“With Genius Project4Domino, we can track daily our project costs. We can instantaneously see where we are in our spending relative to our budgets. This helps us expedite project completion and make our web applications more readily available to our members.”

Jean-Charles Finidori, IT Manager, FER - Geneva

FER GE – Federation of French Speaking Companies in Geneva
FER GE is the federation of employers’ associations grouped together as well associations and companies of self-employed people. FER GE offers a complete range of services to its members, including participation in Swiss pension programs, staff provident programs, and legal services.

THE CHALLENGE – CUSTOMER NEED
FER GE manages a number of software development projects with their staff of 10 developers and ten consultants. In 2003, FER embarked on a project to migrate all of its AS/400 terminal based applications to WebSphere applications hosted on their AS/400 servers. As the applications are completed, they have become accessible to FER members through the web. The applications include healthcare enrollment and processing, retirement planning and corporate training. And in 2004, the FER began development of a web application for payroll. All development was to be done on J2EE under the PMI method of project management.

Each of these projects needed a system for planning and budgeting and a means of capturing the information known by certain individuals and making it available to the entire project team. They were managing their timesheets with Excel spreadsheets, planning their projects in MS Project, and creating and managing technical specifications in Rationnal documents. All disparate sources of data. And with the number of development projects increasing, FER GE needed an enterprise-wide system to manage project data, project resources, and project grants; a system that could integrate with MS Project, follow the completion of tasks and activities, and filter information to the required team members.

THE SOLUTION -- Avoiding Disruption in Day to Day Project Management Operations
Genius Project4Domino (Genius P4D), developed by Genius Inside was deployed in the first half of 2004 to achieve these tasks. It played a critical role in keeping the situation under control. Developed on the Notes platform, Genius P4D provides collaboration between each project manager and his or her team. All project data – the lists of project tasks, the execution plan, the specific assignments of tasks to individuals, etc. is first entered into the system by the project managers. The system automatically generates completion and budgetary milestones for measurement. A collaborative system, Genius P4D allows team members to enter the database to access their task assignments and to view the list of project tasks along with their prescribed completion time via the web. They can then directly input the time spent on their assigned tasks into their timesheets which filter into the overall project plan and budget. Genius P4D can then assess percentage completion of the project at each milestone allowing project managers to gauge where projects are at any given moment. The project manager can view up to the minute task progress which allows him/her to alter plans or make operational adjustments if necessary, without disrupting the project flow.

Genius P4D can interface easily with other data sources. It can integrate with other planning tools such as MS Project or can be used directly with Genius Planner. FER chose to begin by maintaining its detailed planning information in MS Project. High level planning and project activity and budgets are maintained in Genius P4D.

THE RESULTS -- Accurate, online project and budget tracking; easy document management
« Managing projects in relation to their respective budgets was impossible before », says Jean-Charles Finidori. “Today, we know exactly where we are day by day. We know the time spent on specific tasks and the exact amounts, in francs, which has been used.

“We have total collaboration and team work. When you work with 10 external project team members (consultants), each hour counts. The information in Genius P4D can be easily accessed and viewed by different team members thanks to the collaborative features of Notes. “ FER GE also uses the document management functions of Genius P4D to manage their project documentation and makes use of the consolidated view of this information which lets senior level managers gauge the progress of several projects combined. Detailed reports indicate where projects are in their lifecycle for easy review by senior management.

THE FUTURE -- From Domino to Lotus Workplace
Genius Project4Domino well meets FER GE’s business needs and is poised to meet the coming changes on the horizon. The company plans to expand the use of Genius P4D to other IT departments such as operations, integration and systems & networks. The department will consequently manage all of its activities in this manner. At the end of 2004, the Genius Project4Domino solution will move from the Domino platform onto the IBM Lotus Workplace collaborative platform. Specialists in this development environment, Genius Inside is in the process of converting their application. For FER GE, the migration from Domino to Workplace will bring total standardization of Websphere based platforms used in the company.