News

Owens CC Puts Daptiv Project Management System in Place

• By Dian Schaffhauser
• 10/29/09

Owens Community College with three campuses in the Toledo, OH area has implemented Daptiv's project portfolio management (PPM) application across the institution to streamline its project management process and improve communication about projects. A PPM provides a way to prioritize and track multiple projects and allows multiple users to update project details and view status. Daptiv's product is software as a service, delivered to users through a Web browser.

Previously, Owens tracked projects in the IT department with spreadsheets. The college implemented Daptiv in July 2008. Since then, according to a statement, the college has reduced the amount of time spent generating and communicating project reports by 80 percent.

"With Daptiv, we've streamlined the project management process and increased awareness across departments," said Scott Coffman, associate director of applications and programming. "With the reporting and customized application capabilities it has become easier for us to communicate during the process so we can see how goals are being met along the way. The results have been impressive--we've seen gains of 50 percent in time that used to be allocated to updating old processes. The tools have become a vital part of our operations and have introduced a level of increased efficiency and communication."

The college, which had about 21,300 students in 2008, has since expanded its use of the service beyond the IT department to manage multiple types of projects such as contract and grant renewals. Owens is also using the company's Dynamic Applications, which allows users to create project request forms, which can add another layer of visibility and traceability to the process.