Yell, the phone directories business that produces the Yellow Pages, has been using project portfolio management tools for a decade to improve efficiencies across the organisation and help the IT department respond more quickly to business needs.

The IT function at Yell has 200 staff, with another 100 running Yell.com. At any one time, there are about 200 projects underway, so senior managers need to be able to allocate resources efficiently and identify gaps in skills.

The company has been using Clarity, the project and portfolio suite from management software specialist CA, for 10 years to help it automate the management of large-scale projects, such as Y2K and SAP implementation. By using the tools, Yell has been able to get a top-down view of all its projects, says Paul Allen, senior planning manager in the IT department.

“It has made things more efficient. First, planning a large number of projects can now be grouped together into certain areas, releases or programmes, making them easier to manage. We can also view the information and see how projects are progressing,” Allen explains.

The Clarity suite has also helped Yell to manage staff resources. “It has allowed us to look at the levels of work people have got, their roles and skills, and to plan ahead for shortfalls,” says Allen. “By planning ahead, we can train people to fit those roles. Or, if we don’t need to train anyone, we can identify those gaps where we need to bring contractors in to do the work.”

The process of resource allocation, says Allen, is now quicker and more effective. The portfolio approach to managing projects has enabled the company to take a more long-term view of planning, with software releases carefully staged throughout the year. “We can bundle those sorts of projects that are going to require functionality changes in the same area to save time, effort and, ultimately, cost,” Allen explains.

Allen says that the use of portfolio management tools has changed the relat ionship of the IT function to the business, with IT now giving advice instead of simply being told what to do. At the same time, IT has aligned itself more closely to the needs of the business.

Yell is now looking at upgrading to Clarity version 8.1. While the toolset has been useful for capacity planning and scheduling, says Allen, the company is considering adapting it to the needs of managers and team leaders so they can specify the kinds of people they want on projects.

In the meantime, “We try to anticipate developments we want to make on the system in the next 12 months and plan ahead from there,” he says.