Profile - SmartWave
Client Profile
Name: SmartWave
Contact: Matt Richardson, President
Location: Milwaukee
Industry: Management Consulting / Technology Services
Demographics: Team of 3, all operating in remote offices, plus on-site consultants
Contact: Matt Richardson, President
Location: Milwaukee
Industry: Management Consulting / Technology Services
Demographics: Team of 3, all operating in remote offices, plus on-site consultants
Client's Pain Point
Our biggest issue is resource allocation for internal projects, and projects we manage for our clients. It’s a huge problem for us, as we work remotely. We use Basecamp to manage project tasks and team collaboration but Basecamp lacks resource planning and project visualization features like Gantt charts.
Efficiency is something we are always conscious of, as it directly affects our bottom line when we overbook one of our staff. Every hour that a consultant is over capacity costs us twice as much to rectify, and pushing project dates because of poor resource management not only requires greater financial resources but also impacts our relationship and credibility with our clients.
Our biggest issue is resource allocation for internal projects, and projects we manage for our clients. It’s a huge problem for us, as we work remotely. We use Basecamp to manage project tasks and team collaboration but Basecamp lacks resource planning and project visualization features like Gantt charts.
Efficiency is something we are always conscious of, as it directly affects our bottom line when we overbook one of our staff. Every hour that a consultant is over capacity costs us twice as much to rectify, and pushing project dates because of poor resource management not only requires greater financial resources but also impacts our relationship and credibility with our clients.Solution
We evaluated several project management/planning tools available in Basecamp Extras and determined Roadmap best fit our needs. The user interface is simple and easy to use, and Roadmap has all of the features we need to manage our resources, communicate project status in a visual way to our clients, and help the SmartWave management team to stay on top of project health before it becomes an issue.
The automatic nightly import from Basecamp into Roadmap is convenient. We have designated one person to monitor the health of all of our projects while our client engagement managers use Roadmap to adjust resource forecasts. We have provided our clients’ executive leadership team access to Roadmap so they can see the status of their projects at any time.
Prior to Roadmap we relied on a combination of paper, whiteboards and spreadsheets. It was cumbersome and inefficient to evaluate our entire project portfolio in weekly team meetings.
Our favorite Roadmap features are:
- Gantt chart views of the entire portfolio or individual projects
- Resource 360 for reviewing resource workloads
- Projects Tab (grid view) for quickly sorting or filtering by customer criteria
We evaluated several project management/planning tools available in Basecamp Extras and determined Roadmap best fit our needs. The user interface is simple and easy to use, and Roadmap has all of the features we need to manage our resources, communicate project status in a visual way to our clients, and help the SmartWave management team to stay on top of project health before it becomes an issue.
The automatic nightly import from Basecamp into Roadmap is convenient. We have designated one person to monitor the health of all of our projects while our client engagement managers use Roadmap to adjust resource forecasts. We have provided our clients’ executive leadership team access to Roadmap so they can see the status of their projects at any time.
Prior to Roadmap we relied on a combination of paper, whiteboards and spreadsheets. It was cumbersome and inefficient to evaluate our entire project portfolio in weekly team meetings.
Our favorite Roadmap features are:
- Gantt chart views of the entire portfolio or individual projects
- Resource 360 for reviewing resource workloads
- Projects Tab (grid view) for quickly sorting or filtering by customer criteria
Benefits
- Visual presentation of information
- Ability to look at all projects at once
- Assign resources to a project or a milestone and have it sync back to Basecamp
- Perform resource utilization and planning
- Basecamp integration is seamless, extending the value of Basecamp
- Visual presentation of information
- Ability to look at all projects at once
- Assign resources to a project or a milestone and have it sync back to Basecamp
- Perform resource utilization and planning
- Basecamp integration is seamless, extending the value of Basecamp
