One of the leading logistic company with its technology division around 100+ employees working on internal logistic related solutions, managing internal software products and support were having challenges managing internal projects effectively. Issue related to work breakdown and tracking of a project status was done manually using XL. This had become challenging and time consuming. Team Needed a tool that can simplify the project management process and help project / program managers to stay alert and have a quick review on project deliverables, timeline, status and resource loading with less manual effort and also manage project cost and revenue much more efficiently.
A COMPLETE PROJECT MANAGEMENT SOLUTION
Solution
PMO Dashboard is a Portal that helps management to get a quick look on the status of the ongoing projects and areas of concern. It gives the summary or status of all the projects or programs. A PMO dashboard allows summarizing every piece of project data like project timeline, number resources, revenue, Issues etc...
Scope
In the three months project lifecycle my responsibility was to initiate discussions with customer, ideate and design pages and get an approval and provide all required support to development team in converting the design to working application.
Approach
Week1
It was a small engagement with a tight deadline. I started the project with discovery phase, spoke to couple of managers over the call and listed the concerns and requirements. Considering that the customer wanted to build this solution on Microsoft SharePoint, with limited customization, it was important for me to understand SharePoint feasibility check and take a look at some dashboard references built on SharePoint.
Discussion out come
Getting stuff done would be a lot easier if you didn’t have to deal with long, confusing, and outdated emails, Post-It notes, whiteboards, Excel, unnecessary “planning” meetings.
End users (Managers Pain Pints) Lot of emails asking.... - What’s the status of the project? - What’s the updated deadline? - What’s the next step? - Where is the link for latest project tracking XL? - Asking for people to upload documents, links, searching for the email?
Week2
Created an Information architecture to give customer a high-level overview of number of pages, how each pages are connected and to show the primary, secondary and tertiary level navigation structure. The information was structured, based on project managers day to day activities, Resource Management overview, Project Status, Activities like uploading project related files, process related documents etc...
Deliverables
IA
Wireframes
Prototype
Visual Design
Information Architecture
Week3
Created wireframes for each individual pages, converted them to clickable prototype and demonstrated the complete flow of the portal. Walked them with a real-time scenario, and explained how a manager can use the portal and access, perform certain access, and how it can help in getting complete overview of project status as well as managing project and team more efficiently.
Wireframes
Week 4
As per branding guidelines, we choose blue as a primary color. Also considered other secondary colors to make it more vibrant. Blue colors are universally relaxing and safe, but the lighter shades will seem more friendly while the darker ones seem more somber. Darker shades’ of blue promote strength and reliability.
visual designs were created by following guidelines. Also created a clickable prototype to get a more application like feel.
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