💡 How to Monitor and Manage your MARGINS: PART 1 [VIDEO + DISCUSSION]

[Doug_Den_Hoed__AtAppStore]

WELCOME!

This is PART 1 in a series of related Meaningful Discussions. Once you've caught up on this one, join us for PART 2, noting that this one has enough replies that you'll need to click the Load More Replies button at the bottom to see the latest content.

BACKSTORY

For my entire tenure with Workfront, the phrase "you can’t do financials" has been the disappointing standard response to those business owners seeking to make decisions based on profit margins, rather than just hours. That is about to change.

With many thanks to @jon_chen for helping make this [VIDEO + DISCUSSION] possible, I invite you to join my interview with Ross Allmark, Vice President for Transformations at Vice Media Group, who explains the details of our new AFA Burn Report with Baselineᐩ solution, which allows Workfront users to track margins at the Project, Department, Role, and User level over time.

VIDEO

The video is broken into the following chapters:

• 00:00 CH01 Introducing Ross Allmark, Vice Media Group
• 00:33 CH02 Select Report, Project Filter, Dates, and Settings...
• 01:34 CH03 Choose Currency (USD vs Project)...
• 02:08 CH04 Choose Total, Department, Role, or User level...
• 02:33 CH05 The importance of Rate Cards...
• 03:03 CH06 Generate the AFA Burn Report...
• 03:29 CH07 Zooming in on the Margin Summary...
• 03:55 CH08 Defining Approved vs Forecast vs Actuals...
• 04:53 CH09 Margin Summary details...
• 05:41 CH10 Illustrating real time of adjusting data...
• 07:23 CH11 Zooming in on the Selected Detail vs Summary...
• 08:34 CH12 Moving down to "the real action"...
• 09:00 CH13 Total, Department, Role and User Rates, Hours, and Hour Costs rollups...
• 09:07 CH14 Approved details...
• 09:39 CH15 Forecast details...
• 09:58 CH16 Scope Creep details...
• 11:04 CH17 Actuals details...
• 11:30 CH18 Approved Remaining details...
• 11:44 CH19 Burn Projection details...
• 12:47 CH20 Why Projection is the Most Viewed Section...
• 13:20 CH21 Data Cutoff (+/- Highlighting) details...
• 14:13 CH22 How to identify and manage Scope Creep...
• 14:42 CH23 Signoff

DISCUSSION

At your earliest convenience, I invite you to watch the full video (or chapters, above) and then share your thoughts below whether they are questions, answers, comments, or ideas.

To make this post as valuable and interesting as possible, I suggest you copy and paste the 00:00 CH##  link from above into your post, for context and quick access. I will reply similarly, and will also periodically make targeted post for each chapter as a conversation starter.

This [VIDEO + DISCUSSION] approach will lead to some interesting sidebars below the umbrella of the overall topic, allowing others to discover it, watch the video, and contribute to the discussion over time. I will kick that concept off momentarily using Chapter 12 to illustrate, below.

Thanks for your interest, and especially (in advance) your participation. I look forward to further discussion in due course!

Regards,

Doug

TIP: click the three dots above and then click "Follow" to be alerted when others add to the conversation

[Doug_Den_Hoed__AtAppStore]

Quick followup @Jason_JB,

I caught Ross up on all of the above today, and when we focused on your "Baseline by phase" question, he explained that in his organization's case, they've accomplished something similar by breaking each such phase into its own project, which in turn allows baselines to therefor be independent of each other. An Elegant Alternative...provided doing so aligns with other processes, of course.

Might separating phases into their own Projects work in your case, too, or (if not) what business reasons and/or efficiencies preclude you from doing so?

Regards,

Doug

[Jason_JB]

Doug - thank you for digging into this question!

In our organization we've historically linked a project to a set of sold work; therefore, splitting it into multiple projects creates the need to be able to link it back together to be able to answer the question "did we deliver everything we sold".

I'm interested in the perspectives of others as we continue to think about this challenge (baseline capture/reporting against).  to the questions you asked:

• An automated approach ensures compliance, but I'm sure there are exceptions, so I'm kinda leaning towards manual overrides
• the AFA burn report would be an improvement over today, but it does limit our ability to use other adhoc reporting tools in Workfront
• yes, if we could create a merged baseline, we would.

Jason

[Doug_Den_Hoed__AtAppStore]

Ehm...I just noticed that this Meaningful Discussion has reached the [Load more results] button, and from the 3% click rate. I threw a big "More Data" arrow note up above to encourage people to click the button, but that's a pretty fragile hack.

@jon_chen, any chance of lifting that limit (or other suggestions)?

Otherwise, I might start a new but related thread for the next related concept I was about to post...

Regards,

Doug

[jon_chen]

Hey @Doug_Den_Hoed__AtAppStore The "load more" feature is a part of our Community UI and I'm afraid there's no way to lift that without applying the same effect across our entire Community. If it helps, you can also make a note in your main post to call out the "Load More" button at the bottom of the page.

[Doug_Den_Hoed__AtAppStore]

Thanks Jon,

No worries; I've renamed this to PART 1, added a tip to the main post calling out the Load More Replies button as you suggested, and am branching over to PART 2 now.

Regards,

Doug

[Doug_Den_Hoed__AtAppStore]

Sidebar...for those who viewed and enjoyed this Meaningful Discussion, I invite you to check out this MarCom Gantt [VIDEO + DISCUSSION], which although a different topic, follows a similar format and intention.

Regards,

Doug