LMI Process Improvement Initiative Consolidates Customer PPM Capabilities
March 1, 2023
In 2019, LMI proposed a process improvement initiative for one of our customers to standardize and automate finance and budget processes across the organization. Our team first worked with the agency to compile a list of detailed requirements (i.e., functional, tools, technical) that the selected software would need to meet to be considered for implementation. Once the requirements vetting was completed, we conducted thorough market research of 158 different PPM tools, capturing each respective software’s capabilities and functionality. After completing analysis and participating in vendor demonstrations, our team recommended the right PPM tool for the agency to implement.
The table below highlights the key needs of the agency that we analyzed and how they were met by the selected PPM tool:
Benefits to Our Client:
- With this increased visibility into their budget, agency leadership was able to see under-execution in their spend plans, allowing them to move financial resources to ensure their allocated funds were appropriately dispersed. For Fiscal Year (FY) 2022, the agency obligated over 99.9% of their funding, a significant improvement over previous FYs.
- Previous reports were completed via a manual process (i.e., monthly, quarterly, yearly) which was very labor intensive. The LMI team leveraged the PPM tool and Power BI to automate many of these reports, saving cost and time across the agency.
- The PPM implementation was so successful that the agency is migrating similar Project Management capabilities in other tools to the selected system, retiring these other systems and reducing ongoing system maintenance costs.
- Additionally, the agency has requested that LMI develop a contract life cycle module within the PPM tool to provide leadership with visibility into all aspects of contracts, purchase requests, contract financial information, and contract timeframes. Current processes for these activities include distributed, spreadsheet-based, manual reporting capabilities. The new module will provide an aggregated view for real-time recognition and reporting of all aspects of contract activities.
- Previously, programs were conducting quarterly financial reporting to agency leadership. Leveraging the new PPM tool, LMI improved the program reporting process to reduce briefing times from approximately 1 hour per program to 15 minutes per program. This freed up time for leadership and program managers to focus on other projects and initiatives.
If your organization lacks a consolidated resource to support portfolio, program, and project management capabilities, LMI’s team of PPM subject matter experts can help find the right tool. To learn more, please contact Vickie Sanchez.