Blue Ant Project Management Software in Use at eins energie in Sachsen GmbH & Co. KG

Streamlining IT Projects and Resources with Blue Ant

Markus Friedemann is the Team Lead for IT Project Portfolio Management in the IT Department at eins energie. Together with his team, he ensures greater transparency and structure across the company’s IT project landscape. In this interview, he shares his experiences with the implementation and use of Blue Ant and provides insights into the daily challenges of IT project and resource management.

Markus, thank you for taking the time to talk with us. Could you start by introducing yourself and your role at the company?

Of course! My name is Markus Friedemann, and I’m the Team Lead for IT Project Portfolio Management in the IT Department at eins energie. Our department is responsible for the company’s strategic IT alignment. My team manages IT projects and IT demand management within the organization.

With such a large organization and range of services, your project portfolio must be quite extensive. How is it structured?

Our group consists of two main areas: the technical division, which focuses primarily on energy supply, and the commercial division, which covers sales and administration — this is also where our strategic IT is located. We also work closely with our subsidiaries, inetz and make IT.

Our main focus is on IT projects. To meet regulatory requirements, market demands, and competitive pressures, IT projects are essential for modern energy supply operations. At the same time, topics like digitalization, IT security, and emerging technologies continue to drive the need for rapid project implementation — often alongside ongoing operations.

Without a strategic approach, the result is usually overworked resources, long project timelines, unstructured work, lack of collaboration, and limited transparency.

To counteract this, we are establishing an IT project portfolio management framework.

What were the main reasons you decided to look for a project management software?

The key driver was our need for more structure and transparency — a centralized system to manage our IT project landscape strategically.

Every IT department knows the situation: business units constantly submit new requirements that need to be addressed — and in our case, we also handle projects driven by legal or regulatory changes.

The energy sector continually faces new challenges, from the energy crisis to the transition toward climate neutrality.

Earlier this year, for example, we decommissioned our lignite power plant and built a gas-fired power plant as a transitional solution. Now, we’re already evaluating the next step toward hydrogen as an energy carrier.

Almost every project brings new IT requirements and interfaces, so the IT department must respond quickly — ideally yesterday rather than tomorrow. We first needed to create transparency: Which projects are already running? Which ones are planned for next year?

Since then, we’ve been building a culture of continuous project maintenance, creating processes to plan, manage, and prioritize more effectively.

There are many project management tools on the market. What made you choose Blue Ant?

Ultimately, it was the functional depth and modular structure of Blue Ant that convinced us.

As a public company, we’re required to conduct a transparent selection process — and trust in the provider was another crucial factor. The Blue Ant team impressed us with their reliability and professionalism, which led us to choose their solution.

We also decided early on to go with a cloud-based setup, and Blue Ant offered clear advantages in that regard. The system’s performance has been excellent, and we recently renewed our licenses — a clear sign of our continued trust and satisfaction.

Could you share some practical insights? Which key features help you create structure and transparency in your daily work?

Absolutely! We started almost from scratch. First, we mapped out our current state by integrating all ongoing projects into Blue Ant.

At the same time, we developed a project initiation process, which we’ve implemented in Blue Ant through workflows and different status levels — from project request to approval to project mandate. This gave us a clear, structured start for every project.

Next, we categorized projects into portfolios — for example, by business area such as Sales, Marketing, or IT.

Another major step was introducing resource planning, since understanding what we can realistically deliver depends on knowing our available capacities. Blue Ant now serves as our central information platform for all active IT projects.

We also generate monthly reports, accessible both interactively in the platform and via the reporting module. These reports give department heads and management a quick overview of their IT projects and resources.

Another valuable feature is the monthly status reporting with reminder functions, which project managers can easily complete directly in the system.

You mentioned resource management — often considered the “crown discipline” of multi-project management. What has your experience been like?

Resource management was entirely new to us, and we’re still refining our approach. A lot of it evolves in practice. From the start, we made sure to track what we call base load activities — all non-project-related tasks. This documentation is essential for understanding total resource utilization.

One of the biggest challenges remains estimating real resource capacities. This is less about the tool itself and more about determining when and to what extent specific employees will be needed.

Currently, assignments are still made at the individual level — focusing on key resources like “Hans Müller” or “Anika Schulze,” who are involved in multiple projects.

Blue Ant’s resource management helps us visualize these bottlenecks and create transparency — but it only works if everyone participates.

While the theoretical benefits of project and portfolio management are obvious, the practical implementation is a challenge. It takes time for a new system to become established and for everyone to see its value. Initially, every additional click feels like extra work, which can make adoption difficult. We’re still working on that.

That’s a common challenge! How do you find the collaboration with Blue Ant’s support and consulting teams?

I have to say, I’m very satisfied. Support is fast, friendly, and always takes our requests seriously. Unlike some hotlines — say, the Deutsche Bahn’s — where you wait forever only to get a canned response, Blue Ant’s support is responsive and solution-oriented.

The consulting services are also very valuable. This year, for example, we conducted a system check-up, which gave us the opportunity to discuss our usage with Blue Ant’s experts. We learned about new features we hadn’t yet explored, and my feedback was taken seriously and passed on — that was great.

I’d also like to praise the online help feature. It’s incredibly useful that you can access the relevant help page from any screen or function by clicking the question mark. It saves so much time and makes problem-solving easy. Overall, a very positive experience.

Looking ahead: Are there particular features you’d like to expand on or new areas you plan to explore?

Definitely. Project management is a dynamic process. We deliberately started small — even if it was tempting to use all features right away. Our goal is to gradually expand.

Right now, we’re also transitioning some of our ticketing tools, like Jira, to a web-based setup. Since Blue Ant offers a connector, we’re exploring integration options. Working with multiple tools can be challenging, especially in a large organization with existing systems, so interoperability is very important to us.

We’re also exploring artificial intelligence (AI) within our company — and we’re curious to see how Blue Ant might incorporate AI into project and portfolio management in the future.

For now, our focus is on stability and building routine. Some areas aren’t yet fully integrated the way we’d like, and improving that is our next goal.

Thank you, Markus, for the insights and positive feedback. We wish you continued success with your project management journey!

(Customer review, 2024)