Agile Business Change Blog Thoughts on Agile Strategic Business Change and Agile Delivery

Work with one of my major clients was becoming increasingly complex to coordinate once the suppliers had been selected to deliver changes as part of a major systems overhaul. In all, five parties became involved in the programme, delivering new APIs to the membership system to enable online joining, renewals and exam entry; a new website supplier and a new website; and the installation of Microsoft Dynamics CRM. Much of this activity is intended to support ambitious membership growth objectives and drag IT from the 1990s, to create a sustainable platform that could be supported by the local IT team.

The client and suppliers are located across the Midlands and South East and significant dependency exists between them. It quickly became apparent that it would be of great benefit, in particular to me (the programme manager) if all could easily and efficiently access the most up to date version of important documents, issue logs, to do lists and the like. I had previously used Basecamp and a quick review through colleagues suggested that it was also worthwhile considering, Google Apps, Microsoft 365, Trac, Jira and Smartsheet. My gut reaction was to use Basecamp based on previous familiarity and the ease with which it can be set up and then utilised intuitively by unfamiliar users. One concern I had with Basecamp was that I had found it not particularly easy to integrate project plans into. A colleague suggested that Smartsheet was worth a look as another client was eulogising about how successful they felt the use of this product was proving.

So I tried both initially, sheltering the client from this until I decided which to go for. I very quickly fell for Smartsheet as I like the interface, the ease of integrating documents, using and creating your own templates, adding attachments, conducting dialogue through messages, sharing, and much more. Currently I have it set up with tabs as follows

• Own project to do list – I used a standard template with some minor editing, and share it only with the client Director
• Document share – where I place the most up to date copies of important documents, here the version control is excellent. Also any document intended for all to see can be placed here, where comments and mails can be attached if required
• Summary programme view – milestones with a status, this is also used to drive weekly  reporting to the client
• Main project plan – imported into the tool as a worksheet from Microsoft Project
• A tab for each client – for client specific or confidential items
• Contacts list
• Risk log

We have not got to the stage of testing development, there are templates for supporting bug management within Smartsheet, but I suspect that the integration with each suppliers own approach to this may be a challenge, I will have to think about this!

As time goes on I will add more comments to this blog including the exceptional customer service experienced at Basecamp, plus the recent development where the client IT Director has decided to utilise Basecamp for internal IT matters and a temporary improvement to their approach to intranet.