Standardized Project Management in the IT Services Sector Seidor Consulting Case study

Industry:

Consulting

Date of implementation:

2019/2020

Seidor Consulting is a multinational technology consulting company that provides a wide range of services including application development and maintenance, infrastructures, and IT outsourcing.

Seidor operates in 38 countries, having 81 offices in Europe, LATAM, the USA, Middle East, Africa, and Asia. With more than 5400 professionals and more than 8500 customers, in the 6th IT services company in Spain* and the 1st with 100% Spanish private capital. (*Source: Ranking Empresas sector TIC, ChannelPartner 2020)

Previous state

Previously to have Easy Project, Seidor was using MS Project and other different tools. The wide range of tools available generates a problem to have a common and clear picture of the project's status. On the other hand, the license costs were high because of the monthly cost by a user and the number of users.

The main points of the tender documentation, what was expected from the solution, what challenges needed to be overcome:

Expectation

Standardization of the project management work with only one tool
Standardization of the project work using project templates
More control of the status of the projects, including estimated and spent time
Cost reduction
Availability of the information to all team members
Better communication
Better risk control
Better reporting about the project status
Resource management

Requirements

The tool has to allow the different project, task and milestone types, as we are covering a wide range of solutions.
Team members have to be able to update the task status and progress, but not the planificaction.
Customers have to be able to interact with controlled permissions.
We have to be able to define different permissions by role in each project and have workflows.
All the behavior that a project management tool should have: dependencies, assignments, calendar, reporting, be able to export the project.
LDAP authentication
When a task is updated, it should raise a notification.
Synchronization with SAP

5400+ professionals and 8500+ customers in the 6th IT services company in Spain

Application development and maintenance, infrastructures, and IT outsourcing

38 countries, 81 offices Europe, LATAM, USA, Middle East, Africa, and Asia

Marcos Florido

Project Manager and Easy Project administrator

"Easy Project is the tool that solves all our problems about project management: you can see/control the whole picture and then enter into the details of the projects, you can manage and see graphically the project, time, spent time... and you can do it wherever you are (including mobile). On the other hand, as all the company can see and update their tasks/information, all of them are more engaged if this could be possible."

Preparation

Date of implementation - 2019/2020

Prior to implementation, a pilot phase took place where the basic requirements were defined, which were incorporated into the Easy Project environment and then presented to the company's management. The approval was followed by a detailed implementation, in which key users of the application from the project office department actively participated. To check the viability and to set all the requirements, a real project was managed using Easy Project.

Settings

In the first step, a detailed structure of projects was defined along with all types of users and the parameters of users' personal pages. Project templates have been created, with which it is possible to quickly and efficiently create projects with standardized parameters. At the same time, the roles, task types, status, and workflows were defined and adjusted. All consulting users were created in the system and the company hierarchy was defined (more than 1100 users).

Additional developments allow to synchronize tasks and spent time between SAP and Easy Project.

Server/cloud solution

Based on internal security requirements, Seidor Consulting chose a server solution. We set up the system environment on a temporary cloud and only then did we migrate the entire system to the client's own server. Further modifications of the application were already performed using remote access to the server.

Training

We trained key users and administrators during the implementation and other users of the application additionally in waves as the new projects start. It was created a video tutorial specific for the team members and additional documentation in the Easy Project knowledge base.

Testing

The client uses the production environment with real data, with only the implementation team involved. This allows the key team to manage projects in real life and then to identify the new requirements and functions before deploying the tool in the whole company.

Key benefits of Easy Project in Seidor Consulting

The implementation of Easy Project brought:

Standardization of project management tools and project structures
Higher control of the projects (status, team members, efforts, ...)
More engagement of all the team in the project planification and maintenance of project plan
Cost reduction
Better project status report
Higher management level has more visibility about the status of the projects (global Gantt, reporting)

The most used functions

Project Gantt

All the team is using the Gantt to see the plan and to update the tasks.

Spent time

Here we can control the spent time of the team and groups.

Resource Management

To control the workload of the team members.