The Challenge
Being the custodians of the Trust’s information and reporting, the PMO strives to work holistically across Estates Management, Facilities and a myriad of hospital support teams. Delivering on the capital investment and launching future-ready facilities was no mean feat, creating a volume of new reporting requirements. Current manual reporting processes were cumbersome, time-consuming and prone to error. As the programme expanded, the team could no longer rely on Excel or MS Project alone to manage the capital investment progress.
Justin recognised that making the right investment into supporting technology was crucial. After assessing the adjusted scale of the programme, coupled with a high volume of stakeholders and planning boards to satisfy, Justin was reticent to onboard one of the various construction project management tools which may have been problematic to integrate within the Trust.
The team were delighted when long-time partner Trustmarque introduced them to Power Framework – a solution developed by Microsoft partner Program Framework that could be deployed right into the Trust’s Microsoft Cloud platform to foster a data-driven culture for the PMO.
The Solution
Power Framework connects disparate data, teams, and processes in the Microsoft cloud ecosystem. Built on the Power Platform, it enables PMOs to automate manual processes, access valuable business intelligence, and collaborate with ease.
Program Framework engaged with UHL stakeholders in a series of demonstrations to highlight the key benefits.
We work with customers across many sectors, and they all have the same problem as Justin – disconnected content. We hear time and time again of teams wading through Excel spreadsheets, PowerPoint decks, and files sitting in all sorts of places. This makes it an impossible task for PMO teams to garner the information they need when they need it most.
Gero Renker
Director, Program Framework
Having agreed to the solution, the implementation project was kicked off that combined a series of requirements workshops with an agile approach to configuring the standard solution so it would exactly deliver UHL requirements. This ensured that data associated with projects and programmes matched UHL terminology and information needs, for processes such as regular status reporting, risk management and change control. Out-of-the-box Power BI dashboards were enhanced to deliver the specific reporting capabilities needed.
All data is stored in Dataverse, the database of the Power Platform securely located in the organisation’s own Microsoft cloud tenant. In combination with Power Apps and Power BI, it enabled the flexibility and speed of the implementation.
Program Framework then set to work with Trustmarque and UHL to integrate key Office 365 services with Power Framework. This collaborative approach ensured team members could use Power Framework fully integrated with Microsoft cloud tools such as Teams, SharePoint and Project. The solution is built to automatically create connected Teams channels for each new project as well as standardised SharePoint document libraries.
The Results
Implementing Power Framework has established a single source of truth for UHL’s project data. And this has played a crucial role in streamlining internal processes and improving collaboration across the Trust.
We’ve finally got our staff moving away from Excel. A wide variety of programme and project data sets, as well as minutes, agendas, and programme papers are a click away in Power Framework and connected SharePoint repositories. Life without it would be like going back to using chalk on a blackboard.
Justin Hammond
Head of the Reconfiguration Program Management Office for University Hospitals of Leicester
Not only has the readiness of data and reporting helped keep the programme on track, but it has also dramatically reduced the time spent in meetings:
Power Framework has changed the dialogue. We reviewed 15 risks in two hours using live Power BI dashboards, previously we may have gotten through five if we were lucky as there were so many people involved. The instant availability of information is changing our culture in ways we couldn’t have imagined when we sat down with Program Framework to craft the first design.
Justin Hammond
Head of the Reconfiguration Program Management Office for University Hospitals of Leicester
Justin and his team have by no means exhausted all the features provided by Power Framework out of the box and will be gearing up to unlock further functionality in the future. But for now, they’re pacing themselves to ensure they can adapt to these new ways of working and make the most of what’s available right now.
As Justin put it: “This is what digital transformation is. We have better productivity, control, audit and assurance. We recently met with the New Hospital Programme and we are now known as the programme with the really funky digital PMO.”
Trust CIO Andy Carruthers added:
Our ambitions for Leicester’s hospitals place the usability of digital solutions at the heart of our strategy. The Power Framework solution is a great example of technology rapidly adapting to meet our needs, introducing significant benefits very quickly, and leveraging our investment in the M365 platform. We are keen to extend it to other areas of the organisation and gain further economies of scale.
Andy Carruthers
Chief Information Officer, University Hospitals Leicester
