Do you want to have an overview of the concrete application of Gouti in an organization? Those who talk about it the best are still our clients! Here, we share with you the usage feedback from our client EcoGreenEnergy.
EcoGreenEnergy is an SMB, expert in industrial decarbonation. They are there to help their clients achieve their decarbonisation goals by installing technical energy recovery infrastructure. The company has around fifty collaborators located mainly in Strasbourg. Their activities range from the design office, to the implementation and operation of their solutions, including construction and installation in factories.
After 12 years of existence and 110 installations installed across France, EcoGreenEnergy has made it possible to erase 25,000 tonnes of Co2 emissions in the industrial sector.
Currently there are about fifty users on Gouti. Bertrand PENNEC, Director of Operations at EcoGreenEnergy, gave us his testimony on their experience as Gouti users during an interview.
"After the first tests at the beginning of 2020, a first generalized implementation of Gouti was made in August 2020. The project framework retained, rather complex, led us to a simplification towards a new framework in force since January 2021"
“EcoGreenEnergy was looking for a tool like this to get an overview of the project portfolio. This vision was not easily possible in such a comprehensive and interactive way with what was in place before. This is an important advantage with Gouti. The project portfolio is centralized in one place. We have the opportunity to see the workload that the simultaneity of projects places on certain resources. We are therefore able to better schedule resources on the one hand and on the other hand to monitor when the delivery of projects will take place and see the commercial impacts. "
“We manage client projects on the one hand and internal projects on the other.
Client projects include the following types:
Finally, we manage internal projects, substantive developments in IT, energy, automation, purchasing or even continuous improvement. "
"The main users are our project managers, who must plan the deadlines for the various tasks and the allocation of internal resources. They easily model their projects thanks to the interface which is very ergonomic and easy to use.
Other users such as engineers and technical experts should provide information on the progress of these tasks and their working hours. They find in Gouti a view of the tasks in progress and their deadlines. Finally, at the management level, our main goal is to consult the typical indicators of status, deadlines and costs. "
“The most immediate benefit is an easier access to information, if it is well informed by users. This can clearly avoid tedious research. In addition, the work hours report is really easy to use. Time reporting is now done more efficiently than with the previous tool. However, we are still in the running-in phase. The compact framework of the project currently in force has enabled us to better involve users, while keeping areas for improvement.
From my point of view, Gouti offers a much greater ease of use than other similar tools that I have known in my previous experiences. The long-term impact of our use of Gouti will be a gain in the quality of information on the entire project portfolio as well as more efficient integrated planning. For this, we are missing the success of having flawless data integration across the entire project portfolio. "
"In addition to the speed of consultation of information, Gouti allows an SMB like EcoGreenEnergy to benefit from a set of features other than pure project planning. I can quote the management of workloads, finances, action plans or even capacity management for division managers. All these features form a very coherent whole in which we find ourselves well, and use a very simple data structure compared to large ERP, which can be quite heavy. It's simple, what ergonomics!
The mix between ERP function and project management is really a plus. Another strong point is that it is very easy to manage read and write access rights on projects.
Personally, I finally find that the activity tracking views, for example the "my tasks" view in the form of a Kanban ticket or in a table view, is a model of simplicity and efficiency. "
"The integration was done on the basis of a reflection: how to structure a project in Gouti? So we worked on a project framework (that's mean a WBS-type task model) in Gouti. Then, pilot projects were used to test this framework and collect feedback from internal uses to finalize the structure. The tests of this first task model revealed reluctance, because it was certainly very comprehensive but also heavy to manage on a daily basis.
The task model should be broad enough so that we can properly break down responsibilities across all business functions, but not too detailed to avoid too many data entries. We have therefore simplified the project framework and obtained a much better adhesion.
“I've had to use other software before. I have known two types of software for project management.
There are pure project planning software. These are mainly software based on GANTT charts. In general, they are very simple and they do their job very well for planning a project, but only for a project. These software don’t offer project portfolio management. You quickly find yourself limited within a company if you only use this kind of software. To manage a project portfolio, you have to find a tool that gives a sufficiently compact level of information for decision-makers and managers of companies, who manage resources, and a sufficiently detailed level of information for users, who manage their work. Everyone must find their account. For this there is project portfolio management software. The one I used before offered strong data integrity and access rights. However, it was seen in use that it was intended to manage a large amount of information. It was necessary to feed the frameworks of projects a lot.
In the end, project management services were only using a fraction of its features. This tool was oversized compared to our needs but fulfilled its function relatively well. In terms of speed, it was significantly slower than Gouti. The creation of the project templates was also very complex. Gouti's is extremely simple, you don't even have to use the GANTT sometimes.
Personally, I no longer watch the GANTT on Gouti. I read the date table and the macro planning, because the information is so easily searchable in the tool. The GANTT is good for use in logical planning and macro planning as a view for decision-makers, you can find what you want right away and it is perfect for a project review. "
“If I had to define Gouti in three words it would be: simple, versatile and flexible. "
Sean KEDHNAH - Monday June 21, 2021
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