Illuminating Concepts

Energizing and enlivening environments are the heart of what Illuminating Concepts (“IC”) delivers to its clients. The company has provided clients with diverse solutions in the realms of theatrical lighting, architectural lighting, retail lighting, media effects, and design for 29 years. IC’s innovative designers consistently develop new technologies and patented systems that infuse environments with style and ambience. IC is recognized industry-wide for the creation of “Immersion Experiences,” environments that saturate visitors with enticing elements. From the subtle to the dramatic, IC’s design team combines their creative and technical talents to conceptualize, design, program, and architecturally integrate complex show systems.

The Design and Procurement Services departments at IC manage small to large lighting projects, from project planning to on site administration and installation. The nature of the projects at IC span historical renovation and new construction such as retail development and hospitality/entertainment districts. Internal groups within IC had been using a variety of tools to manage their workflow including such time-intensive tools as post-it notes, whiteboards, and spreadsheets, all with varying capabilities of data capture, retrieval, and sharing of information. In addition, there were different methodologies in use throughout the office, making process consistency a challenge in the face of IC’s internal mission to always meet client expectations for quality and timeliness. As IC continued in its stellar growth trend, there was identified an increasing need to monitor key business objectives and establish an overall portfolio view of projects. “As projects became larger and our business doubled in size, pressures mounted to track our project work, monitor project milestones and conduct quality assurance checks,” says Ronda Lee, Project Management Coordinator. “We needed a software solution that could support implementing project management processes going forward.”

• There was a need to monitor key business objectives and gain an overall portfolio view of project work. No formal PMO group existed prior to IC’s use of Daptiv PPM and the departments had been using a variety of tools to manage their workflow including post-it notes, whiteboards, and spreadsheets
• In addition to the Design and Procurement Services departments using Daptiv for project management, the Billing and Accounts Receivable department now uses Daptiv PPM to gain process billing data and project progression insight as well.
• IC has seen increased visibility into the health and execution of projects at a global level. Such visibility promotes better management discussion and more informed decision making as a result.

After looking into other software solutions like Microsoft Project, the directors at Illuminating Concepts chose Daptiv PPM due to its extensive ability to capture, monitor, organize, and communicate project data. “In addition to the Design and Procurement Services departments, our Billing and Accounts Receivable department is using Daptiv PPM,” says Lee. “Daptiv PPM ties Illuminating Concepts together by facilitating cross-departmental communications. Project and resource managers use Daptiv PPM to look at allocated resources, project milestones, and process control…every aspect of a project from start to end.”

IC is a big user of the Resource and Team Manager Views, Dynamic Applications™, as well as Daptiv Reports. “In particular, the Resource and Team Manger Views are critical. They enable us to see exactly what’s going on and rebalance workloads across different resources as needed,” says Lee. Colin Campbell, Systems Engineer, says, “I see dashboard views becoming an important part of the business as we continue to roll out Daptiv functionality to our Directors group.”

Campbell says, “We have been a Daptiv customer since 2006 and the product innovation and feature set has been consistently growing. The product is regularly updated and it’s encouraging to see that the Daptiv Greenhouse allows customers to contribute to future product enhancements and features—we have voted on a few ideas already. We also regularly reference material in Daptiv’s resource library and if we have further questions, Daptiv’s Support team has been responsive in getting back to us.”

Because IC takes the point of view that project management is primarily about managing project risk, it is an enthusiastic user of Daptiv at the very start a project, from the proposal stage through initiation and planning, from tracking through to closing out a project. “Through the resource and team manager views in Daptiv PPM, we are able to rebalance workloads and identify bottlenecks ahead of time, which has helped reduce project risk a great deal so we can stick to our target deadlines,” says Lee. She continues, “Having that single source for all project data has been incredibly beneficial to gain immediate visibility into the most updated information.”

“Daptiv PPM has also been the catalyst that moves us forward toward better project and portfolio management practices,” says Lee. “Right now we’re in process discovery mode and we’re laying down the foundation for continuous process improvement and advancing our methodologies.”

Lee adds, “One of the key benefits of Daptiv PPM is that we now have visibility into the health and execution of projects at a global level, which in turn impacts our ability to make critical business decisions more effectively. It’s an excellent enterprise solution that helps further what we can offer our customers.”