The science of effective resource management

Published 28th July 2008

Environmental issues look set to dominate the agenda in the 21st Century. Sustainability, climate change, natural hazards, and biodiversity are key issues throughout the world. The Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) has a key role to play, being the UK’s main agency for funding and managing research, training, and knowledge transfer in the environmental sciences. Although it receives public money through the Department of Innovation, University and Skills, NERC remains independent of government.

Each year NERC sets out its priorities and the targets and milestones it expects to achieve. For NERC, accountability to stakeholders is key and checking how it is doing against this plan is central to running NERC efficiently and effectively. Dave Thomas, Information Systems Manager at NERC, comments: “In 2003 a review of governance within NERC revealed the potential to improve our processes for the initiation, resourcing, funding and control of projects. Traditionally work was planned on individual spreadsheets, which meant that there was no co-ordinated picture of workload and a lack of visibility as to how our people were deployed.”

Highly configurable flexible solution
A technology-based solution was required and NERC began the search for an application that would help. Dave Thomas continues: “Scientists are often reluctant Project Managers and we needed to find a solution that would help them – one that was relatively easy to use, would not impose an unreasonable administrative burden, and would work in harmony with our existing Oracle financial systems. Compuware Changepoint was the obvious choice.”

A pilot trial involving 250 users at three NERC sites quickly proved the value of Compuware’s Changepoint professional services automation application and a full-scale rollout followed. Changepoint now tracks 1,300 projects costing approximately £235m, handles approximately 200 log-ins per day and around 1,400 users. Changepoint has become core to the organisation’s workflow management process – from concept to project completion. The application enables projects to be proposed, budgets generated and moved through the various stages of approval. Once authorised it helps available resources to be identified and allocated to projects, aiding planning and resource utilisation. Once projects are in progress Changepoint provides the means for individuals to record time spent, assuring progress is logged and financial accountability maintained.

Dave Thomas says: “Our projects are very varied in size and scope and can last from a matter of weeks to ten years. Changepoint is very flexible and supports our many different workflows, allowing us to track how people are using their time, plan budgets and ensure related steps such as Risk, Health and Safety Assessments are undertaken where appropriate. It also allows us to aggregate information to get the big picture.”

Effective resource management key to increased efficiency
Although Changepoint is a highly configurable solution there are sometimes still areas where specific customers require bespoke modification. NERC has appreciated this possibility and has commissioned a number of bespoke developments through the Compuware customisation programme. In the three years since Changepoint was first rolled out NERC has implemented a number of upgrades as bespoke developments.

Dave Thomas says: “Compuware invests in understanding its customers and its account management is fantastic. The quality of bespoke development work undertaken for us is always extremely high and developments are invariably delivered on time. The upgrade process is very smooth and documentation quality is tip-top – better than any I have seen from many comparable organisations.”

Compuware has been grateful for the input and many of the ideas implemented through bespoke development for NERC have subsequently been incorporated into core Changepoint software releases. User feedback on the Changepoint system has been very positive, which is reinforced by usage statistics, showing that most users regularly accessing the application accurately populate fields.

Business benefits have been significant. Dave Thomas concludes: “Changepoint provides us with the information we need to manage our resources so that the organisation as a whole operates more effectively and with greater fiscal accountability. Because of the scientific nature of our work, new developments can happen very suddenly. Changepoint allows NERC to react better and re-prioritise resources to best meet the needs of the project without compromising the needs of other work. It was a sizable investment for NERC, but one that has been a great success.”

In future, NERC expect to use Changepoint in the British Geological Survey, and will be trialling it in areas of the British Antarctic Survey.