How Verto helps you plan and deliver the perfect project
What does the perfect project look like? We think it has clearly expressed outcomes that you can easily monitor, measure, evidence and report on. It involves all the people who have an interest in it and can help it succeed. It comes in on time and within budget. And it makes a positive difference.
That’s easy to write. But harder to do. Especially for a large organization that’s delivering multiple projects under different programmes, often as part of a multi-agency partnership.
With Verto, you’ll find the perfect project is much easier to achieve
Verto brings every aspect of a project into one place, from the very start when you’re forming ideas and writing your business case, right through to your final evaluation and project report.
This gives you the transparency you need to be able to manage the project effectively and work in partnership with all the organizations you need to involve.
Verto gives you a shared dashboard and database and helps you standardize processes. This saves you time and makes it easier for you to accurately interpret your data and produce accurate, real-time reports.
Verto also automatically links your project’s outputs to its outcomes. This means you can:
- See how you’re meeting your key performance indicators
- Easily monitor and measure the outcomes your project is delivering as it progresses
- Measure and manage cost, both for both a single project and across whole programmes
- Accurately report on and evaluate what your project has achieved when it ends
- Measure your performance against national indicators and that of other organizations
All this will help you accurately and effectively target improvement, manage spend and identify savings.
Your Verto
So Verto will help you improve your performance and deliver efficiency savings using an evidenced based approach that is easy to report on.
What makes it so popular with our clients is how we they can customize Verto to meet the exact needs of their organization and reflect their existing terminology and practice.
This has helped different partners work together using the same processes, language and templates. It has given them transparency and so helped them develop trust and strong working relationships. It has helped them share good practice. And it has helped them easily produce accurate reports, both for use internally and as part of their statutory requirements.
To find out more about how Verto can make your project management easier please call us on 0118 334 6200 or message us here.
And for more information on how we’re helping different multi-agency partnerships deliver complex programmes and improve outcomes for the communities they serve, please see the case studies we post on our blog, such as this one for Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire Sustainability and Transformation Plan.
Our five golden rules for a successful meeting
Our five golden rules for a successful meeting
In our post on 9th March, we looked at the top five skills all project managers should have. Number five on our list was being able to manage meetings. Because well-run meetings are such a vital part of a project’s success, we said we’d look at them again in a future post.
So today, we’re going to look at how you can make sure your meetings are a success.
The professional meeting goer
Many of us go to so many meetings it can seem like that’s all our job is. An endless round of agendas, minutes, background papers, reports, coffee, biscuits and hoping you’ll be able to park.
Will your morning meeting be over in time so you can go back to your office before your afternoon meeting? How many of the people who were in your last meeting will be in your next meeting? How many people do you only ever meet in meetings?
What are all these meetings for?
But, however much we may moan about them, we do need meetings. They’re a key part of how we share information, make decisions and keep a project moving forward.
Meetings can also be the only time different people involved in a project get to see each other. So they can be an important way to keep partners connected and involved.
How to make sure people come to your meetings
When people are confident that your meetings are relevant, useful, well run and overall a good use of their time, they’ll come to them. And, perhaps more importantly, they’ll keep coming.
This is key, because consistent commitment and participation from the right people is one of the things that will help your projects succeed.
So take a look at our golden rules for how to run a successful meeting. They’ll help your meetings succeed and, as a result, help your projects succeed too.
Our five golden rules for successful meetings
1. Make sure you invite the right people
Only invite people who are involved in the business of the meeting, can contribute to it and make decisions - or who have a direct link to those who can. This is particularly important with public sector organizations where the decision-making process can have several layers and be complex.
Generally, for a meeting to be effective no more than 12 people should be part of the core group. However, from time to time you may also want to invite people who you need to hear from or who need to hear what you’re discussing.
2. Plan the meeting carefully
When you’re putting the agenda together make sure you stay focused on a clear outcome (or outcomes, but not too many – see point about timing below). Think about what the meeting needs to decide, discuss and hear about now. If something doesn’t require immediate action or isn’t clearly relevant, leave it for a later date or don’t include it at all.
Show whether each agenda item is for decision, information or discussion. As people are usually more lively and creative at the start of a meeting, put items that need mental energy and clear heads at the top of the agenda. However, it can also be helpful to put items of significant interest and concern further down the agenda. This can help people get over the natural attention lag that happens about 20 minutes in to a meeting.
It’s also worth thinking about the impact agenda items will have on the group. Some will bring people together while others can create a divide. The order in which you include these items will make a difference to the whole atmosphere of the meeting. For example, it is worth ending the meeting with an item that creates consensus so that people leave on a positive note.
3. Time the meeting carefully
Set a time for your meeting and stick to it. And try not to let it last longer than two hours. Meetings that go on too long become less effective.
Include the start and end time on the agenda as well as the timing for each agenda item. This will help keep people focused and prevent the meeting from overrunning.
We all hate lengthy meetings that go on and on so doing this will help people look at your meetings in a positive way and encourage them to attend regularly.
4. Set the right tone
You, or the chair, need to set the tone for the meeting from the start. Make sure it’s purposeful, focused and energetic. However, you also want people to feel comfortable and able to contribute so make a conscious effort to include everyone and allow some time for a more easy-going approach.
The right tone also relates to what happens outside of the meeting. So make it clear you expect people to prepare, to turn up on time, to participate and to carry out actions they commit to.
5. Follow-up the meeting properly
Once you’ve held your meeting send the minutes to everyone promptly, preferably within a week. Include the actions you agreed on and the names of the people who will carry them out.
Minutes also help people who weren’t at the meeting catch up on what was discussed and agreed. If necessary, get in touch with them in person to share what happened and discuss any particular issues with them. This will show they were missed and encourage them to stay committed to the work of the group and attend next time.
Well-run meetings are particularly useful when you’re managing multi-agency projects. They can bring people together who otherwise wouldn’t meet. They can help to define the partnership. And they can help people to understand both their collective aim and the way in which they and others can contribute to and influence this.
To find out more about how Verto can make your project management easier please call us on 0844 870 8785 or message us here.
Our Top Ten Tips for Project Management Best Practice
However many projects you manage, no two will ever be the same. Even where projects share some aspects, they are unlikely to be totally alike. For example, the project team, stakeholders, funding streams or key targets could all be different.
However, some areas of best practice apply to all the projects you manage. Have a look at our top ten tips and make them part of the way you work. You’ll find your job will become easier and your projects will be more likely to succeed.
1. Plan your project properly
Thorough planning before the project starts will help you be clear and realistic about what the project is meant to achieve. This means you can set well-defined success criteria that you can measure and report on.
You’ll be able to make sure you have the right budget, the right resources and the right skills on the project team. It will also help you identify and plan for potential risks and set realistic timescales.
2. Start your project properly
To help set the tone for your project and create some energy around it, start it formally with a meeting or event.
Invite all your stakeholders and use it as an opportunity to remind everyone of the project’s aims and the part they’ll all play in its delivery – and ultimate success.
3. Keep in touch with all your stakeholders
Once your project is up and running make sure you communicate regularly with everyone involved. Let them know what’s going on, including any problems, risks and delays. Be sure to share successes too, like when milestones are reached, to acknowledge people’s input and say thank you.
How you share information can include anything from a simple message to one person right through to a formal report to the project board. What’s important is to make sure everyone is as up-to-date on the project as possible.
4. Ask for feedback
Alongside keeping in touch with everyone involved in your project, ask them to share information with you too. Encourage people to give their feedback, as this will help them stay involved with the project and keep you in touch with what’s going on.
You can also use feedback to help you learn and improve your own performance.
5. Keep an up-to-date and detailed work plan
A detailed work plan will help everyone know what they’re responsible for and will make it easier for you to measure progress, hit milestones and meet deadlines.
These days, cloud-based applications make it easy to share documents. So update your work plan regularly and store it in the cloud so everyone can work off the current version.
6. Record everything that happens
Make sure you record everything that happens on your project and use it to improve performance across the board. You can learn from what has worked as well as from what hasn’t. You’ll also build a valuable source of data to help with your reporting and future planning.
7. Learn to say no
When someone asks you to take on more work or responsibility it’s tempting to say yes, especially when you know that’s what they want to hear. But always saying yes can easily lead to overload and a reduction in performance across the board.
So only say yes to new tasks or commitments when they won’t have an adverse effect on the priorities you’ve already agreed. Even small changes can accumulate over time and have a significant impact on your project.
8. Always document and agree any changes to the scope of the project
It’s likely that at some point in the life of your project, its scope may need to change. This may improve the overall benefit of the project but it can also have a negative impact.
So, before you go ahead with changes to the scope of your project, make sure the project board understands their potential impact and agrees to them. Finally, make sure you document the changes and update your project plan.
9. Be ready to respond to risk
Risk is a normal part of any project so you should build risk analysis in from the start. You can manage risk and minimise its effect by having a clear view of all the project’s potential risks, and mechanisms in place to let you know as soon as one arises.
The quicker you respond to risk the less impact it will have and the more likely it is that your project will stay on track.
10. Take time to reflect on the project when it’s ended
When your project has ended, involve the whole project team in reflecting on how it went. Look back in detail on how the project ran, its key events and issues. Learn both from what went well and what could have gone better.
Ask, for example, if the project delivered what it set out to achieve? Could it have done more and delivered bigger benefits? What went wrong and how could you have avoided these problems?
Use this learning to improve your own practice and share it with others to help future projects succeed.
Verto’s cloud-based software makes managing projects easy for you. For example, its instant messaging tool, flexible reporting, instant updates, inbuilt version control and instant access to your documents and lessons learnt will all help you put these best practice tips into action.
For more information please message us here.
Who can benefit from Verto’s project management software?
You can benefit from Verto’s collaboration and project software, even if you don’t have the words programme or project management in your job title.
It doesn’t matter if you work in the public or the private sector either.
The benefits of our cloud-based software extend to a wide range of roles in a wide range of organisations, such as:
- Private sector companies from SMEs to large corporates
- NHS STPs
- Other NHS organisations and health authorities
- Local authorities including county, city and borough councils
- Fire and Rescue Services
- Government departments
- Shared services organisations
Any PMO, organisation or individual who manages a number of different projects will benefit from using our software. For example, Peterborough City Council was managing 70 individual projects when we started working with them.
And any organisation working in collaboration with others will benefit from Verto’s shared platform too.
Verto can help you with:
- Service delivery
- Performance planning
- Client and stakeholder engagement
- Programme control and governance
- Risk analysis
- Shared practice
- Managing resources
- Flexible working
- Costs and timesheets
- Measuring project delivery
- Business intelligence and reporting
We don’t just provide the software either.
We can train you and your team how to use Verto, and train you to train others in your organisation too.
We can help you move your operations to the cloud.
We can configure Verto to suit your individual requirements. For example, we can help NHS organisations run their QIPP reports and ISFE returns.
We can help you manage corporate transformation programmes.
We can help you manage your capital portfolio.
We can help you improve levels of governance and visibility across your projects.
And we can help you manage resources more effectively and make savings – to date we’ve helped our clients plan and track savings of £13.2 billion.
We could go on, but the best way to find out how Verto can help make your work easier is to talk to us. Please message us here.
21 Reasons Why You Should Use Verto for Your Project Management (as told to us by our clients)
We’re lucky enough to have received some great testimonials from our clients over the years.
And, like you, we listen to all the feedback we get and use it to help us continuously improve what we do.
Here are 21 reasons you should use Verto as your project management software, taken from what our clients have told us.
We’ve summarised their comments but you can see them in full here.
- Verto is a flexible management tool that will support your PMO.
- It means you can easily keep all your project documents up-to-date and secure in one place.
- It’s easy to navigate.
- Verto gives senior leadership improved visibility of projects across the whole organisation.
- You can easily see exactly what is going on in a particular business or service area.
- Everyone involved in the project can access the system to view and update it as appropriate.
- It removes the risks of silo working and makes it easier to work collaboratively.
- It will help you improve communication.
- It will help you improve accountability.
- It will help you improve stakeholder involvement.
- Verto will give you a clear view of all project budgets.
- Verto will give you a clear view of all project risks and help you manage them effectively.
- Verto will help your PMO allocate their time more efficiently and effectively.
- Verto is preset with best practice templates and controls to help ensure the integrity of your data.
- Its reports are quick and easy to customise, update and run.
- It will help you produce your corporate and strategic plans.
- We can tailor Verto to your exact needs, for example by creating bespoke reports.
- Verto gives you automatic document control.
- It’s good value for money.
- We’re continuously improving Verto’s scope, tools and functionality.
- Verto is backed-up by fantastic support from a first-class team.
For more information on how Verto can help you please call us on 0844 870 8785 or send us a message.
With thanks to Brent Council, Camden Council, Cheshire West Council, Denbighshire County Council, Gloucestershire County Council, Harrow Council, Horsham Council, Devon and Somerset Fire and Rescue Service, Basildon Council, Newham Council, Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead Council, Wolverhampton Council, York Council, Central Eastern CSU, Thurrock CCG and Basildon CCG.