-
$1B+ $1B+
Annual retail sales
-
10 10
Sprints over two years, from a modest first release
-
3–4 years 3–4 years
Forward planning horizon the PMO can now assess
fairlife, LLC is a Chicago-based dairy company that creates great-tasting, nutrition-rich and value-added products to nourish consumers. A wholly owned subsidiary of The Coca-Cola Company. Fleur Mowlam was originally hired as a consulting Project Manager to lead the implementation of an ERP in a new production plant in Arizona in 2019. At the time, the internal project team relied heavily on external project management support and had a limited internal skillset.
In 2020, in a Program Management role, Fleur surveyed several project management solutions to build an internal project management capability, leading to the selection of pmo365. Initial implementation was small scale and focused on the Engineering team, where project management discipline was strongest and the need to better support capital projects was understood.
About the organisation
fairlife, LLC
With more than $1B in annual retail sales, fairlife’s growing portfolio of delicious, lactose-free, real dairy products includes fairlife® ultra-filtered milk; Core Power® High Protein Shakes, a sports nutrition drink to support post-workout recovery; and fairlife® nutrition plan™, a nutrition shake to support the journey to better health. fairlife has been recognised by both Fast Company and Nielsen for its industry-leading innovation.
The company is driven by its values of caring for people, the animals that supply its milk, and the planet. By providing nourishing products, implementing stringent care standards for animals, and stewarding efficient operations and responsible packaging, fairlife puts a focus each day on making a positive impact for all.
The challenge
Four key challenges
The organisation lacked a centralised data exchange that allowed an enterprise-wide view of project performance. It wasn’t possible to measure the strategic value of each new initiative against others in the mix, nor could the PMO adequately assess the performance of its current portfolio against broader company goals.
-
01
Lack of visibility across new initiatives
No centralised data exchange meant no enterprise-wide view of project performance, and no way to measure the strategic value of each new initiative against the others.
-
02
Poor project tracking and governance protocols
With no established PMO, projects used their own methods of recording data across Excel, Trello, Planner, and PowerPoint on local drives. There was no standardised approach to governance and a considerable overhead in gathering information for reporting.
-
03
Lack of knowledge sharing across the organisation
Meetings spent too much time getting attendees up to speed rather than focusing on critical issues, leading to a mostly reactive PMO instead of one driven by company vision.
-
04
Inadequate tools to assess project performance
Business tools were not equipped to record data consistently across all projects. fairlife needed collaborative apps that brought stakeholders and information onto a single platform, with autonomy for project managers over methodology and an intuitive, simple interface.
"pmo365 provide us with greater visibility and transparency into our projects. Our project meetings are more effective and eliminate the need for detailed project updates, our focus is on what we need to do next."
The solution
Unify all project activities onto a single intuitive and integrative platform
According to Fleur, “the role of the PMO within fairlife is to develop a project and portfolio management framework to ensure due diligence in project planning, selection and execution to help us achieve our strategic objectives. pmo365 supports our project teams to focus on doing the right things and in the right way.”
fairlife project managers are big users of Teams and SharePoint, and a familiarity with Microsoft tools made the implementation of pmo365 even easier. pmo365 deploys to the Microsoft Power Platform, with all the in-built security and features of Microsoft 365.
-
01
Centralised project tracking and governance protocols
The first sprint was modest: a basic project tracking system storing all project data and documentation in one cloud-based location. Incentives and simple convenience saw widespread adoption over two years. Any manager can initiate a project, but no request for approval can be raised without a formal Concept case in the system.
-
02
A single source of truth for a streamlined PMO
All data sources consolidated into one place, digitising the PMO: replacing standalone files with collaborative apps that route enterprise data to a shared location, integrating existing applications, and improving documentation and shared assessments to build enterprise knowledge.
-
03
Real-time reporting
Gantt charts, status reports and health checks are instantaneous through built-in reports and dashboards. Power BI has become “hugely important” for creating up-to-the-minute data views for project managers and the executive, with self-service access from anywhere.
-
04
Built for the users, by the users
User buy-in has reached critical mass, greatly assisted by deep integration of the Teams app into the solution. Fleur has customised her own reports, using the audit facility to show the growth of pmo365 among fairlife’s project teams.
-
05
A strategic focus for portfolio management
fairlife is assessing the strategic value of all proposed 2024–26 capital projects. Every project is listed in the Projects app, assigned a type, and searchable by lifecycle type, program manager, associated portfolio, milestones, dependencies, risks and issues.
The results
A slow burn towards a strategic PMO
Some ten sprints later, Fleur feels the PMO has finally gained sufficient space to take stock of the fairlife portfolio and concentrate on what’s on the horizon. The steady adoption of pmo365 tools has largely vindicated her idea that building a streamlined PMO would be a slow burn that draws the organisation towards a more strategic approach. The company can now look ahead to future projects and assess its forward planning over the next three to four years.
Lessons learnt and assessment documentation are a current focus, and the PMO uses reports and dashboards for regular health checks on progress. The auditing functionality has been providing useful feedback on user behaviour, helping to build adoption and showing how the solution may develop further. Next, fairlife is looking at integrating financials within project management and developing its resource management capabilities.
The future: only getting started
With a strong PPM foundation, the fairlife PMO will be able to explore higher-level functions and features that take its project portfolio to the next level: bespoke PPM tools, better collaboration, reliable documentation, and a whole new, strategically focused approvals system. This transformation would not have been possible without the support of Danielle Blair, Steve Hall and Keith Srebinski.
Frequently asked questions
-
How long does it take to deploy pmo365?
Deployment is iterative. An initial three-week sprint mobilises key representatives on the platform and deploys the initial use case with the complete Solution Library. Subsequent sprint cycles add functionality via your DevOps squad, starting each cycle from a log of user stories prioritised by the client. fairlife’s primary focus was bringing project data and user applications onto one platform, with financials set aside for a later date.
-
What does it cost?
A subscription to pmo365 is a single, fixed monthly fee with no set-up fees or hidden costs, and everything, the IP and all the data, is owned by you, even after your subscription expires. Three subscription levels, changeable at any time: Self-managed, Co-managed, and Fully-managed.
-
What other capabilities does pmo365 provide?
fairlife is looking to integrate financials within project management and develop its Resource Management capabilities. For the moment, lessons learnt, assessment documentation, and regular health checks through reports and dashboards are the areas of focus.
"It’s great to be able to catch an update, whether in an airport, on a plane, or in a coffee shop between meetings."
Ready to transform your project portfolio?
See how pmo365 can bring governance, visibility, and financial clarity to your organisation.