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How many people would be an IDEAL WF TEAM for your department?

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Level 2
Hi Everyone - So, I am presenting to Leadership asking for buy-in for more team members to help me with WF. As of right now, I am a one man show - I customize dashboards, templates, layouts, build reports, quality control, troubleshooting, resourcing, etc. You name it, that's me! Any insight would be ideal on what YOU THINK would be an accurate number that made your company a success and how those roles made it a success. Thanks ahead of time! Jill Jillian McGovern Project Manager NYU Langone Health New York, New York E: jillian.mcgovern@nyumc.org P: 646.754.7358
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Level 10
Hi Jill, I also was a one-man band, but then I moved into another team who did similar things for other systems, and we are slowly cross-training each other. The number of people you need would heavily depend on the scale of your organisation and what you use Workfront for, of course. I'd say at least 2 would be good business practice to mitigate the "bus factor" risk. :) Regards, David Cornwell

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Level 2
Hi Jill, We have a team of two to manage WF. We both on-board and train; we divide and conquer with troubleshooting. My partner does more reporting and I do more of the IT backend and process building. But we do this as other-duties-as-assigned in addition to our day-to-day jobs. It could, in theory, be a full-time job for two people, especially as more departments ask to come on board. We have four right now (Corp Comm/Marketing, Patient Relations, Center for Clinical Excellence, Blood Donor Services), and at least two more want to be on-boarded as soon as we have time to bring them on. At least one has been in a holding pattern for a year because we haven't had time to develop their process and workflows and train them. Best of luck! Sherrie Voss Matthews Senior Manager, Internal Communication Corporate Communications & Marketing University Health System, San Antonio, TX sherrie.matthews@uhs-sa.com SherrieMatthews

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Level 2
Thank you for the response, this has been extremely helpful when we connect with Leadership! Jillian McGovern Project Manager NYU Langone Health New York, New York E: jillian.mcgovern@nyumc.org P: 646.754.7358

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Level 2
Thank you for the response, this certainly helps! Jillian McGovern Project Manager NYU Langone Health New York, New York E: jillian.mcgovern@nyumc.org P: 646.754.7358

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Level 5
Hi Jill, I am also a department of one, at a 50 person company. I find that the template development, training, process development, and system administration can be done comfortably by myself. What does become a challenge is when the volume of new projects increases, especially if you are still creating or updating projects yourself. I agree that two would be Ideal, a Lead Project Manger/ System Administrator, and a Junior level person to help with the grunt work when it gets out of hand. Good luck! Thanks, Saher Almaita

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Level 2
Thank you Saher - this is very informative and may be the most logical example to provide with the resources given on our team! Jillian McGovern Project Manager NYU Langone Health New York, New York E: jillian.mcgovern@nyumc.org P: 646.754.7358

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Level 4
I think this is a challenge many organizations are facing. It's not uncommon. I found myself in the same position. I also "pitched" a proposal to create a support network internally last June. I have attached two files. The one titled WF Community was the pitch I used when I sat down with leadership to ask for their support and buy-in. The other is what we have built since. I found there are three equal sides to the triangle of success. Leadership Support, Owner, People/Participants. The model we built if that each team that has implemented Workfront has one representative/group admin/champion. There are 5 sys admins total. We use a request queue to manage changes and requests and share the workload. Now that we are growing and functioning operationally I'm seeing a new need to have a smaller team to act as a change advisory board. All the members in this structure are not dedicated. This is in addition to their current job and they have MBOs to support Workfront built into their performance plans. This structure within my organization has been so successful that leadership is looking to use this model to support all other systems (aka Tableau, Spotfire, etc). I am hiring another full time dedicated Workfront Solutions Consultant because we're looking to add another 800 or so users to the system, but the goal with this "community of practice" is to allow the teams to support themselves without relying on one single person. Let me know if you have any questions. i hope this gives you some inspiration for options that you can take to your leadership for some help. Jaclyn Jaclyn Reiter, PMP, SA Program Manager, Strategic Initiatives Equifax, Inc. St. Louis, MO 314-684-2693

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Level 3

Hello Jaclyn,

I realize this thread is fairly old, but I am facing this structural challenge now at Mohawk. We have roughly 300 users, across different teams, and holes within our administration model are beginning to make themselves apparent. It seems that your original attachments to the thread may have fallen off with the move to the new WF Community platform. Is there any chance you still have them and would be willing to share them? My email is corey_beavers@mohawkind.com

Thank you!

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Level 2
WOW Jaclyn - this is outstanding. Once I dive into the presentations, can I email you to discuss further? Jillian McGovern Project Manager NYU Langone Health New York, New York E: jillian.mcgovern@nyumc.org P: 646.754.7358

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Level 4
Absolutely you can email me. I'm happy to help and share knowledge. jaclyn.reiter@equifax.com Jaclyn Reiter, PMP, SA Program Manager, Strategic Initiatives Equifax, Inc. St. Louis, MO 314-684-2693

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Level 10
Internal creative agency of over 175 people. There is no "dedicated" Workfront position, but we divide and conquer. We have a small Operations team dedicated to tech management and tasks (DAM, workstations, Workfront, cost tracking, eComm asset management, pre-corporate help desk support, training, documentation, etc.). From that team: I should be the primary WF admin, but because of the way HR/pay related data is not cordoned-off (since I do not have need-to-know access for contractor pay), I will be a SysAdmin during configuration and launch, but downgraded to as an high an access as I can without being able to see billing rates for individuals, which will lock me out of quite a bunch of other admin functions. I'm the Associate Operations Manager for the agency. The idea is that I have full SysAdmin until just before launch when the pay information goes in for individuals, then I get downgraded so I can't see it. The Operations Manager (my manager), will be the lead SysAdmin after launch and we are tag-teaming the launch and configuration; she's a process wizard. Probably going to have to figure out some way to do the admin'ing together post-launch with me helping over her shoulder as needed. We have a single source for our contractors, and that company needs direct access to get data for paying said contractors (they are a long-time trusted partner who are embedded in our group). So they will be SysAdmins 2 and 3 post-launch, but will stay away from anything that doesn't have to do with the specific function of paying people. So that's 4 people part-timing. Both myself and my manager don't manage WF full-time, and rather hope the duties lessen as time goes on and we get into a maintenance mode. If WF can find some way to silo the pay and HR-like features then we could reduce from four to three people. If WF was better able to manage accurate pay data (such as overtime), then we could go from three to two people (one part-time admin, one finance/payroll person). At least, that's the theory. :-) Kevin Quosig