As innovation funnels grow in size and/or complexity to achieve corporate growth ambitions, program management teams must become more efficient with their time and finite resources. Therefore, emerging systems & tools in the area of project and program management are important to utilize. In the Spring of 2018 the IRI did a survey of the tools in use at that time. Unfortunately most respondents said they were using various systems, but that none of the tools really allowed their organizations to reduce the time spent in recurring project review meetings. Nonetheless, the tools in use were:
1. What new or existing Program Management tools and approaches that you have found to be exceptionally valuable in your organization?
- Microsoft OneNote
- Managing timelines in Excel
- QlikView for displaying data
- MS Project and Agile Product Development.
- Accolade
- Total project overview database
- We have a customized version of a commercial Project Management software that we use for portfolio reporting and program management.
- Our Lean Six Sigma department uses a platform called PowerSteering for program management of these projects.
2. Are there tools that you use to better automate innovation/product development activity workflows and communicate next steps in the project plan?
- Microsoft OneNote
- SmartSheets, ServiceNow, etc.
- Clarizen which is enhancing the Program part of their tool.
- MS Server
- MS Office Suite
- Accolade, MWS, smartsheet
- We have fairly limited workflow automation features that are embedded into our customized data tracking system for stage-gate projects
- There is more sophisticated workflow that is embedded into Sales Force.com and utilized for single-customer sales opportunities that require technology resources to specify the product design.
