The implementation of IT solutions from Microsoft, including Project for the Web, Power Platform and Power BI, as well as LEO PPM from LEO Consulting for Caritas-Spes Ukraine, was successfully completed.
We held a final meeting with representatives of the Caritas-Spes Ukraine team regarding this project (Fig. 1). The project was implemented from November 2022 to August 2023. The project team that implemented the Microsoft and LEO PPM IT solutions included Daniil Balya (Power Platform Consultant for LEO PPM), Kateryna Tyshchenko (Power BI Developer), and Oleksiy Prosnytsky (Project Manager).
The following members of the Caritas-Spes team took part in the interview:
- Olena Noha, Head of Projects and Programs;
- Anna Skytova, Operations Director;
- Victoria Moskaliuk, Program Manager for Reconstruction Projects;
- Yana Trubiychuk – Project Manager for projects focusing on families, children and youth.
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Figure 1. Screenshot of the workflow for creating this case
About the costumer
Caritas-Spes is a Religious Mission of the Roman Catholic Church, a charitable organization, a member of Caritas Europe, and part of the international confederation Caritas Internationalis. In total, the Caritas Internationalis network unites 162 Catholic charitable organizations represented on every continent. Caritas-Spes has been operating in Ukraine for 26 years. Prior to the russian invasion, the Mission’s unique feature was its sustainable programs: family-type orphanages, social centers and soup kitchens, children’s recreation camps, nursing homes for lonely elderly people, kindergartens, hospitality centers and homes for single mothers with children. The Mission’s project activities are aimed at overcoming poverty, restoring social justice and supporting the dignity of every person in need in all regions of Ukraine.
Types of projects that exist in the organization (Fig. 2):
- The first type of project is working with children, youth and families.
- The second type is physical and mental health.
- The third type is humanitarian aid and reconstruction projects.
- The fourth type is emergency, which is a temporary type of project aimed at rapid response and formed with the beginning of a full-scale invasion.
Until February 24, 2022, on average, our organization implemented 25-30 projects annually. In 2023, this number increased to 50.
Fig. 2. An example of a project report using Power BI based on data in LEO PPM
Description of the Situation
For a long time at Caritas-Spes Ukraine, one person was responsible for maintaining project information and entering key data into a special Excel file, such as project name, donor, funding, grant receipt dates, and person responsible for the project.
With the development of the foundation, the increase in staff, and the growth in the number and types of projects, this “special document” had many editors. This led to accidental deletion or incorrect data entry due to several people working on the same Excel file. It was impossible to quickly track these errors.
The team continued to grow, and more and more documents appeared. We stored all project files on a shared OneDrive, but the lack of common logic in our work meant that it took hours to find the right document – it was either put in the wrong folder, or we came up with our own creative name, or entered our information directly into the template file, etc.
Every time we needed a certain report, we had to search for information and create a report from scratch.
From the end of 2021 to 2023, the cost of projects increased 34 times. The national office team has grown from 15 to 85 employees. Local teams increased 10 times. During this time, new partners and new areas of work have also emerged (see Fig. 3).
Figure 3. Visualization of the “All projects” section in LEO PPM
Thoughts about using a particular CRM system appeared more and more often, as the need to organize all the accumulated information became more and more urgent. Our colleague Anna Skytova suggested that we pay attention to the LEO PPM IT-solution, as she had long been familiar with LEO Consulting.
Difficulties encountered in the process of implementing LEO PPM:
- The challenge was that our foundation has a wide variety of projects that are difficult to unify. The fact that our donors have different requirements for project characteristics and indicators complicates this task.
How did we solve this? – In the LEO PPM system, standard questions that are common to all projects are marked with an asterisk “*”. The user of the system cannot proceed to the next step if they have not filled in these mandatory fields. At the same time, other, more specific questions that do not apply to all projects are optional and do not require mandatory filling (see Figure 4).Figure 4. Visualization of the project card in LEO PPM
- There was resistance and disagreement within the team about the new rules of communication and information processing.Each team member has a corporate email and a Microsoft license, so technical barriers are not a problem. However, it is difficult for people to abandon their usual ways of communication, so we still have to duplicate messages and information in different channels.
- Our “project” team consists mainly of humanitarians, so it is quite difficult to train them in the use of IT tools. LEO Consulting has adapted the training component for us – Daniil, the implementation manager, holds individual meetings with our team members and helps us overcome difficulties that arise during our work.
- Using professional IT tools requires special knowledge and skills. However, not every project manager needs to be proficient in them, as this is not their main task. Therefore, we are considering involving an IT specialist in the team to provide support and maintenance of this process within the team.
New opportunities with LEO PPM implementation
The LEO PPM IT solution contains detailed information about all our projects. The filtering function allows us to work with the data quickly. To generate reports, we can select the individual data that is needed for different stakeholders – whether it is the bishops’ conference, our annual report, a report for an individual donor, or a report on a particular area. The main users of the reports are donors, local directors, and bishops, and each of them is interested in different information depending on their role.
It is valuable to be able to access the data from any device and from anywhere in the world, as all information is stored in a single hub. We have up-to-date information on the distribution of tasks among project managers and can track the status of each project (see Figure 5).
Fig. 5. An example of a resource report in Power BI based on data in LEO PPM
For certain project areas, we have expanded our team to include members from different cities. By working in a single system, we are able to quickly work with tasks and track the progress of each project.
Using LEO PPM speeds up the search for the necessary information and ensures the accumulation of experience in a convenient format for further work. In the future, we see great benefit in such a feature as “Lessons Learned”. Although we have not yet fully mastered it, it is very valuable. We still have a couple of “dinosaurs” in our team who can share their experience and advise us on how not to do things. But this is a temporary phenomenon and limits our capabilities.
Who are the current users of LEO PPM?
Currently, LEO PPM users include project managers, assistant project managers, monitoring, evaluation and learning (MEL) managers, and accountants. However, we are still customizing the platform to meet our needs, so the number of roles and new users may increase.
The future of Caritas-Spes Ukraine. What’s next?
Once we have mastered the LEO PPM to the level of “fish in water”, we will start implementing it in our local offices. Therefore, it is extremely important now to adapt the format that is ideal for our activities, simple and understandable, so that in the future we can implement this solution throughout the Caritas-Spes network in Ukraine.
Advice for a manager if you decide to implement an IT solution:
1) Prepare for the new and for something you have never experienced before! Any innovation in a company requires many hours of hard work and conscientious study. And you need to understand that behind the beautiful picture of a report in Power BI is the systematic work of the team, regular data entry, and openness to new knowledge.
2) Convince the team of the benefits of implementing a new IT tool! You may encounter significant resistance, misunderstandings about the necessity of such a step, and the perception of it as an additional burden. It is crucial to help your colleagues realize that a particular technology can significantly speed up and improve the performance of the entire company.