HSD is an Australian software development company with branches across five locations and over 20 years of history. HSD is a certified Microsoft partner, running long-term projects with multi-million budgets. Specializing in the Microsoft Dynamics and .NET ecosystem, HSD has an excellent track of cooperation with small, mid-sized, and large private and public organizations in sectors such as education, healthcare, and regulation (RegTech).
Service Delivery Director
HSD is an Australian software development company with branches across five locations and over 20 years of history. HSD is a certified Microsoft partner, running long-term projects with multi-million budgets.
Specializing in the Microsoft Dynamics and .NET ecosystem, HSD has an excellent track of cooperation with small, mid-sized, and large private and public organizations in sectors such as education, healthcare, and regulation (RegTech).
HSD was using a set of mass Excel spreadsheets to track people allocation and availability. However, this solution turned out to be time-consuming to use and maintain. Moreover, it prevented HSD from sharing data between different departments or forecasting project profitability.
At HSD, teams consist mainly of senior software developers and consultants dedicated to specific clients on a full-time basis. Thanks to this arrangement, the team can build tailormade solutions that match the client's needs perfectly.
At HSD, the Delivery Director was responsible for managing the project portfolio, allocating teams, and ensuring that projects are implemented on time and at the right margin. In addition to measuring billable projects, HSD also approaches the planning of real utilization meticulously by taking into account internal projects, such as Workshops, Meetings, Performance Review, or the development of its own solutions.
This allows gaining a better understanding of the actual availability of specialists and planning them in billable projects. However, this organization poses a severe challenge in the context of data control and its continuous supplementation.
The company has been using mass Excel spreadsheets to allocate people, forecast its availability, and project margins.
Based on the spreadsheets, the Project Management Office and Support Management Office departments updated data related to individual projects’ cash flow and profitability during meetings. The files filled that way were then sent to Sarah, who prepared a report for the Director of Corporate Services, and sent it to the rest of the Executives.
Sarah created a mass of spreadsheets responsible for allocating people, testing their availability, and measuring project profitability. Although the solution worked well, it took Sarah between 10 and 15 hours a week to manage the data and retrieve the necessary information.
Moreover, the operation itself was difficult and didn’t allow a bird's eye view of what was happening between projects. There was no comprehensive source of knowledge where anyone could check the information they needed.
“No one had real information about the utilization level and project profitability. This resulted in many meetings between me, the Project Management Office, Support Management Office, and the Business & Consulting Office. I had to constantly juggle different spreadsheets to check the needed information, making double-checks, and in the end, I still wasn’t 100% sure that the data is correct. It caused chaos and confusion. "
HSD’s process caused downtime, resulting in long meetings where different departments had to come together to exchange information and then try to reproduce it in spreadsheets. Decision paralysis was a common problem. Moreover, as projects were extended, the spreadsheets got bigger in terms of data volume and took a very long time to load, significantly reducing their usability.
Another problem experienced at HSD was that project managers and developers often asked Sarah what they would work on next and when because they didn’t have access to these spreadsheets. Since Sarah wasn’t always available, this caused a communication problem that frustrated everyone.
The process also created an additional risk: incorrect settlements with clients that could cause losses and weaken the client’s relationship with the company.
During a reorganization of departments, the company decided to start looking for comprehensive software that would replace the Excel spreadsheets used so far. HSD considered the following key criteria:
“I was looking for something that would allow me to have a bird's eye view of human availability, project implementation status, and forecasting uncertain projects. Due to the fact that we have employees from different parts of the world, the key for me was the ability to configure custom public holidays and time off. It turned out that Primetric has all the necessary functionalities."
When looking for solutions available on the market, Sarah came across Primetric in the Atlassian Marketplace. It quickly turned out that the system fully reflects her Excel data. After talking with our consultant, it turned out that the only functionality missing was AUD (Australian Dollars) support.
“The guys from Primetric are amazing! They added a missing feature in just 5 hours. Their responsiveness and ability to arrange a video meeting whenever needed is simply amazing."
Adding custom functionalities open the doors to our cooperation with HSD. We began with the implementation of Primetric. Since our solution is strictly adapted to the processes in software development and IT service companies, the full implementation took 4 weeks.
HSD is planning to implement a new Primetric module and expand its use of the tool, so expect another case study soon.
“Primetric is a game-changing solution for me and our company. It lets us reduce planning time from 15h per week to just few minutes. Now, everyone knows who, when, and for how long should work on a project. When people ask me for financial or work-related data, I tell them just to check out the Primetric report because it's all there. In addition, thanks to the quick comparison of implementation plans, I can easily control what is happening in the project portfolio and react before it’s too late. Primetric took a heavy burden off me."
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