Getting better at looking ahead

Healthcare software provider enhances its future-focused approach with the Office Timeline solution

Managing long-term projects requires teams within an organization to have a deep, shared understanding of goals and the direction they’re heading for. This means having executive-level plans, where milestones and deadlines are mapped to keep track of how work advances and to communicate project status and what comes next to clients. 

A few years ago, implementation teams at a US healthcare software company were looking for new ways to transform their data-packed milestone documents into easy-to-follow high-level visuals that would help project owners look far enough ahead and anticipate project requirements and potential roadblocks for each stage of their projects.

Need for an intuitive project visualization tool

The primary role of the implementation teams is to successfully guide employees through the complex process of setting up a software solution within a client organization. The outcome of that process depends not only on technical expertise but also on the team’s project management and communication skills. 

Senior project managers in the implementation division found they would benefit from a solution that would quickly put together project visuals for executive-level documents and C-suite presentations. They were thinking about a visualization tool whose ease of use and efficiency would go beyond what Visio, Microsoft Project, or Excel could do. 

In the absence of an intuitive tool with a frictionless user experience, some teams within the implementation division would dread the crucial step of creating a visual representation of their plan as the tools available to them were time-consuming, difficult to use and did not create the kind of clear visuals project stakeholders expected. 

Without a proper tool in place, the task of looking far ahead into the future and preparing for various stages within the project looked complicated for these implementation teams. “They need to educate the organizations that we're working with on what’s coming — this is what we're doing now, this is what we're going to do in two weeks from now, this is what we're going to do in six weeks from now, and this is what we're going to do in two months from now,” a senior project manager explained.

Client integrates Office Timeline into the project management workflow

In order to upgrade their long-range approach for the implementation teams, senior project managers started looking for a time-effective tool to help their employees display milestones and milestone prerequisites across an easy-to-read timeline that could be quickly updated for weekly team meetings. 

After becoming unhappy with the Gantt chart features in Microsoft Project and experiencing the limitations of Excel and PowerPoint first hand, one of the senior project managers took their search to Google, where they came across a video tutorial for Office Timeline. 

The tool’s simplicity and intuitiveness when creating and editing a timeline or importing data from Project and Excel impressed them from the beginning. Plus, the fact that it integrated directly with PowerPoint, making project visuals presentation-ready from the outset, sealed the deal. So after testing Office Timeline for months on individual projects, they decided to integrate Office Timeline into the implementation teams’ workflow. 

Project teams were tasked with downloading the software and creating high-level milestones visual for their projects. The rollout proved extremely easy and required little training, especially as teams were tech-savvy and familiar with Microsoft Office. “Over the course of five to six weeks, we went from no one using Office Timeline to everyone using it and having a pretty solid milestone plan in place.”

Since then, Office Timeline has become a top requirement for teams that have to create executive-level project visuals. “It’s a core part of my management style and one of the key tools that I have my employees use to help them look ahead and manage their individual projects,” a project manager said.

Improved project communication

In less than a year, Office Timeline has become an integral part of how the implementation teams run their weekly executive meetings. Moreover, their success inspired other people within the division to leverage the tool’s simplicity.

“I've learned that, for each of the teams, taking a little bit of extra time to put together a high-level visualization of milestones and thinking about what you're going to do or what your company is going to do, or what your project is going to do, over the next two to three months, is extremely valuable,” the senior project manager said.

The tool not only helped teams clearly communicate project milestones and implementation requirements to their peers and client representatives but also significantly reduced the time required to design and update their timelines to 10 minutes per week. While not surprised by these positive results and productivity gains, the project manager admitted that creating and regularly updating timelines is now a “realistic task.”

Even now, as they’ve transitioned to a remote and virtual working environment, the tool has seamlessly integrated into the teams’ new workflows, allowing them to review timelines every week during video calls. Furthermore, the senior project manager expects Office Timeline to continue to be the guiding tool that keeps everyone thinking ahead while providing a better understanding of how each task and milestone contributes to a larger goal.

About the organization

The client is one of the largest health information technology providers in the US, developing software that helps hospitals and health systems manage their electronic medical records. Its customer portfolio includes some of the biggest names in the healthcare industry.