The following is a transcript of an interview I conducted with one of our federal clients. Enjoy!
Good Afternoon! Thank you for granting me an opportunity to interview you.
Certainly, I’m always happy to help where I can.
Excellent! Let’s jump right into it, why don’t you start by talking about your role within your organization.
Sure, I currently hold the TBM Lead title within my organization and my job is to oversee the entire project. I work closely with other offices throughout our agency to provide a tool that enables our IT community to perform value-added analysis and make informed decisions.
In what ways has TBM/Apptio contributed to your office?
I would say the ability to streamline all of our data collection/analysis efforts via Apptio was a huge success. Prior to our Apptio implementation, our financial data was scattered across several spreadsheets and it was extremely challenging to build accurate reports. After our Apptio implementation, we were able to significantly improve the quality of our analysis and produce reports that align more closely with our accounting protocol.
Which of your processes does TBM/Apptio support?
It’s hard to really put a finger on a single process; I like to take a more holistic view when I measure TBM/Apptio’s impact on our organization. I can confirm that TBM as a practice has enabled us to standardize a lot of our operations and Apptio as a tool has played a huge role in facilitating that.
That’s very refreshing to hear! So, what do you like most about TBM/Apptio?
I like the idea of TBM as a practice because I can relate to it in its simplest form. I also believe Apptio is a very robust, powerful and user-friendly tool; its ability to automate a lot of our processes largely appealed to me. I can honestly say that managing the TBM/Apptio project within our agency is my dream job.
What’s been the biggest challenge for you?
From a project management standpoint, Apptio was the first tool I took full ownership of. Before our implementation, we really didn’t know what to expect from the tool. We encountered a number of hurdles along the way and for the most part, everything was done on an adhoc basis. I have to say the biggest challenge has been the socialization of TBM; getting stakeholders to understand the importance of TBM as a practice was certainly a pain point for us.
What sort of enhancements/improvements would you like to see in the future?
I would like to see more features and functionalities tailored towards the public sector. I understand Apptio is working tirelessly to make improvements but it wasn’t something that was always available to us.
Overall, how would you describe your experience with TBM/Apptio?
I would say my experience with Apptio has been pleasantly challenging. It was definitely great to get more acquainted with TBM as a methodology and become early adopters in the federal sector. Yes, we did face numerous challenges along the way but we always understood that it came with the territory. Overall, I'd have to say I'm a very satisfied customer.
Awesome! Well, that concludes our interview. Thank you for your time and I look forward to speaking with you very soon!
Likewise. Thank you!