Aalborg Forsyning is an association of companies owned by the Municipality of Aalborg. It consists of 13 different companies with very different backgrounds, but now with a common vision:
They create holistic solutions that meet society’s needs for renewal, security, and safe operation. Their core business is to supply the citizens with district heating, cooling, gas, and water, divert wastewater, collect waste, and offer energy advice. Aalborg Forsyning wants to ensure environmentally conscious and sustainable behavior as a basis for the green transition.
Aalborg Forsyning wants to be pioneers in doing things right. It is a central part of their narrative to do things smarter in a sustainable context. Circular economies and working circularly are a big part of their perspective going forward.
The company has many different departments and a great variety on project types. They have both standard projects where the need for management may be less critical, whereas the big and new initiatives need a lot of management and communication.
It can be a challenge to work with many different project types when the company doesn’t have a common way of doing things. Shortly after initiating the implementation of a common project management tool, Aalborg Forsyning realized that 8 different project management tools could potentially create problems for them. Aalborg Forsyning couldn’t create a common priority approach because they spoke different business languages and, in their case, it became very much up to the individual line management to prioritize.
Christian - Project Manager
To know where you are going, you need to know what and where you are coming from. In the case of Aalborg Forsyning the cultural roots were spread into a number of smaller organizations which made their scope for a new project management tool complex. The question was whether to start from ground zero or build on top of what was already there. Eventually Aalborg Forsyning chose the latter, which resulted in a decision on implementing Power PPM with Present It and Power Hub on top.
They chose this for several reasons:
First of all, they have an IT strategy based on the Microsoft 365 platform and had already chosen to use Teams as their collaboration tool.
And secondly, because it was a goal from the beginning to have an overall package with a suite of integrated products that make the execution and planning of work as easy and efficient as possible. They wanted their intranet, project management tool, database, communication tool, content management tool to inter-operate and be able to collaborate with Navision and other the financial systems.
Another ‘must have’ they were looking at, was the products’ maturity. And what they particularly liked about Power PPM was the combination of a platform that worked out-of-the-box, but simultaneously allowed for customization to match specific needs.
By implementing Power PPM, Present It and Power Hub, Aalborg Forsyning moved one step closer to their overall ambition: To create a uniformed way of working and reducing Project Managers’ time spent on non-value-added activities.
Aalborg Forsyning wants to be pioneers in doing things right. It is a central part of their narrative to do things smarter in a sustainable context. Circular economies and working circularly are a big part of their perspective going forward.
The company has many different departments and a great variety on project types. They have both standard projects where the need for management may be less critical, whereas the big and new initiatives need a lot of management and communication.
It can be a challenge to work with many different project types when the company doesn’t have a common way of doing things. Shortly after initiating the implementation of a common project management tool, Aalborg Forsyning realized that 8 different project management tools could potentially create problems for them. Aalborg Forsyning couldn’t create a common priority approach because they spoke different business languages and, in their case, it became very much up to the individual line management to prioritize.
Mark - Project Manager
The journey Aalborg Forsyning is on now with Power PPM as their common project management tool takes time to adapt to. They are establishing a common language and way of working by using the tool. And even though they haven’t fully implemented the project management tool across all projects yet, the platform is providing a foundation for onboarding employees. At the time of writing more than 50 users have been introduced to Power PPM with over 200 projects being managed in the system: “Our mantra is that Power PPM should be the project manager’s favorite tool.” – Jan Bisgaard, Team Lead at Aalborg Forsyning.
A tool is just a tool until you actually start using it. The value of implementing a tool in an organization is therefore non-existent if you don’t support user adoption, change management and internal communication with a practical approach. At Aalborg Forsyning they understood this challenge and started providing educational material for users early on in the implementation process. This was made available through e-learning and webinars as well as on-site training. Jan Bisgaard recalls that the on-site training, in particular, provided a strong influence on users’ quick adoption of the tool and Projectum was very helpful in this phase as well.
Besides training, communication has been a critical activity as a means to enforce a common language. Particularly the engagement with and from top management has played an important part in the ongoing deployment of the tool. With new reporting tools, the management is now able to follow the status and development of the projects in closer detail, which means that they are able to make more informed decisions about strategic direction. As a result, different parts of the organization now work closer together and towards the same goals, which creates much more motivated employees as meaning is being put into their work.
Finn - Project Manager
It’s still too early in the process to measure the actual results of implementing Power PPM, Present It and Power Hub in Aalborg Forsyning. However, there is a common understanding that the initial signs and reactions from people are positive. The mere fact that a new platform has been introduced, communicated, and is even being used by parts of the organization, provides physical visibility that a common project method and thus a common language is now present:
“It is like building a house, the prerequisite for being able to make the right model and do the right thing is that we start in the right place, and we talk about the same things” – Jan Bisgaard, Teamlead at Aalborg Forsyning.
What Aalborg Forsyning has achieved with the project management tool, is that they have created a one-entry platform, where all the projects live and they can start to update elements such as cost, see the timelines and how they should prioritize the different projects. This has enabled them to communicate prioritization and visibility. The fact that people know where they can get insights into the status of a project and what kind of project it is, removes friction and reduces wasted time and consequently increases efficiency.
With the platform that Power PPM, Present It and Power Hub provides, they are now able to take the information targeted at the level they are at. This gives the possibility to build reports with the specific information needed and then go out and show it to create interest around that project.
The ability to integrate all products within Microsoft Office 365, makes a great difference for Aalborg Forsyning. They are now able to see the status across projects and make informed decisions. This is where the tools elevate their project management to another level as it creates transparency to engage in a dialogue with management about prioritization of projects. It even allows them to connect their new content management setup. Which means that their worlds are gradually becoming more and more inter-connected.
Jan Bisgaard acknowledges that Aalborg Forsyning is still on a journey to become an even more modern workplace. But he is happy to conclude that they are on the right track. Looking into the future the next steps will be to implement a new resource management tool as well as a tool for time registration. Since there are many different companies being put together, they still have to unify behaviors, habits, and cultures into one. And building across departments is a complex process because they often do things differently across these departments. Thus, a number of disciplines are in focus for Aalborg Forsyning, they are in a good place and looking forward to continuing building on top of their new foundation.
