Establish Your Success Plan

Just like your projects, a successful implementation begins with a plan. There are a lot of important aspects to think about when implementing a new tool, so below are some proven strategies to help from day one. 

This lesson is for anyone involved with the roll-out of Portfolio Manager. These team members are typically Org Admins or Workspace Managers within your workspace.

Need more help?  If you get stuck at any point along the way or need more help, don’t hesitate to reach out. We know that introducing new tools and processes can be challenging, our professional services group is available if you need us. 

There are a few key players you want to include within your Portfolio Manager implementation. These people will play a vital role in setting up your workspace, creating processes to support your organization’s desired outcomes and communicating the change with the team. 

Identify LP champions. It’s important to have multiple Portfolio Manager subject matter experts to assist with your transition and ongoing usage. This will likely be the team that helped you decide to use this product. They will be your first line of mentoring and support for the team. Bring your Champions together during working sessions to define goals, architect the workspace, explore data customization, and prepare for your team roll-out.  

Secure executive support. Enlist key executives and stakeholders to be visible advocates for Portfolio Manager. They should speak directly to the team and explain how Portfolio Manager data will help drive business decisions. Bring them into relevant working sessions as you discuss business processes and team member expectations. 

Create a communication plan.  Don’t wait for launch day to start talking to your team about Portfolio Manager. Once you identify your key players, establish a cadence to keep the rest of the team in the loop and build a sense of ownership in the implementation. Enlist the help of your champions and executives to communicate the value.

Think about the problems you’re trying to solve and what your ideal future state would look like. That future state should guide your focus throughout your implementation and will likely be driven by multiple goals. Here are a few examples of measurable goals customers set when they purchase Portfolio Manager: 

• Meet project deadlines 90% of the time by proactively identifying and managing schedule risk

• All project work in one shared portfolio to enhance transparency and reduce meeting time by two hours every week

• Increase efficiencies in resource allocation across multiple projects to reduce bottlenecks by 20%

Not everyone approaches change with the same mindset, so it’s important to prepare and engage your team in order to effectively manage the transition. Below are a few tactics to consider:

• Clearly communicate the reason behind the change and your desired outcomes with Portfolio Manager. Empowering team members with information helps them get them on board.

• Teach the team how to change. Show them what they’ll be doing differently in their day-to-day work so they don’t feel like they’re left to figure it out on their own. 

• Everyone always wants to know, “what’s in it for me?” Be ready with some examples to share. For example, they will no longer be asked “what’s the status of this?” because you can instantly see where things are at when they log progress, update task status and mark their work done.

• Throughout your journey, continually reiterate the importance of collaborating together in the workspace and encourage feedback from the team to improve your processes.