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12 weeks 12 weeks
From design to deployment on Comcare’s Microsoft 365 tenancy
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Days to hours Days to hours
Time to produce quarterly reports to the executive
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650 650
Regular workforce, with $10–15 million in project funding per year
pmo365 was a game changer for Comcare, Australia’s Work Health and Safety body. According to EPMO Assistant Director Jaryd Larter, Comcare’s project funding is currently around $10–15 million per year, with a regular workforce of about 650. But the federal agency’s project portfolio management suffered from a lack of coordination and consistency.
So, when its executive decided to restructure the Project Management Office, pmo365 stood out as the leading solution from a host of alternatives.
About the organisation
Comcare Australia
Comcare Australia acts to minimise workplace injuries, provides expert advice around workplace safety, rehabilitation and compensation, and publishes guidelines on job safety. The agency also handles claims and recovery requests, conducts research, drafts asbestos legislation, provides training, and develops long-term plans to improve workplace safety in Australia.
The challenge
Four challenges holding the PMO back
Comcare’s primary issue was the disjointed approach to project delivery. For technological initiatives, only the I.T. department had a defined project methodology; all other departments operated independently. The PMO couldn’t really consider project portfolio outcomes as there were no defined delivery methods or standards, and there was little strategic focus other than solving logistical problems as they emerged.
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01
Inconsistency across project delivery
Only I.T. had a defined project methodology. Every other department operated independently, with no shared delivery methods or standards across the portfolio.
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02
Limited visibility for decision-makers
Stakeholders and the executive team didn’t have clear information on the status of current projects. Approvals and resource allocation relied on uncertain data, with no objective way to measure return on investment.
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03
Scattered data and varying quality
Data was spread across numerous apps on local drives, resulting in long email chains, attachment problems, inconsistent formatting and varying accuracy. The administrative burden added many hours to the PMO’s workload.
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04
Poor collection of historical data
New project managers did not always have access to the best historical data when taking over initiatives. Reporting was basic, incoming data quality varied, and there was very little integration.
"If our sponsors and key stakeholders know where all the project information is stored, they know where to go for it. ‘A single source of truth’ is something that we haven’t had before."
The solution
Unify all project activities onto a single, integrated platform
Comcare’s new CEO wanted to introduce a planning horizon for projects of four to five years. At that stage, says Daniel Bruns, the portfolio management consultant engaged to manage Comcare’s solution, the organisation had a very basic, immature approach to portfolio management: a one-person PMO and a single standalone application, with zero integration of project management functions.
Daniel saw an opportunity to design a completely new framework and, alongside it, to build and select a toolset to support it. The Comcare team found pmo365 to be the most adaptable solution for their purposes, one that could be customised over time and integrate a variety of existing business applications. The initial release took about 12 weeks from design to deployment, with an agile approach that kept revising the solution over 12 months so a few projects could be seen through the full lifecycle.
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01
Reduce administration with consistency in project delivery
A single integrated system for all activities helped project managers collaborate and guided delivery. Timelines, gates and stages manage the process, and automations, rather than email chains, alert managers to new information, requests and approvals.
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02
Introduce a single source of truth
A central data exchange for all project information, integrating existing data sources and replacing standalone files with collaborative tools. Heatmaps and Power BI reports give executives project-by-project information, surfacing bottlenecks with time to act.
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03
Simplify project tracking with real-time reporting and dashboards
Dashboards provide up-to-the-minute information on every project. Reports extract decisions, variations, dependencies, issues and risks and export directly to PowerPoint. Integrations with ADFS single sign-on, Oracle and TechnologyOne bring financial and asset data into the same environment.
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04
Build institutional knowledge
Information is entered once. A dedicated Business Case area captures the original opportunity and carries it through the lifecycle, and a Decisions register keeps a permanent record of what each project team agreed to do. A system guide and glossary are available to all stakeholders.
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05
Identify strategic value
Benefits management practices for defining, agreeing, tracking and realising benefits. All benefits sit in a single repository with an assigned owner, alongside lessons learnt and risk registers, giving Comcare the ‘why’ behind each project and a basis for prioritisation.
The results
‘Days to hours’: how Comcare’s data got smarter
The time it takes to produce quarterly reports to the executive has gone from days to hours. Instead of gathering local data from any number of locations and trying to match up different formats and methodologies, all of Comcare’s enterprise-level data is now updated in real time across the entire portfolio.
Power BI reporting and dashboards have made the presentation of data much simpler, with global views and a variety of search and filter options. Up-to-date snapshots provide powerful assessments of whether projects are hitting targets or need to change course, and reports can be exported into other formats, like Word, for contextual support.
For the EPMO Assistant Director, the most fundamental shift has been the structure pmo365 has imposed on the project management office. The team’s strategic role is much clearer, and all project divisions are working from the same page.
The future: only getting started
With a strong PPM foundation based on real-time, accurate data, Comcare continues to build its strategic focus and create significant time savings. Recently, scheduling has introduced program and project dependencies, with triggers that signal when one project delivers to another. Next, Comcare is looking at integrating financials within project management and using resource allocation tools for its people.
Frequently asked questions
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How long did implementation take?
Comcare’s solution took 12 weeks from design to deployment, including a typical 3-week initial sprint. A minimum use case deploys the key architecture and applications, including integrations with existing tools; subsequent sprints customise and finesse the solution. This iterative approach works best for large and complex portfolios.
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How is pmo365 accessed by Federal Government agencies?
pmo365 is published on Microsoft AppSource as a Microsoft preferred solution and deployed to your own Microsoft 365 tenant, managed and owned by your internal IT with assistance from pmo365 DevOps and Management Services as required. It is approved for the Australian Whole of Government (WoAG) Software Licensing and Services Panel, Category 2, available to Commonwealth, State, Territory and Local Government entities.
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What other capabilities does pmo365 provide?
Comcare is looking to integrate financials within project management and to manage its human resources using the solution’s resource allocation tools. For the moment, benefits management is the major focus and is yielding excellent results.
"We didn’t just unpack the solution for them, it was an iterative development process that listened to feedback. The fact that we logged questions, concerns, and suggestions (even down to the colour of the interface) was very positive."
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