Overview

Sherston Publishing Group's educational software division experienced very rapid growth, including the establishment of a software development team in India in addition to the team in the UK.  This expansion led to a number of challenges, in particular the need to manage remote staff, track projects effectively and control costs.

Sherston decided to implement Asta Teamplan to enable them to manage their expanded project programme and additional resources effectively.  Asta Teamplan has proved to be a significant benefits, not just for the software development team, but also for other departments throughout the organisation.

Background

Sherston has significantly increased its production of educational software title in recent years as a result of considerable extra funding that has been released into the education sector for the sole purpose of purchasing electronic curriculum content.

From just four UK-based developers producing five software titles a year, Sherston now has a team of 160 developers split between the UK and India who produce over 40 media-rich titles per year.

The need

This rapid expansion created a number of new challenges, including ensuring remote staff are used effectively, tracking progress across the expanded project portfolio and controling resource costs on a project-by-project basis.

The solution

Asta Teamplan has enabled Sherston has overcome the problems created by distance as they can now maintain a much tighter management process.  For example, developers in India now complete online timesheets that are approved and then incorporated into the central project database in the UK. 

As Asta Teamplan is a real-time solution, this process allows project managers in the UK to instantly see the current status of any title in development and take any necessary action to ensure it remains on schedule and on budget.

Additional benefits

The real-time project status information has proved to be the most valuable element of Asta Teamplan for Sherston as, in addition to supporting the software development team, it also benefits the rest of the organisation. 

For example, the marketing department can now coordinate the launch of each new title with the development schedule.  This means that, if the development schedule changes, they can change their release plan so that it is aligned with the new launch date and money is not wasted.

"With more than 50 software development staff in India, keeping track of staffing across multiple projects was becoming a challenge."

Predicting the future

Sherston can now confidently predict the future with Asta Teamplan.  They have short-term plans for projects that are currently taking place, medium-term project plans that predict resource requirements and long-term scenarios.

Sherston's success

By using Asta Teamplan, Sherston has achieved:

- A widespread improvement in its business processes.
- Management and control of software titles in development, both in terms of cost, time and processes.
- Proactive management of staffing levels.

For Sherston, Asta Teamplan is not simply a project management tool but a strategic solution for managing the key business processes.