Looking for help on managing BIG projects and templates. | Community
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J
JyotiSi
Level 2
March 15, 2021
Solved

Looking for help on managing BIG projects and templates.

  • March 15, 2021
  • 2 replies
  • 740 views

Hello,

Few of my projects and templates are getting too big to manage, with many sub children and 500+ tasks.

One of the option that I am thinking is to break these projects into sub projects and connect them via cross project predecessor.

I am looking for ideas from this community on how do you manage such projects and are there any other ways in the Workfront to break bigger projects into smaller and link them.

Thanks,

Jyoti

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Best answer by Doug_Den_Hoed_AtAppStore

Hi Jyoti,

Depending on where you're at in your implementation and adoption with Workfront, I can offer a few suggestions:

  • Just starting? Consider investing extra time to teach your users the power of Filters, Views, and Groupings, and encourage them to get comfortable tailoring them -- even on the fly -- to "only what matters at that point in time". By doing so, even a 500+ Task template or project can quickly be cut down to a manageable size, without you (as the Template architect) having to start from scratch
  • Getting Going? It is soooo tempting to overcomplicate templates and micromanage, "just because you can". I took a few years (and several clients) to unlearn that temptation and instead switch to a reduced set of Tasks, typically where each successive Task represents a conceptual "ball handoff" (i.e. change in primary Assignee). In addition to simplifying workflow, it engenders trust (e.g. "Jake's got it, will do what he needs, then pass it to Marie"), while still leaving the opportunity to review, analyze, and make process improvements at a meaningful level (e.g. "hmm...that Task Jake does seems to always take longer than the Template expects; let's chat with him in find out why, so we can either break it into two Tasks for more precision, or maybe just extend the Template's expected time to be more realistic").
  • Making Improvements? Along that line, as you do Get Smarter and decide to modify your templates to better reflect reality, consider our Sync Template solution, which frees you from analysis paralysis on templates: boldly use them to create projects, periodically adapt their tasks as things change, then synchronize those adjustments out to their projects.
  • Hitting the Edges? Over time (which can come quickly, in certain industries), in order to accurately represent project interdependencies, you might decide to tap into advance features like Cross Project Predecessors, Portfolio Project Prioritization, and advanced custom data configuration. Exciting, scary stuff...and happens to be where we've invested years to invent solutions that leverage the hard work you're putting into your data, such as our Timeline (cross project predecessor crawling), Roadmap (activity visualization), and Lite-Brite (official forecast vs real work) solutions. Always happy to chat further at doug.denhoed@atappstore.com

Regards,

Doug

2 replies

SamanthaIsin
SamanthaIsin
Level 7
March 15, 2021

We use multiple projects within a program and portfolio! Then we use reports and milestone views to manage them and keep them connected. We also use calendars to see a chronological view of how things happen.

Our users get very overwhelmed when they see a project with more than 10-15 tasks. I didn't onboard them to Workfront, but whoever did broke them 😂So we manage a VERY large number of projects.

For example, my team manages the monthly leadership magazine for the company. We do everything from copy to photography to review. Each article or ad has it's own project and all those projects are managed through a dashboard.

    J
    JyotiSiAuthor
    Level 2
    March 15, 2021

    Thank you, Samatha. I have not tried milestone views. You gave me some pretty good ideas. Thank you for your help.

      Doug_Den_Hoed_AtAppStore
      Community Advisor
      Doug_Den_Hoed_AtAppStoreCommunity AdvisorAccepted solution
      Community Advisor
      March 16, 2021

      Hi Jyoti,

      Depending on where you're at in your implementation and adoption with Workfront, I can offer a few suggestions:

      • Just starting? Consider investing extra time to teach your users the power of Filters, Views, and Groupings, and encourage them to get comfortable tailoring them -- even on the fly -- to "only what matters at that point in time". By doing so, even a 500+ Task template or project can quickly be cut down to a manageable size, without you (as the Template architect) having to start from scratch
      • Getting Going? It is soooo tempting to overcomplicate templates and micromanage, "just because you can". I took a few years (and several clients) to unlearn that temptation and instead switch to a reduced set of Tasks, typically where each successive Task represents a conceptual "ball handoff" (i.e. change in primary Assignee). In addition to simplifying workflow, it engenders trust (e.g. "Jake's got it, will do what he needs, then pass it to Marie"), while still leaving the opportunity to review, analyze, and make process improvements at a meaningful level (e.g. "hmm...that Task Jake does seems to always take longer than the Template expects; let's chat with him in find out why, so we can either break it into two Tasks for more precision, or maybe just extend the Template's expected time to be more realistic").
      • Making Improvements? Along that line, as you do Get Smarter and decide to modify your templates to better reflect reality, consider our Sync Template solution, which frees you from analysis paralysis on templates: boldly use them to create projects, periodically adapt their tasks as things change, then synchronize those adjustments out to their projects.
      • Hitting the Edges? Over time (which can come quickly, in certain industries), in order to accurately represent project interdependencies, you might decide to tap into advance features like Cross Project Predecessors, Portfolio Project Prioritization, and advanced custom data configuration. Exciting, scary stuff...and happens to be where we've invested years to invent solutions that leverage the hard work you're putting into your data, such as our Timeline (cross project predecessor crawling), Roadmap (activity visualization), and Lite-Brite (official forecast vs real work) solutions. Always happy to chat further at doug.denhoed@atappstore.com

      Regards,

      Doug

        J
        JyotiSiAuthor
        Level 2
        March 17, 2021

        Thank you, Doug for writing a detailed reply to my question. We are currently in making improvements stage in our Workfront implementation, but I feel that all the points that you have made are applicable no matter what the stage. We are following most of them and I want to know more about the advanced custom data configuration that you mentioned and also Timeline (cross project predecessor crawling), Roadmap (activity visualization), and Lite-Brite (official forecast vs real work) solutions that you mentioned. Can you point me to their direction? Thank you again for all these helpful tips.

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