Tisséo Voyageurs is the operator of the public transport network in Toulouse and its greater urban area, comprising 114 communes. Its role is to operate the network, provide customer service and maintain the assets entrusted to it by its organizing authority, Tisséo Collectivités.
After a career as an engineer and project manager in software development for the aeronautics, military and space sectors, Christophe Ferré joined the IT Department of Semvat, formerly Tisséo Voyageurs, in 2001. There, he worked on technical systems supporting public transport, in particular ticketing, video protection and telecoms, and led projects such as the implementation of teleticketing and the deployment of mobile telephony in the metro.
Today, as Major Digital Projects Coordinator at Tisséo Voyageurs' Information Systems and Innovation Department (ISID), he optimizes multi-project management through coordination inspired by PMO missions. Followed by the CIO and the entire management team, this approach has become a key lever for steering the department's objectives and resources.
Here he shares his experience of using Gouti to manage ISID projects.
« All projects involving the resources of the Information Systems and Innovation Department are referenced in Gouti, as long as they are either managed outside the department, or under internal management with a high strategic stakes and the involvement of several departments.
Since the beginning of 2024, the use of Gouti has been extended to Tisséo Voyageurs' Technical Department, which also manages its project portfolio in Gouti. However, with a few exceptions, Gouti is not yet used for project management. »
« Within our department, the need to structure project portfolio monitoring took shape in several stages. In 2020, I began to run an embryonic project office, with a set of Excel spreadsheets. In addition, several DSII departments were already collecting their employees' time spent in an open source tool, but it was a bit “exotic”.
In 2021, we launched an active search for a tool capable of industrializing the monitoring of our growing project portfolio.
Our objectives were clear: to replace the tracking done on Excel and PowerPoint spreadsheets with a single tool, to reduce the multiplication of entries in different media, and to enable rapid and controllable entry of time spent on project and recurring activities in the ISD. It was also important to have a tool with good ergonomics and sufficient flexibility to adapt to our organization (dual activity V-projects, agile, operations, technical administration, maintenance...). We also wanted to be able to evolve progressively into a project management culture, and to be able to communicate easily at different levels (projects, management, codir, finance, HR, etc.), while keeping to a reasonable budget and ensuring quick and easy implementation. »
« After some research and several exchanges with users of similar tools in sectors close to Tisséo's, we turned our attention to Virage Group's Project Monitor solution and Gouti. »
« We were particularly impressed by Gouti's user-friendliness and flexibility, combined with its affordability for our organization. These assets enabled us to choose Gouti and to launch a pilot phase of initial implementation.
This phase, launched at the end of 2021, confirmed that we could gradually move towards more robust project management, while gradually using other tool functionalities to enrich our approach. »
« With Gouti, we quickly improved several key aspects of our project management:
« The concept of labels, enabling projects to be grouped by business line, department, etc., as well as the assignment of access rights, represents a real asset for our organization.
The management of resource assignments to a project, whether by individual or by team, has enabled us to adapt the tool to the way our departments operate.
Exports of data from the detailed list of projects (active and archived) and from the tracking of time spent (HR module) enable us to contribute effectively to the ISD's quarterly dashboards.
Finally, multi-project tracking gives us a global, projected view of project schedules. The ability to adjust this view is very useful for cross-referencing different viewpoints and updating the priorities to be communicated to management. »
« When we made the transition to Gouti, our aim was to understand our initial structure and create a target to which we could migrate quickly, while preserving historical data.
The decision to integrate Gouti was taken and implemented by the IT Services Department, with very effective support from CG Project Management. Their attentiveness, relevance and adaptability enabled us to make several modifications to the tool to best meet our needs.
Given my role, my experience and my position in our organization, gathering all the necessary data and clearly specifying what the ISD wanted to implement enabled us to successfully complete the pilot project, which I would describe, in good Toulousan fashion, as a “test transformed”.
Once the initial framework had been validated by the pilot user group, deployment for the whole ISD took just a few days.
For the Technical Department, I used my experience as a Gouti administrator to support them in identifying the data to be integrated and defining the organizational procedures to be projected into the tool.
In short, all the deployment phases were easy to carry out, and we now have almost 120 active users. »
« The main feedback, widely shared, concerns the ergonomics of the tool. It's very easy to use. As a precaution, we organized initial training in the two departments concerned. The initial training was a success, and is no longer necessary: new users are easily integrated thanks to the sharing of information between colleagues.
We have also noticed a change in the project management culture, with requests from certain users wishing to exploit other Gouti functionalities.
For the time being, for the sake of consistency and because of the priority given to major infrastructure projects currently underway, we have chosen to remain focused on what is already in place to perfect the practice of the various project manager profiles. »
« As Tisséo's point of contact for all contacts with CG Project Management's customer service, I'd like to emphasize their responsiveness and attentiveness. Every request is met with a rapid response, whether in the form of an enhancement to the tool or the presentation of existing functionalities.
The users' club also offers us mutual enrichment, which is much appreciated.
I'd like to take this opportunity to thank the whole team, and in particular Christian Gutekunst, with whom we worked throughout the pilot implementation phase. »
« Intuitive, adjustable and efficient for our organization. »
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