The last 12 months has fast tracked the use of software systems for project management into a global reality for many, whether that be staying competitive during a digital transformation or staying safe during a societal transformation, the need to stay connected and transparent is more important than ever, and this is changing how we work and changing how we manage projects.
SourceForge recently caught up with Colin Johnson, CEO of Mission Control, to discuss the challenges in managing projects during the current COVID-19 crisis and how you can use professional service automation software and strategies to your advantage.
CEO at Mission Control
What is Mission Control and what inspired its creation?
Mission Control is a project management / professional services automation (PSA) solution built natively on the Salesforce Platform. It was born from an internal need to have a solution that would help us manage our own consulting and software development projects from within Salesforce. From those origins we’ve developed a solution to equip businesses with all the tools and processes needed to deliver consistently efficient projects across the board.
What is your take on the rapidly changing face of project management during the last 12 months?
One huge shift I’ve witnessed is the steep acceleration in digital transformation initiatives. Businesses that were perhaps looking at a transformation project in 3-4 years time had to pull those plans forward rapidly. Additionally, with a dispersed workforce, businesses have needed digital solutions with remote collaboration features like Kanban boards, resource tracking, and automated billing solutions, so we’ve seen a real increase in customers asking for those services and features.
Why is Mission Control critical in the current climate?
Digital insight into productivity has become increasingly important, what time is being spent where, what progress has been made on what projects – business and project leaders need a central source of truth and visibility on commercial performance to make informed and equitable decisions.
Additionally, because Mission Control is native to Salesforce and users are likely already familiar with the UI – adoption rates, workflow integration and internal change management is far easier than partnering with a SaaS that doesn’t natively integrate.
How will Mission Control help adapt business to the ‘new normal’
Well, if the new normal is a world that requires remote working, digital collaboration and optimal project delivery then Mission Control is well and truly set-up for the new ways of working. Our software provides a consolidated environment to allow all business units to manage their projects within Salesforce regardless of where the team members are located and our collaborative features like Kanban, Action Pad and Storyboard create seamless and accountable remote collaboration, so ‘new normal’ here we come!
You mentioned on our initial call that product adoption is up 40% YOY, why is that?
This isn’t a new achievement, we’ve had continuous solid growth since we launched really, but whilst many industries have struggled during COVID, the tech industry has continued to grow at existing, if not higher rates.
This is really driven by the need for businesses to manage remote / dispersed teams, or they’ve opted to use their ‘downtime’ to improve their operational systems to be ready to capitalise when their industry picks back up – giving them a competitive advantage within their industry.
Tell us more about Mission Control. What are the key features and capabilities? How does it compare to other project management platforms on the market?
I think I’ve covered some of the features above but a couple that really differentiate us from some of our SaaS competitors are:
The Scheduler provides a calendar style view of Action records and is an excellent resource capacity planning tool. It helps identify which resources have availability vs those that are bottlenecked due to over-allocation and provides insight into capacity across any duration, from 1 day to 52 weeks.
This is a Kanban-style board that enables our customers to build out their Requirements, User Stories and Checklist Items to be delivered as part of a long-term roadmap across a series of Projects. They can manage roadmaps and assign requirements within the Program to individual Projects for delivery.
This is where resources can see a list of all the Actions assigned to them. A series of analytical charts provide a summary insight into the current status. This enables a detailed view of the Action, opportunity to collaborate via Chatter and manage User Stories & Checklist Items.
Beyond features, are there any other reasons your customers have adopted Mission Control?
Fundamentally real-time visibility of information reduces the manual administrative burden on staff. It saves time, reduces attrition and employee wear and saves the business money.
This is standard across a lot of SaaS to be fair, but beyond features why our customers choose us might include:
- It works out of the box – up and running in minutes, no implementation costs
- Supports both Agile & Waterfall
- A very competitive price
- Industry leading customer support
- Ease of implementation
- Product Roadmap – clients love the velocity of innovation
- Suits multiple different business units (e.g. any one tool can be used by different teams within the business, such as product development, professional services and customer success)
Any memorable customer moments?
With over 6,000 active licences across hundreds of organisations globally it’s difficult to really isolate a memorable moment, but some very recent feedback I received from one of our customers, BRANZ, a leading research and development organization, was that our software was a key influence in their 30% increase in efficiency across the business. It kind of blew my socks off, when you get client feedback like that it vindicates all the late nights, the decisions you’ve made and the journey you’ve been on. You can read more about BRANZ’s experience here.
Let’s jump to the future. How do you expect project management to evolve and how will Mission Control adapt to the upcoming changes?
It would be no surprise to me that adoption of sophisticated tools continued to increase as did the project management maturity of organisations – outgrowing simple options such as Excel, Asana, Monday.com, etc. Additionally, I think the PM/PSA market will mature – similar to how business has moved on from MS Access, Act!, etc. to more sophisticated CRM systems.
The biggest driver of digital technology, and one that will continue to drive demand, is the seemingly endless requirement for data and insights. Whether you are a marketer, a salesperson, a project manager, in customer experience or a Director of a business – there is more demand for business and customer transparency than ever before, and I’d expect that trend to continue as digital transparency becomes the norm, not the exception.
About Mission Control
Mission Control is an online project management software system, native to Salesforce. With a suite of first-class features, it equips businesses with all the tools and processes needed to deliver consistently efficient projects across the board.
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