SYSTEMS THINKING
Planner Redesign
When inconsistent ways of managing work made it difficult to understand capacity, priorities, and portfolio health.
The Ask
As the Learning organization expanded its use of Microsoft® Planner, teams adopted a variety of approaches for managing projects, tracking work, and communicating status.
Board structures varied widely. Team members used different naming conventions, bucket strategies, workflows, and status definitions. Some teams maintained their boards consistently while others relied on them only periodically. As a result, users had very different experiences with the tool, making it difficult to understand project progress, compare work across teams, or generate reliable reporting.
Leadership requested standards and templates to improve consistency, encourage adoption of common practices, and create a more unified approach to project management across the organization.
My Discovery
Rather than focusing immediately on templates and reporting, I partnered with team members and leaders to better understand how work was being managed across the organization and what information was needed to support better decisions.
Three questions guided the analysis:
What did project teams need?
A simple, consistent way to plan, manage, communicate, and track work across projects and functions.
What did leaders need?
Reliable visibility into priorities, progress, risks, capacity, and workload trends across the portfolio.
What was standing in the way?
Different ways of managing work led to inconsistent data, limited trust in reporting, and reduced visibility into the portfolio's health.
The team wasn't struggling with project management software. It was struggling to see its work clearly enough to manage it effectively.
As we analyzed existing practices, a clear pattern emerged. Team members were using the same platform in very different ways. Project structures, workflows, timelines, status definitions, and reporting practices varied significantly from person to person and team to team.
Everyone had a way of managing work. Nobody had a shared way of managing work.
As a result, project information was inconsistent, reporting was difficult to interpret, and leaders lacked reliable visibility into workload, project health, and resource capacity. The challenge wasn't that information was unavailable—it was that the information couldn't be trusted or meaningfully analyzed.
The challenge wasn't to implement better project management software. The challenge was to create a shared system for managing work.
The question changed from "How do we standardize Planner boards?" to "How do we create a shared system for managing work?"
The Solution
The solution focused on creating a shared system for managing work—one that gave project teams the consistency they needed to execute effectively and leaders the visibility they needed to make informed decisions.
The solution created a path from inconsistent practices to scalable performance, with a focus on three key areas as the recommendation evolved across six stages of maturity:
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Establishing Shared Standards
We defined common project structures, naming conventions, workflows, and status definitions. Standards and templates simplified planning and tracking while ensuring consistency across teams.
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Improving Visibility Into Work
We created reporting structures and dashboards that provided reliable, actionable insights into priorities, progress, risks, and workload across the portfolio.
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Supporting Adoption and Change
We engaged teams through training, resources, and ongoing support to build confidence, encourage consistent use of the standards, and foster a culture of shared accountability.
Rather than treating standards, reporting, and adoption as separate initiatives, the solution connected them into a single operating model. Shared practices created reliable data. Reliable data improved visibility. Visibility enabled better capacity management and decision-making.
The result was more than a collection of Planner templates. It was a scalable approach to managing work that improved consistency across teams, strengthened portfolio oversight, and created a foundation for future growth.
The Results
Stakeholder Adoption
The new standards, templates, and reporting structures were adopted across the Learning organization, creating a more consistent approach to planning, tracking, and communicating work. Teams gained clearer expectations and a common framework for managing projects.
Improved Visibility
Standardized practices generated more reliable data, allowing leaders to better understand project status, workload, priorities, and resource allocation across the portfolio. The organization gained greater confidence in the information used to support planning and decision-making.
Lasting Impact
The initiative established a foundation for scalable growth by creating a shared operating model for managing work. More importantly, it reinforced an important principle that continues to guide my work: technology alone rarely solves organizational challenges. Sustainable improvement happens when people, processes, and tools work together to support better decisions.
PERFORMANCE CONSULTING
Pre-Engagement Planning
SCALABLE ENABLEMENT
ERP Implementation