How Tempo helped MicroNav navigate busy schedules

How do novice air traffic controllers become experts at navigating the skies? You can’t just throw them in at the deep end, so they rely on air traffic control simulators.

Micro Nav creates these simulators and they’ve been a Tempo customer for years. As a diehard fan of the product, Operations Director Kevin Crump chatted with us about how his company and PM have evolved together – and how Tempo has helped Micro Nav become more efficient in their project planning.

Here’s our Q & A with Crump:

PM: You’ve been using Tempo tools for years. What’s changed since you first started?

KC: “For one, Micro Nav was acquired by the Quadrant Group. My group is self-contained, we remain at the same location and continue to expand. When we first started using Tempo we had about 70 seats and now we’re at about 110 and getting ready to add more.

"We’ve incorporated Tempo solutions as part of the expanded toolset for the entire company. Even people who aren’t on project teams use Tempo to some degree or another – from tracking time to managing projects and catching labor data.

“Tempo has been great in helping us get a project up on its feet. We’ve created a template that everyone uses so that all of our projects can get off to a quick start. Part of this process is to attach a budget to each task so we know exactly what the expectations for cost are – and then we can make sure to stay within the budget.”

PM: Why did you go for Tempo?

KC: “It was a two-way ticket:

1. The product suite's capability

2. The fantastic level of support that comes with it.”

PM: What kind of ROI do you get from using Tempo?

KC: “Tempo gives visibility into a lot of the risks of a project early on so we have ample opportunity to mitigate those risks. Our old tool gave bad news too late so we had no opportunity to correct the problem before it was actually a problem. ”With Tempo, we get an early warning of potential schedule and budget risks which gives us an opportunity to do something about them before they happen. Being able to curb overspends and keep to the schedule (thus avoiding late delivery penalties which often apply) potentially gives us savings of tens of thousands in lost margin.

“Since the buyout, we’ve been asked to provide detailed project reports to the Board. Tempo does a lot of the heavy lifting because all of the data is right there in the tool.

“Lastly, I estimate that Tempo saves us around 480 days per year which equates to around $73,000. That’s at least one full-time employee on a healthy salary.”

PM: How has Tempo affected the culture of your team?

KC: “Tempo has helped our teams realize what they are here to achieve. With our old tool, only the project manager had a view into the whole picture; the rest of the team had no idea where they landed within the task and could only see their own tasks. With Tempo tools, everyone can see the progress and overall, it helps with team morale because everyone has insight into the entire project timeline.”

PM: How do you get new team members using Tempo?

KC: “All new users receive a quick introductory course and have access to our sandbox area so they can get better acquainted with the toolset. Then, team managers sit down with new users and team managers and go through specific examples that they’ve worked on themselves. ”Everyone is educated in the same way and uses the tools similarly. We do this so everyone uses the tools consistently and knows how they work so they will fully adopt them. Basically, initiation is done through mentoring. This process works for us.”

PM: How do you use our support services?

KC: “In the early days, we chatted with support very often – even before purchasing. We needed to make sure Tempo had the right fit for our team and the support and sales teams always had helpful advice on how to roll out the platform within the company and how to get proper buy-off.”

“Nowadays, if anyone has any questions, I direct them to the support page, and if the answer isn’t there, I encourage them to contact the support team. The training videos are also a great resource. We have all of our new users get familiar with PM via the videos because they are so helpful. Support is half the reason why we chose to use LP. We don’t use support nearly as often as we did when we were first starting out.”

PM: Version 3.0 (the PM version Micro Nav first started using) vs. 4.3 (our June 2013 release) – what’s changed?

KC: “All of the new features have been great. Specifically, your new baselines feature helps us move toward the reporting we need in a more standard format. There is less wrangling data outside of Tempo, which saves a good deal of time and effort.

“Checklists have also helped us move things out of SharePoint and into Tempo's interface. We have custom lists and logs that live in SharePoint that we can now add to certain tasks. For example, statements of work were logged in in SharePoint and now each item is added as a checklist item in PM.

“I also love that Tempo has maintained stability. It has gotten more attractive without hindering the ease of use. It’s all about getting that balance right. You’ve walked that line extremely well.”

PM: How has Tempo surprised you?

KC: “I didn’t expect the updates to be so frequent. It’s been a pleasant surprise. I’m also surprised by how low maintenance Tempo tools are. They do exactly what it says – It just works.”

PM: How has Tempo changed your job?

KC: “I spend a lot less time making sure all of the data I go through is correct. With our other tool, I didn’t have confidence that the numbers in front of me were accurate. With Tempo, I don’t have to go through every report because now I have confidence in the numbers that PM gives me.

“Tempo also gives me more time to look at the big picture – what’s on time, what’s not, etc. Tempo saves me about one-half to one day a week where I can work on other things.”

PM: Any parting thoughts?

KC: “Just keep doing what you’re doing!”