Forterra gains operational efficiency via company-wide project visibility
Forterra had realised that its project teams working in different disciplines were delivering and reporting projects differently, affecting project flows and timelines. Forterra recognised the solution was setting up a Project Management Office (PMO) that would bring together all necessary content and standardise daily processes.
"The toolset that the team delivered with Smartsheet has provided visibility in an easy to consume format that can be easily tailored to different stakeholders."
IT Director at Forterra
No matter where you are in the UK, chances are you’re never far from a building built with a Forterra brick, block, or bespoke clay or concrete product. The company’s history of manufacturing building products began in the 19th century; and in the 21st, Forterra continues its legacy of building innovation.
In construction, efficiency is crucial. But Forterra had realised that its project teams working in different disciplines were delivering and reporting projects differently, affecting project flows and timelines. The solution, Forterra recognised, was setting up a Project Management Office (PMO) that would bring together all necessary content and standardise daily processes. To be successful, the PMO needed a toolset that all team members could access, provides visibility of project progression at the portfolio level, and can be used across the business. In short: a robust solution for end-to-end project portfolio management.
Scalability and consistency
“Within the IT department, our key ethos is to outsource as much as possible, so we rely on trusted partners to help solve the problems that we are faced with,” says John Wyldbore, Head of IT Demand & Innovation at Forterra.
Having already used Smartsheet within the IT department, the Forterra team decided to focus on Smartsheet Control Center for wider adoption. Smartsheet Control Center helps manage change at all scales, through automated provisioning, global updates, and aggregated portfolio reporting.
Work began with technology partner Cheetah Transformation by mapping out all the elements of a typical Forterra project. From there, the team isolated the key metrics that needed to be produced and reported on. With Control Center’s scalability and replicability, the team created a standard set of project documents to use, by department. Any project manager within the business can take these templates and use them without major adaptation.
Forterra needed two key elements for effective reporting and project management – capturing the correct metrics or milestones, and seamlessly communicating this information across the business. Smartsheet Control Center helps centralize this capability. Updates could be sent to key users via automatically generated reports and project dashboards. The dashboards were tailored to different audiences, showing relevant results and updates in real-time.
With this increased project visibility, Forterra was able to better prioritise internal activities.
“I challenged the team to help us better understand the number and nature of change initiatives concurrently running and competing for resources,” says Matt Day, IT Director at Forterra. “This was important not only to ensure effective delivery of the changes but also how they could be absorbed into the business whilst maintaining day to day operations.”
A better way of working
Five months on from the PMO’s go-live date, life is very different for project managers at Forterra. There are currently more than 70 projects managed in Smartsheet, with progress being reported the same way. This harmonisation has allowed for greater project transparency, giving users comprehensive access to the latest updates.
“I can see how much Forterra is making use of their PMO,” says Alison Robb, Consultant at Cheetah Transformation. “This is the value of Smartsheet and of a custom build – it does what Forterra needs it to do. It’s not restricted by what a software developer originally built; it’s a completely flexible way of working that doesn’t require writing a single line of code.”
Today, dashboards are updated automatically in real-time across the business – for everyone involved in any project, from the executive team down to the project administrator. As a result, project managers are freed up to do what they do best – add value to Forterra by successfully managing projects.
“Smartsheet is becoming a major application for all our users within the business – not only for projects, but for everyday life,” emphasises Wyldbore. “We have taken the concept of project manager dashboards from the PMO piece of work and started rolling these out to a wider audience across more than just our PMO data. It is certainly helping us become more efficient as a business.”
