The Big Why: Our Journey to Choosing OnePlan

As a Management Consultancy that specialises in helping other businesses optimise their processes, we believe that you can’t give to others what you don’t already have yourself. In our line of work, this means a continual, disciplined search for ways to improve how we work. And it’s this same search that led us to OnePlan, a project and portfolio management solution that has been transformative for us.

For those of you in leadership, particularly if you’re considering a change to optimise your strategic portfolio management, our journey may provide some insights to help you decide if a solution like OnePlan is right for you.

The Challenges We Faced:

We’re no strangers to the importance of streamlined processes, visibility, and strategic alignment. We help our clients with this every day. But as we continued to grow and take on increasingly complex projects, we began to recognise that we needed to turn that same analytical eye inward. Here are some of the key challenges that were affecting our efficiency, visibility, and ability to scale:

1. Siloed Information and Limited Visibility: Our strategic portfolio management felt disjointed and largely manual, with information stored in different places that didn’t interact well with each other. We had separate applications for project management, finance, and time tracking, each holding vital data but isolated from the others. Personally, as the COO, it wasn’t easy to get a high-level, consolidated view of all projects across the business without piecing together data from multiple spreadsheets, and that process quickly became overwhelming and time-consuming. I found myself constantly managing through conversations and trying to piece together a clear picture from multiple inputs—a method that was inefficient, and, frankly, unsustainable.
2. Over-Dependency on Leadership: I relied on conversations with our consultants and project managers to know what was happening at a granular level across each client project. This worked when we were smaller, but as we expanded, it created a bottleneck. I wanted to distribute responsibility and knowledge so that all team members could access up-to-date project statuses, insights, and next steps. This decentralisation of information was essential, not only to make us more agile but to reduce the operational dependency on leadership.
3. Disconnected Financial Management: From an operational standpoint, one of my biggest concerns was the lack of financial insight tied to our projects. Without a consolidated view, it was difficult to connect project costs, revenue, and other financial metrics to real-time project progress. I could access the financial data, but it wasn’t available on demand, and it wasn’t integrated with other project elements. This limitation impacted our financial agility and made it harder to make quick, strategic decisions.
4. Resource and Time Tracking Misalignment: Our time-capturing process, initially housed in an HR tool, was also misaligned. Our consultants’ hours were captured in a system that didn’t connect seamlessly to our project planning. This was frustrating and inefficient because it should have been a project-level function, aligned to our ongoing projects. We needed a solution that could streamline this integration and bring time tracking, resource allocation, and project planning together in a cohesive way.

Why We Chose OnePlan:

We spent over two years looking for a solution that would address all these challenges holistically. Many tools offered to solve one or two of our needs, but we didn’t want a solution that only addressed part of the problem. If we were going to commit to this, it needed to solve all of them—and effectively.

Together with a select group of colleagues, I applied the same rigor in choosing a tool for ourselves as we do when choosing the best tools for our clients. We documented our requirements in detail, tested potential solutions against them, and involved our delivery team and senior leadership to ensure alignment. Then, we conducted a proof of concept (POC) to see how different options and plans worked in action.

OnePlan emerged as the clear choice, meeting all our requirements. It’s more than just a project management tool; it’s a project and portfolio management platform designed to unify processes, enhance visibility, and integrate financial tracking. It offered a user-friendly, adaptable framework, enabling us to build processes that fit seamlessly into our workflows.

Here’s where OnePlan’s capabilities aligned with our needs:

• Consolidated, Real-Time Visibility: The platform gives us a high-level overview of all active projects, with the ability to drill down into specific details without relying on spreadsheets. This has allowed me and other leaders to get a real-time view without intensive manual input.
• Decentralised Knowledge and Responsibility: By making project information accessible to all relevant team members, OnePlan has helped us distribute accountability across the organisation. Now, our consultants and project managers have direct access to what they need, improving decision-making and responsiveness.
• Integrated Financial and Project Management: OnePlan links financial insights with project data, making it easy to track project costs, revenue, and other critical financial metrics in real time. This has been transformative for us, as we now have financial visibility at our fingertips, without needing to jump between systems.
• Seamless Time Tracking: By moving our time tracking into OnePlan, we were able to align it directly with our projects. This integration was a game-changer for our team, creating a smoother, more efficient process that keeps everyone on the same page.

For those considering whether OnePlan or a similar tool could benefit your organisation, here are some questions to ask yourself:

1. Are your current strategic portfolio management processes siloed, with data scattered across different tools, applications and/or data sources?
2. Are you lacking real-time visibility into your operations and financial metrics?
3. Is there too much dependency on a few key people for information?
4. Are resource tracking and project planning misaligned?

If you answer “yes” to any of these questions, it’s time to consider a solution like OnePlan.

Having been down this road ourselves recently, if our challenges resonate with yours, we’d be happy to share more to help you to truly optimise your operations. Feel free to get in touch.

Written by Amanda Budler, Analyze COO