Initiative and Task Management with ActiveStrategy Enterprise

ActiveStrategy Enterprise® (ASE) is the most comprehensive Performance Management software available today, supporting all areas of Performance Management within one enterprise application – from strategic planning and prioritization, to scorecard and metric deployment, initiative and task management, and Performance Improvement.

Initiatives and projects (i.e., activities with start and end dates, plus allocated resources) are what drive real change and long-term results within a Performance Management framework – provided that they are aligned to the correct performance gaps and that they are executed effectively. All too often, organizations can't view initiatives plus related strategic objectives and metrics all in one place, so they have a difficult time ensuring that the right actions are being taken and that progess is being made. ASE software helps you do just that.

ASE software lets you link, view, and manage initiatives, projects, tasks, and other activities that are related to your performance metrics, objectives, scorecards or dashboards, and processes – helping you achieve the strategic alignment and visibility you need to ensure results from your initiatives and performance activities.

Initiative & Task Management Capabilities within ASE

ASE software allows organizations to manage initiatives, projects, tasks, and improvement activities from both a high-level "executive-friendly" view and a detailed initiative or task owner perspective.

ASE allows you to maintain and manage:

• Initiatives or projects with tasks
• Multiple initiatives or projects collected into logical groupings based on your business rules (program groups)
• Large portfolios of program groups and initiatives crossing over multiple organizational areas and business functions

ASE tracks critical information about each initiative/project, such as type of initiative, owners and participants, estimated and actual costs and effort, plus associated tasks and their owners.

ASE provides extensive initiative/project status reporting, including status indicators that provide at-a-glance views of budget, timing, quality, risk, and scope. Report frequency may be determined initiative-by-initiative and an audit trail tracks when initiatives/projects are created, when the status is modified, and by whom.

To make managing and reviewing groups of initiatives or tasks simpler, users can quickly filter views based on status of tasks, as well as toggle between displays showing actual cost/effort information or status indicators.

Templates allow you to quickly create and roll out initiatives or projects throughout the organization, ensuring that you adhere to any standard initiative management methodology that your organization supports. In addition, users may add action items, input comments, attach important files, and link websites to each initiative/project.

Benefits of Linking Initiatives & Tasks to Performance Management

Unlike Project Management software, ASE allows you to link your initiatives, program groups, and portfolios directly to your organizational performance metrics, objectives, scorecards or dashboards, and processes, providing leadership with the visibility they need to ensure that action is being taken in the most critical areas.

Linking initiatives and improvement activities to performance objectives and measures not only provides decision makers with a comprehensive, central location for all related performance data, but also provides them with the essential understanding of whether or not they are allocating resources to the right projects – those that are targeting necessary improvement areas.

Users may drill down from a performance objective through associated, underperforming measures to the linked initiatives/projects underway in order to improve performance. All of the key data required to review, manage, and improve performance is all in one place.

Similarly, project managers may link related measure charts and gauges to manage and display the impact the initiative/project is having on actual performance.

Owners of initiatives submit status reports on a pre-defined frequency, which may be viewed by decision makers as they drill down through an analysis of the performance data, thus promoting accountability.

Portfolios & Program Groups

Using the system's levels of hierarchical groupings, ASE helps organizations manage the performance of very large groups of initiatives, projects, and programs. The Portfolio Reporting mechanism provides portfolio/program administrators with the ability to see the status of all associated projects at a glance and then apply filters that pinpoint possible problem areas. Leaders and project managers may review progress at a very high level, by looking at a portfolio-level Gantt chart or drilling down into task-level details directly from the chart view.

Reporting & Presentation Views for Initiative & Task Management

ASE software provides many reports and presentation views to visualize how initiatives are progressing at a high level, and allows users to drill down as needed to analyze where tasks or activities may be falling behind schedule or exceeding budget.

Reports – available directly from each initiative page, as well as in a central location within the application – provide extensive filtering capabilities. Leaders may query underperforming initiatives or tasks for specific key indicators and view who is accountable.

Custom "storyboards," which provide a visual summary of an initiative for meetings or presentations, are quick for any user to create. They may include initiatives/projects, tasks, and charts, as well as important linked performance objects such as measures, objectives, and scorecards.

Additional presentation vehicles available for projects include Briefing Books, Visual Maps, Initiative Stoplight Charts, and Gantt Charts. Stoplight Charts may be used to display the status of initiatives/projects across regions by type, providing managers with an immediate visual indication of areas of concern. Gantt Charts provide the user with the ability to view progress of initiatives compared to several kinds of targets, such as budget, timeline, and scope, or filter the view to see only those projects that are at risk. Parent and child initiatives may also be included in Gantt Chart views.

Automated Alerting & Notification for Initiatives & Tasks

ASE allows decision makers to "subscribe" to initiatives to stay informed about status changes, progress, and potential challenges. The software ensures that project and initiative information stays up to date by sending out automated email alerts to remind owners when milestone tasks require an update or status reports are due.

Learn more about how ActiveStrategy Enterprise software supports and enables Performance Improvement

Contact us to schedule a demo and see how ActiveStrategy Enterprise software supports and enables Initiative and Task Management.

Do you have Initiatives that you want to automate quickly?

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