Customer Case Studies - Vectren
Vectren Corporation, headquartered in Evansville, Indiana, is an Energy and Applied technology holding company which serves over 1 million customers and has $3.4 billion in assets. They provide energy and related applied technology solutions to make customers productive, comfortable and secure.
Interview with Mike Chambliss, IT Department, Vectren Corporation.
Why did you choose BrightWork?
The software development and support branch of IT in our organization is split into 5 different groups, each with a specific focus. Of these groups, one was using a work management system produced by a third party, one was using a system produced in house, one wasn’t using a system at all, and two were using vanilla SharePoint. The goal was to get all 5 groups onto one work management system, but the challenge was to find one flexible enough to handle the necessary differences in how each group managed their work.
Because of the need for flexibility, SharePoint was seen as a possible solution. SharePoint is a great collaboration suite, but we found it to be lacking the features of a good work management system. Our primary concerns were organization and reporting of data once it was entered into the system. With these concerns in mind, we began our research for a third party solution. BrightWork was eventually chosen as a cost effective way to bring these necessary elements to a framework we found to be flexible enough to interface with our complex IT structure.
What are the work management challenges that are currently facing your organisation and how has BrightWork improved your work management process?
The data we collect in BrightWork will be used to improve project planning so that we can deliver more realistic expectations to our business counterparts. It will also be used as an accountability and resource management tool for improved IT oversight. Finally, BrightWork will bring five previously disconnected groups within IT into one work management solution, streamlining their processes and how the rest of the corporation interacts with IT.
What progress has your advanced customisation of BrightWork permitted?
We’ve made heavy customizations in order to manage not only project work, but unscheduled maintenance work in what we refer to as “maintenance buckets”. Unlike a project, these buckets do not have a finite start and end date. Rather, they remain perpetually open and able to handle the various day to day maintenance tasks all IT organizations are faced with. Through customized List Item Reports, we’re able to report on this type of work along side project work, giving accurate views into a team’s or individual’s work load.
We’ve also produced custom .NET programming which sits on top of the SharePoint API. This programming allows us to extract SharePoint data for use in other, more complex aggregate reporting for the executive audience. Beyond this, we’ve created our own templates based on the standard data requirements and terminology used within our corporation. This has made the transition to a new work management system much less painful for both the individual and the corporation.
