Blue Ant in action at Berlin Hyp AG

We spoke with Ms Schülke, Head of Organisation at Berlin Hyp about the introduction of Blue Ant.

Ms Schülke, what is your position at Berlin Hyp AG and what is your remit?

I am the head of the Organization department at Berlin Hyp, which is responsible for project portfolio management and the bank’s regulations. This includes, for example, the design, implementation, management and improvement of our projects and business processes.

Organizational aspects, such as strategic direction, organizational culture and the involvement of stakeholders, taking into account technical issues, play a major role. We act as an advisor to individual departments and are responsible for the evaluation and development of the bank’s project portfolio management.

What was the reason for introducing project management software at Berlin Hyp AG?

The large number of projects we have to manage made it necessary to use multi-project management software. We wanted more transparency in terms of content, budget and resources. For us, it was as important to be able to reserve resources at project level to represent the work effort of the project portfolio transparently, and evaluate it. In addition, the administrative work involved should be minimized through the implementation of reporting standards.

What was the decisive factor in your decision to use Blue Ant as multi-project management software?

We were particularly won over by the range of functions, clear structure and intuitive operation of Blue Ant.

How did you organise the introduction of Blue Ant?

The decision to implement Blue Ant was made in autumn 2011. The software was first introduced in the Organization/IT department of Berlin Hyp. Due to the restructuring of the bank and the changes and prioritization involved, the full roll-out of Blue Ant in all areas of Berlin Hyp took place at the end of 2014. In the meantime, Organisation/IT had gained a lot of experience from the pilot operation of Blue Ant.

Supported by proventis, we initially created a comprehensive implementation plan, which has since been gradually implemented. In the second step, the multi-project management software was configured for us individually, which was very simple thanks to the flexible options in Blue Ant. Then we started on-the-job training. In practice, this meant that our employees were accompanied when creating and planning projects and got to know the possibilities for controlling and reporting in Blue Ant. In parallel, we professionalized our methodological expertise and studied Prince II methodology. Another important step was the conception and implementation of extensions to Blue Ant to be able to support requirements, such as MaRisk, more sustainably.

What has changed since you have been using Blue Ant in your project work at Berlin Hyp AG?

What has changed in my opinion is the up-to-date view of the projects and greatly improved controllability. As a result of the transparency this has brought about, it is possible to give employees an overview of the projects, which will enable better management of dependencies and resources in the future. With the implementation of various internal company reports, we have also been able to reduce administrative effort significantly. I am sure that in the medium term we will achieve positive change on project management culture through the use of Blue Ant.

Thank you for talking to us, Ms Schülke.

(Client review from 2015)