Brigham Young University-Idaho's Bruce Bills, Carnegie Mellon University's Clay Fulton and TeamDynamixHE are the subjects of a recent article featured in University Business magazine. Bills and Fulton highlight their selection and use of TeamDynamixHE PPM solutions to increase transparency and productivity in their respective IT groups.
An excerpt from the article:
"Collaboration can be much more than multiple people editing a single document. Keeping a work group aware of priorities and resources can be a compelling reason to implement a project management solution. 'If you classify collaboration tools as being able to initiate a work flow and a central repository of information, then this qualifies as a collaboration tool,' says Bruce Bills, software engineering director at Brigham Young University-Idaho.
While selecting a new student information system, campus leaders realized a better way to communicate was needed. More people had to be able to analyze data and communicate efficiently, and then there was a desire to distribute IT staff attention more evenly. These factors led them to select a project management solution from TeamDynamixHE. Without the resources for a dedicated project management office, other solutions were too complex for BYU-Idaho’s needs, Bills explains.
The new system is being used to ensure the efforts of the IT department are in line with strategic needs on campus. In addition to having manpower hours set aside for routine tasks, larger projects are easily visible for approval by the president’s council. One such project being tracked is rewriting the admissions component of the new Jenzabar SIS to better match the school’s needs.
'People see IT is busy,' says Bills. 'They used to wonder what happened to their project. Now they can see it’s in the queue.'
Better distribution of IT services and project visibility were the driving factors behind Carnegie Mellon University (Pa.) switching from a homegrown solution to the TeamDynamixHE offering. 'Our system was lacking in terms of collaborating and providing information in a timely fashion,' says Clay Fulton, technical coordinator in Carnegie Mellon’s Planning and Project Management Office. Fulton believes that managers needed a better way to track open tasks and communicate project status to their teams."
Read the full article here.