Monoprix turned to Planisware Orchestra, a collaborative project portfolio management solution. Interview with Laurence Judas, Engineer | Investment Management Department | Technical Department, Monoprix
Key figures
- Department: 120 project managers
- 450 contributors
- 500 IT projects
- Orchestra is the PPM single source of truth
- ROI: 50% performance increase in planning and tracking
Context & Challenges
A project portfolio management and business management tool were implemented within the Information System Department and Organization Department in 2008. This tool only partially met the current needs in terms of business steering initiatives.
One of the challenges Monoprix faced was standardizing, accelerating and improving business management processes and tasks, while also tracking them for improvements at the same time.
A new tool was required to meet several objectives, such as:
- Manage business requests for IT systems
- Project management capabilities
- Manage and monitor the portfolio of activities (projects as well as non-projects)
- Allocate, update and track the budget
- Produce reports (for projects, and the portfolio of activities)
- Manage resources, capacity and load plans
- Track time spent on tasks and activities
Initially, only a few departments within Monoprix wanted to use Planisware Orchestra to evaluate their efficiency. To begin with, only the Information Systems Department (ISD), the Organization Department (DO) and the Technical Security and Safety Department (TSSD) were within the scope of the project to implement Orchestra. The idea was that after this initial test period, any other departments wishing to follow and manage its activities using the tool could also do so.
Why Planisware Orchestra?
Monoprix submitted a call for tender in 2014, and they selected Orchestra because it met the specifications and requirements required by the company’s management.
The top benefits in favour for Orchestra was its easy to use interface, simple implementation, and its planning and resource management modules which met the organization’s needs perfectly. Orchestra’s ability to scale up, if necessary, to even more users or departments, was also a plus point for the tool.
As well as managing and executing projects, Orchestra also allows Monoprix to manage schedules, resources and resource requests for IT systems and materials.
Requests for new IT systems, or material for new projects are submitted through the PPM tool. It is then used to schedule the delivery, implementation and follow-up of these systems and projects. Depending on the the request, the resource manager allocates the resources needed for the implementation and execution of the task.
The request for IT systems and materials is done according to the tasks per man/day of a project. The project manager gets a global and precise view to see if the IT systems and materials are available for the requested dates.
The benefits
Since the tool’s implementation, Monoprix's IT department has observed many advantages of using the Orchestra solution.
The ISD now has clear key indicators that provide a global vision of:
- All of the activities managed by the department
- All of the human resources available and their availability (capacity planning)
Orchestra provides the CIO with all the necessary data and dashboards to ensure the correct allocation of resources, and to identify or anticipate a peak load, thus be prepared to take action on potential operational problems. This allows management to allocate resources to activities deemed to be priority and therefore comply with the IS master plan strategy.
