and Customer Service. I started out providing technical support for Turbo Tax. I was a Support Manager of a large call center for Sprynet, a former player in the ISP market back with the internet was first going mainstream. I worked variety of companies over the past 15 years in Seattle, the last one prior to joining Daptiv was T-Mobile, where I was an Enterprise IT Manager. I joined Daptiv for a few reasons. I wanted to get back to my roots and real passion of service and support management and step away from the IT world. I have also worked with our CEO Chase Franklin in the past, and I really believe in his ability to successfully lead a company. Lastly, I really enjoy the spirit of the company and all of the people I get to work with on a daily basis, and my team gets to support a great product.

My hobbies include playing just about every sport ever created especially football, basketball, tennis, softball, marathons, mountain biking. As I mentioned about, I am also into acting and fitness modeling. Although above comes God and family. I can’t get enough of my family that’s made up of myself, my wife, a 3 ½ year old son and a 1 year old daughter.

That’s if for now, time to get back to work…

Business Continuity Consulting Firm Improves Management of Business Operations and Strategic Decision-Making with Daptiv PPM

Lootok, Ltd. Uses Single View of its Organization to Increase Profitability and Build Better Client Relations

Lootok is a business continuity management (BCM) consulting firm that helps companies build resiliency by developing business continuity programs that are integrated into normal operations and corporate objectives. By focusing on program adoption and incident management training, Lootok motivates employees to develop the skills necessary for managing and responding to threats. Founded in 2006, the company is headquartered in New York, with an extensive network of consultants located across the country.

Business Need

Prior to early 2009, Lootok had been using a variety of tools to manage projects and business operations, juggling QuickBooks, Outlook, MS Project Desktop, Excel spreadsheets, as well as a central desktop tool. The number of software applications brought a high level of complexity into managing the company’s infrastructure and obtaining a holistic view of its business operations.

There were just not enough hours in the day to effectively utilize MS Project in conjunction with all of the other tools in place,‖ says Paul Borchard, Chief Operations and Financial Officer. ―We saw potential for a single software solution to centralize sources of all project management and business operations work."

In addition to increasing operational efficiency, Lootok sought a single software solution to help improve client relationships, execute business goals, and ultimately, help inform their decision making and drive profitability.

"We needed more than just a project management tool – we needed a solution to manage all aspects of our business, from project management to financials and overall operations," says Sean Murphy, President and CEO.

Solution

"In evaluating different software vendors, we chose Daptiv because it’s on-demand, requires no maintenance, promotes collaboration, and allows for our teams to view real-time updates," says the Director of Project Management. Daptiv PPM was rolled out to several groups within H20 Plus, and then use spread to nearly all groups within the organization. "We’re now using Daptiv PPM to manage our whole ‘concept-to-on counter’ process, as well as product programs such as promotions, samples, holiday and gifting," explains the Director.

After evaluating different software vendors for four weeks, Lootok chose Daptiv as a partner. "We really liked the fact that Daptiv PPM is flexible yet robust– Daptiv PPM’s Dynamic Applications give us the flexibility to track and report on any type of business activity or metrics we want," says Borchard.

Lootok has created numerous Daptiv Dynamic Applications™ to track the metrics that are key to their business. For example, they have a Dynamic Application for expenses that is set up by category to track employee time. From this data, a report is generated each week and automatically sent to the reporting office. Lootok also employs the Customer Intelligence Dynamic Application, which functions as a database to detail each customer’s brand, products and geographical location linked to Google Maps.

Everyone at Lootok uses Daptiv PPM, from the company’s leadership team who manage project scope to its consultants who serve as "subject matter experts". By facilitating information sharing, Daptiv PPM’s robust system makes it easy for Lootok’s members to communicate and collaborate as a team – vital for a company that works with a geographically diverse group of both clients and consultants.

This level of internal communication has helped maintain high levels of standardization and consistency in Lootok’s operations, and provided the company with better insight into streamlining processes and managing financial data.

"We’re managing projects from start to finish through each project lifecycle, developing statements of work, creating logs of risks and issues, generating reports, and tracking financials," says Murphy. "We have visibility into what’s happening in the business like never before; Daptiv PPM is a true management solution."

Value

Using Daptiv PPM, Lootok has implemented high quality management controls to increase accountability and transparency with its clients, one of which is a Fortune 100 manufacturing company.

"Previously, we would simply invoice our clients for the hours of service the company provided and there was no visibility into the project status to give context," says Borchard. "Now we have the ability to send detailed Daptiv PPM reports each week to our clients who have commented that they’ve never seen that level of detail given to them from a vendor…they’re very excited. This is helping us to solidify client relationships." Lootok has even created Web forms to survey clients to gather their feedback and improve upon their experience.

Borchard also adds, "In terms of dynamic visibility into what’s going on with the business, we went from zero to one hundred percent. Previously, obtaining a forward looking view of the business required a time intensive series of documents and calculations, which caused us to be more reactive in nature to business developments. Daptiv PPM has helped us to streamline processes and put our business under a magnifying glass so we can make solid business decisions and deliver on our promises."

"There has been a huge change in how we manage our projects, particularly from the internal perspective," says Borchard. "We can look closely at how projects are progressing, analyze numbers to stay competitive and even manage cash and profit rations. There is now evidence to justify rate increases and hold to budgets and goals as expected."

In place of multiple software tools, Daptiv PPM has introduced a single solution for managing all aspects of Lootok’s business. "Daptiv has become our one stop for managing all projects, financials and business operations—it’s our home for all work," says Murphy.