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David Randall, Sr. Program Manager, Modern Work Management - Workfront

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01-03-2022

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As a remote employee, each day starts the same way (after the long trek down the stairs to my office). I first open Workfront Home to see what tasks and issues need to be completed “today”, what new updates did I receive and what is in the line-up for the remainder of the week. Then I open Gmail and Slack to evaluate new messages received. Am I being asked to do something?; 1) If yes, and it can be done in less than 2 minutes - I do it, 2) If yes, and it will take longer than 2 minutes to do, it is deferred or delegated. With either it is put into Workfront as a task or issue on an existing project, entered as an ad hoc task, or turned into a new project. Assignments are either self assigned (deferred) or assigned to somebody else (delegated), 3) If no, it is either “filed for later”, or “deleted”. All communications received during the normal work day are evaluated the same way.


This is my way to ensure I get all my work in Workfront. I fully believe that work that is not in Workfront doesn’t exist.


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ePMO and Enterprise Goals - By now I’m sure you are all aware of the 16 enterprise goals (aka “Big 16”), but what is this enterprise project management organization, a.k.a. ePMO? First off, the ePMO is a concept being realized within the organization via a project being managed in Workfront. 


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The role: “The ePMO will set the standards, provide governance, promote accountability, and share best practices that will allow teams to manage programs, projects and work in an objective and consistent manner.”


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Secondly, the ePMO is currently active in many ways supporting the enterprise goals, which of course are all being managed in Workfront. So how do I use Workfront relative to the enterprise goals?


Dashboards - we have created dashboards for the 4 company defining objectives that capture the scope statements and current issues or best next actions. Go to Dashboards and use the filter “2020 Company Objective”.


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We have also created a dashboard for each of the 16 enterprise goals. These dashboards capture the scope statement, initiative specific current issues, initiative specific current projects (projects in the initiative program and those connected via the Workfront Global Custom Form), initiative specific milestone report and each person's company wide goal associated with the specific initiative. Go to Dashboards and use the filter “2020 Key Initiative”


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Program Management Projects - Each enterprise goal has program management associated with it. These projects use the Workfront Global Templates which follow the Plan, Execute, Review and Deliver concept of the “Done Right” book. The initiative owners use these to capture unique tasks for their initiative, ELT review meetings, executive updates, etc. These projects will also be used to capture best next actions (as issues) coming out of the different meetings relative to the initiative. 


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I have created one single report to capture all the issues across the enterprise goals which is reviewed on a regular basis to support the initiative owners in ensuring that issues are addressed in a timely manner.


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This month (April 2020) we entered all 16 of the enterprise goals into the beta version of Workfront Align:


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We will be conducting a stand-up meeting every 2 weeks with each portfolio owner and the associated enterprise goal owner with a focus to update each goal and obtain 3 - 4 best next actions to be worked between stand-up meetings. These BNA’s will be captured as issues on their program management projects for follow-up.


Collaboration including Meeting Minutes - I think it is critically important that all communications (in whatever form) are properly captured on the respective project in Workfront. Above I’ve described my process to review Gmail and Slack and get those communications into Workfront. I also am making a concerted effort to start new project communications in Workfront. Instead of starting a new email or slack message I ask myself if this belongs in Workfront. We have the same ability to include multiple people in the communication. I encourage everyone to ask themselves “where do I start with a new message”, I say if it is project related do it in Workfront.


When it comes to project meeting minutes there is no better place than to capture them directly on the project, take a look at this example:


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You can see that all the participants are captured as well as the notes. What is the benefit? They become easy to find. You just need to recall the project name. Additionally, these minutes are transparent to all the stakeholders. Now that you’ve captured the meeting minutes, what do you do with the best next actions captured in the minutes? I personally create issues for these to avoid the minutes not being read, and/or the assigned action not being done. After all, these BNA’s are work, so let’s make them work in Workfront. You could argue that creating an issue may still not get the work done, which is correct.


However following some basic issue management practices will help you support others in accomplishing the items critical to project success.


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In summary, I’ll repeat what I stated in the beginning. I use Workfront for just about everything. I don’t do this as an act of micromanagement, I do this to highlight project transparency and have all my work in one place. I believe that transparency builds trust and through trust we do great work, and when we do great work we drastically increase the probability to deliver successful projects.