Why Verto’s Cloud-based Software Will Make You a Better Employer
We designed Verto’s software to make it easier for you to manage projects and work in partnership with others.
And that’s exactly what Verto does. Its tools and cloud-based platform mean you can do all this, in an instant, whenever you need to and wherever you are:
- Manage risk
- Create reports
- Share information
- Communicate with one or more people
- See the status of all your projects at a glance
- Manage your team’s workload and performance
- Track your project’s progress and monitor its costs
There’s more to Verto
So Verto does what it promises. But it has other, less immediately obvious benefits. One is that Verto makes flexible working easy to put into practice and manage.
Increasingly, flexible working is becoming the norm. This is because it is good for both employees and employers. According to the 2009 Flexible Working Taskforce report:
65% of employers said flexible working practices had a positive effect on recruitment and retention
70% of employers noted some or significant improvement in employee relations
How to make flexible working work
Flexible working requires trust and confidence on both sides if it is to be a success. Staff need to be confident their managers are committed to flexible working and trust them not to abuse it. Likewise, managers need to allow their team members to have more control over their working week and trust them to maintain their performance.
Verto’s tools make it easy to manage a team, manage projects and maintain contact even when people are working in different places at different times. Exactly the support flexible working needs to be a success.
Key benefits of flexible working
One of the key strengths of flexible working is that it’s attractive to employees. So, as noted in the Flexible Working Taskforce report, it will appeal to candidates when you’re recruiting, it will help you retain skilled and experienced staff and it will help improve your employee relations.
There is a wealth of evidence to show (for example, Scandura and Lankau 1997) that flexible working leads to higher levels of commitment and job satisfaction.
This is because flexible working motivates and empowers your staff by giving them more control. For example, they’ll be able to more easily meet their family and other commitments. As an added benefit, they’re also more likely to take a flexible approach to work. So when you need people to put in some extra hours they’re more likely to do so willingly.
Less direct benefits can include cuts to travel time and costs, which can also contribute to your organization’s carbon management and reporting. Staff who are able to avoid the rush hour will probably arrive at work in a more positive frame of mind too!
At its simplest, trusting your staff to work flexibly shows that you’re committed to them not just the organization.
To find out more about how Verto can help your project management - and as a result, flexible working - please call us on 0844 870 8785 or message us here.
How Verto Helps You Manage Risk
You’ll have noticed in our blogs that we often talk about risk and how important it is that you manage it well.
In our last blog we described effective risk management as being aware of everything that could go wrong, having plans in place to respond quickly if something does go wrong and updating these plans as the project progresses and the risks change.
Others say that risk management is about anticipating what could happen between where you are and where you want to be.
This means looking at:
- What you’re aiming to do
- What might go wrong and why
- If it does go wrong, what would happen
- What you can do to stop it happening or make it have less impact
You should identify potential risks as soon as you start to plan your project. And you should monitor them throughout the life of the project.
Verto can help you do this.
A quick and easy way to manage risk
One of the greatest risks to any project is poor communication. For example, John finds out that in order to meet the deadline for a bid a member of his team needs some information. He’s out of the office when he’s told this, so makes a note to sort it out when he gets back. However, events overtake him and his note gets lost in the pile of other things he has to do. The deadline passes and his project ends up short of funds.
With Verto, wherever John had been when he first heard about this risk, he could immediately have sent a message to however many members of his team he needed to. And they could have picked it up, wherever they were.
He could also have created a task to remind them what they needed to do and by when. He could then have set an alert to let him know when the task was complete or if it was at risk of being missed.
A quick and easy way to monitor risk
Of course, you’re aware of some risks from the start of a project.
Let’s look at another example from John. He’s managing a project and has six months to complete one part of it. From the outset, some of his team warned that it could take much longer than this. However, the management team chose not to restructure the whole project. Instead they asked for weekly progress reports and for John to have a contingency plan in place.
If John were using Verto he would have a clear and detailed view of all his projects, in one place. This would make it easy for him to keep a close watch on the part of his project that was at risk of overrunning. Verto’s automatic notifications would also alert him straight away if anything began to fall behind. So John would be able to step in and take immediate action. And he would be able to produce and share an accurate progress report so his management team were always well informed.
While this wouldn’t remove the risk, Verto’s tools mean John could stay in control of the situation rather than just respond to it.
After all, it’s better to manage a risk than manage a crisis.
To find out more about how Verto can help you manage risk please call us on 0844 870 8785 or message us here.
How Verto is helping the NHS deliver improvements
Health services are under constant and increasing demand. So the best way for healthcare staff to respond to this demand and meet the needs of their patients is through partnership working. As experts in collaboration, Verto is well placed to support the NHS in these partnerships.
In 44 areas covering the whole of England, the NHS, local councils and other providers are working together to improve health and care. Each area has developed a proposal, called a sustainability and transformation plan (STP), that focuses on the needs of the local population.
We have been working closely with the Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire (BNSSG) area.
The BNSSG STP
The whole of the local health and social care community in BNSSG has been involved in developing the STP. This includes hospitals, local authorities, community providers, mental health organizations, the ambulance service, GPs and other commissioners.
Their aim, under the STP, is to design and deliver health and care services that are affordable and sustainable. The different organisations are working together under one vision that focuses on keeping people well rather than treating illness.
We’ve worked in partnership with them to create a collaboration hub that makes it easier for them to work together and successfully deliver their STP.
The key numbers
1 vision
Covering 21 overarching projects
For 15 partner organisations
With more than 48,000 staff
Serving a population of nearly 1 million
Spending nearly £1.5 billion every year
What Verto is providing
We have created a cloud-based collaboration hub where staff can:
Manage projects and programmes together
Access their project toolkit
Read the STP and other project documents
Find information on new processes
Access a shared calendar with dates for events, meetings and workshops as well as key project deadlines
Find out the names and contact details of people working on projects
Complete standardised project management approaches
Complete and review reports
Share files and documents
Because Verto is based in the cloud it supports mobile working so staff can access the hub from any device, whenever they need to and from wherever they are.
It also means staff will receive real-time updates. These will keep them up to date with everything that’s going on. They’ll know when actions are complete and they’ll know if things start to fall behind. This will help make sure the STP stays on track to deliver its 21 key projects.
And Verto’s instant messaging tool means staff can communicate with each other quickly and easily. Whenever they need to they can chat to one person, a specific team or everyone involved in a project.
We’ll include a case study of our work with the BNSSG STP area in a future post. In the meantime, to find out more about how we can support your partnership working, please call us on 0844 870 8785 or message us here.
How Verto’s mobile working tools make collaboration easy for you
In our last blog we looked at the benefits of collaborative working and why it’s worth investing in. It’s been shown that when we work together costs go down, results go up, our learning improves and we have a more united voice.
This is why, increasingly, both public and private sector organisations are being encouraged to develop and maintain strong partnerships.
But, as we also acknowledged in our blog, collaborative working isn’t always easy. For example, how do you enable people across a range of organisations to communicate quickly and easily? How do you make sure everyone has access to the most up-to-date information? And, with so many people involved in a project, how do you stay on top of what’s going on?
We understand both the value of collaborative working and the barriers to making it a success. This is why we designed and developed tools that directly overcome these barriers. And allow you to enjoy all the benefits of working with others.
Project updates and notifications
Verto’s updates and notifications help you track projects and stay on top of tasks.
You can create different task lists to help people manage their work. These lists can be for individuals, specific teams or everyone involved in the project, whichever is best for you.
You can then set Verto’s notifications to keep you and other members of the project up to date with what’s going on. You’ll know when someone has completed a task and you’ll know when things start to fall behind. This means you can take action immediately and make sure your project stays on schedule.
Instant messaging
Verto’s instant messaging tool means you can keep in touch with everyone involved in your project, quickly, easily and whenever you need to. And they can keep in touch with you too.
You can check in with one person, bounce ideas off a whole team and update everyone involved in the project.
You don’t always know when you’re going to need a piece of information - perhaps you’re in a meeting and you’re asked for a specific cost that you don’t have to hand. That’s no problem with Verto as you can simply message the person who has the answer. And they can get back to you in an instant.
File sharing
When a lot of people are involved in a project, it’s vital everyone has access to the same information. Verto makes this easy too.
When you use Verto you can store all your documents in the cloud. This means anyone who needs to can access a document to read or update it. Whenever they need to and from wherever they are.
Crucially, Verto’s inbuilt document control tool also means you can be sure you’re always looking at the most up-to-date version of any file.
And remember, because Verto is based in the cloud, you can use it on almost any device, at any time, wherever you are.
To find out more please call us on 0844 870 8785 or message us here.
Why it’s Worth Investing in Collaborative Working
No one ever said collaborative working is easy. To make it a success definitely takes effort. But making that effort is worthwhile because the benefits of collaborative working can be significant, for both your service users and the organisations taking part.
In future posts we’ll look at some of the barriers to collaborative working, what can go wrong, and how you can make it easier.
But for now, perhaps because we’re still in a positive New Year frame of mind, we’re going to focus on the benefits of collaborative working.
What is collaborative working?
Before we start, it’s worth being clear what we mean when we say collaborative working.
There are many definitions posted on the web and published in guidance documents, some of which will suit your organisation and specific collaboration better than others.
From our experience supporting people and organisations involved in collaborative working, we’re happy with:
Collaborative working is two or more departments or organisations working together. This may be to contribute to a particular activity, function or project, or to contribute to a new organisation. The arrangement may be for a fixed time or it may be permanent.
Why do we work in collaboration?
It’s also worth looking at what’s driving us to work in collaboration.
The impetus may come from public opinion, government policy and the ongoing public sector drive for improved efficiency and effectiveness – most likely it’s a combination of all three.
However, what initially led to the collaboration is less important that what the outcomes may be. Because when collaborative working goes well, these can be extremely positive.
- Collaborative working helps you save money
Organisations working together are usually much more cost-effective than, what we now call, silo-based working. From joint procurement to cutting duplication, there are many ways that collaborative working can lead to savings. As evidence of this, our clients are currently using Verto to help them track £13.2 billion of planned savings.
- Collaborative working helps you be more effective
At the heart of collaborative working is improving outcomes for service users. When we focus more on why we’re providing a particular service and work together to find solutions, both of which collaborative working makes us do, we’re more likely to make a positive difference.
- Collaborative working helps you learn, share and repeat success
Closely linked to the point above, working with others and learning from their knowledge and experience, helps us understand more about what we really need to provide and how best to do this. Over time, services can become more resilient and expertise in teams can grow.
- Collaborative working helps you build a strong and united voice
When we share our knowledge and experience, we may also uncover shared problems and concerns. If we then need to lobby for change, one clear message sent by many will have much greater impact.
We designed Verto to help make collaborative working easier and more successful for you. In future blogs we’ll look in more detail at how Verto’s specific tools do this. Because whether you want to make communication, reporting, risk analysis, task management, resource management, performance planning or document storage and sharing easier, we can help.
For more information please call us on 0844 870 8785 or message us here.
Happy New Year! We’d Like to Help You Get 2017 Off to a Flying Start
The merry and indulgent days of Christmas are behind us for another year and it’s time to get back to work. It can be hard to be enthusiastic during the dark days of January, so anything that helps us ease back into work after the holidays is always welcome.
We’ve pulled together some of our favourite comments on collaborative working and project management to motivate you for the year ahead. They remind us how rewarding and exciting working with others, planning and delivering successful projects can be.
Take a break for a few minutes and read them. We think they’ll inspire you and help get 2017 off to a flying start.
“Project managers are the most creative people in the world. We have to figure out everything that could go wrong before it does.” Fredrik Haren, author and speaker on business creativity, innovation and change.
“As a collaborative leader, you support people in their work – you remove roadblocks and help them win.” Kenneth H. Blanchard, American author
“They [project managers] are organized, passionate and goal-oriented, who understand what projects have in common, and their strategic role in how organizations succeed, learn and change.” Project Management Institute
“Collaboration is about team work. It’s not a cliché, it’s a practical reality.” JA Perez, humanitarian and author
“Project managers function as bandleaders who pull together their players, each a specialist with individual score and internal rhythm. Under the leader’s direction, they all respond to the same beat.” L.R. Sayles, Emeritus Professor, Columbia University
“Open collaboration encourages greater accountability, which in turn fosters trust.” Ron Garan, astronaut, speaker, entrepreneur
“Project managers rarely lack organisational visibility, enjoy considerable variety in their day-to-day duties, and often have the prestige associated with work on the enterprise’s high-priority objectives.” Meredith and Mantel, authors
“An outstanding project manager is able to take the team on a journey by sharing an appealing vision and a roadmap for achieving that vision.” Susanne Madsen, project leadership coach and author
“Project managers need to be unique when it matters; finish what they start and show strong leadership.” Lindsay Scott, careers specialist and director at Arras People, a project management recruitment company
“Project management isn’t just about working with tasks and deadlines. It’s about working with and understanding people. If you’re a good communicator and collaborator then you will also be a great project manager.” Jacob Morgan, author and journalist
“Project managers seem to forget that many of the conventional forms, charts and tables they must fill out are intended to serve as aids, not punishments.” Mantel, Meredith, Shafer and Sutton, authors
And finally;
“I’m a project manager, not a magician. Magicians have way cooler hats.” Merlin Mann, writer, blogger and podcaster
Whatever hat you wear (or don’t), we wish you a happy, healthy and successful 2017. And if you’d like to make success easier this year, with all your project management and communication tools in one place, Verto can help.
For more information 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.
Three Key Ways Verto’s Project Management Software Will Help Your Projects Succeed
Managing a single project can be hard, never mind the challenges of being responsible for several projects at once.
Because even the simplest project will involve different people and activities. And more complex projects may also involve different organisations, teams, stakeholders and funding streams.
When you add in budget constraints, challenging time-scales and the need to produce accurate reports, it’s easy to see how projects can go off the rails.
To help your projects succeed you need to keep in touch with everything that’s going on and everyone who’s involved, while maintaining a clear focus on each project’s intended outcomes.
Verto’s project management software will help you do this.
Instant messaging
Because Verto is cloud-based software, you can use it on most devices, wherever you are and whenever you need it.
This means you can use Verto’s instant messaging tool to easily keep in touch with everyone involved in your projects.
Imagine you’re in a meeting and suddenly need a budget update from someone else on the project team. All you have to do is send them a message and straight away they can get back to you with the most up-to-date figures.
Whether you need to quickly check something with one person, brainstorm with a particular team or update a whole group of people, Verto lets you do this.
So you and everyone else involved in your projects can share information and ask questions, in an instant and at the exact time you need to.
Direct document sharing
Along with keeping in touch with everyone involved in your projects, having the most up-to-date information is also critical for success.
Verto makes this easy too.
Because you can store all your project documents in the cloud, you can access them wherever you are, whenever you need them. You can read the latest versions and make changes without having to go back to the office.
Anyone who needs it can have access to read or update documents. And because Verto has a clever, automatic document control tool, you can be sure you’re looking at the most recent version.
Get real-time updates
Another of Verto’s clever tools is its real-time updates.
You can set Verto’s notifications to keep you and other members of the project team on top of your tasks and on-schedule with daily notifications and updates.
And if things do start to fall behind on a project’s to-do list, Verto will let you know straight away so you can take action immediately.
Of course, there’s much more to Verto. From risk analysis to flexible reporting, performance planning to resource management, Verto gives you all the tools you need to manage your projects from start through to successful completion.
For more information on how Verto can help your projects succeed please call us on 0844 870 8785 or message us here.
From 1 to £13.2 billion: The Benefits of Verto in Numbers
Verto’s cloud-based software can help you in a number of ways. For example, it can help you cut costs and improve efficiency across all aspects of your project and programme management.
It can also help your shared practice become more effective, for example when you’re working with providers or local enterprise partnerships.
Our years of experience and understanding of the demands of modern working drive these benefits.
The numbers below tell you more.
1 Verto’s project management software has 1 clear landing page you can customise for the way you work.
2 You can choose which of our 2 systems will suit your organisation best.
7 Verto starts from only £7.50 per user per month.
10 NHS Blood and Transplant rate us 10/10 for training, configuration, hosting and system development and updates.
15 The team at Verto has been providing cloud-based applications for more than 15 years.
24 Verto’s instant messaging means you can easily stay in touch 24 hours a day.
25 We’ve helped PMOs cut their costs by 25%.
30 And helped projects secure savings of 30%.
50 We’ve helped more than 50 organisations set up and run their PMO.
60 You can trial all Verto’s benefits FREE for 60 days.
120 We’ve provided cloud-based services to more than 120 public sector departments and organisations including fire and rescue services, NHS CCGs and local enterprise partnerships.
26,000 We support 26,000 registered users.
38,000 And track 38,000 tasks and milestones every day.
13.2 billion We’re helping our clients deliver £13.2 billion of planned savings.
For more information on how Verto can help you please call us on 0844 870 8785 or message us here.