August 17, 2004

By RUTH BAUM BIGUS
Special to The Star

The company: Adams-Gabbert & Associates Inc. is a management consulting firm that helps companies improve processes and project management capabilities. Adams-Gabbert clients are in a variety of industries, including finance and banking, health care, transportation, insurance, manufacturing and telecommunications.

Telephone: (816) 347-0077

Address: 251 N.W. Executive Way, Lee's Summit

Web site: www.adamsgabbert.com

Ownership, top management: Jo Anne Gabbert is sole owner of the firm. She also is president and chief executive officer. The management team includes Laurie Kistler, vice president of client relations; Shawn Kinkade, associate vice president of business development; and Bob Kelly, director of operations.

No. of employees: 23, plus subcontractors

Challenge: Improve company's own project management capabilities.

Background, research: Adams-Gabbert has 20 staff members who work with clients. Because these employees are out in the field so much, it was difficult to keep track of where projects stood at any given time. Field staff would write reports or send e-mails, but that proved time-consuming.

"We didn't want to sift through all kinds of reports or have staff to have to call in daily," Kistler said. "It can be a challenge to document those processes we develop with clients and to make them repeatable."

Field staff wanted a tool that could help them streamline reporting, and management wanted a better way to track the progress of each project.

Action steps: During Adams-Gabbert's weekly management meetings, the staff discussed how to track projects in a more efficient and timely manner. The management team asked employees to clarify their needs.

Project managers took the requirements and developed a software application to track project progress. The Web-enabled tool can be logged on to from any location. It captures and consolidates information in an easy-to-read report.

"It's a tool used to track whatever you want it to track - in our case it's projects," Kistler said. "It's like the dashboard of a car with dials that show you what's going on so you can address it."

Gabbert said: "The Adams-Gabbert Executive Project Dashboard provides performance metric management, which is easy to read, monitor and analyze." The dashboard uses a color-coded system. The status of a project is determined by whether it is on time and within budget. If red or yellow pops up on the status report, it indicates a potential budget or time issue, Kistler said.

"The Executive Project Dashboard holds a project team accountable to on-time and on-budget project management," Gabbert said.

After three months of work on the application, staff began to use the tool in 2002.

Results: Using the dashboard allows Adams-Gabbert to be in the driver's seat when tracking projects.

"We have almost an immediate view of budget dollars. What we're able to do is if they are running through the budget faster, we know that and can address that," said Matt Adams of the company's business development department. "It saves each team member several hours a week in not having to open and read several e-mails to find out the status - they get it all in one place." Adams-Gabbert also offers the dashboard to its clients.

As a result of developing the dashboard, Adams-Gabbert is a finalist for the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award for Realizing Business Potential, sponsored by Microsoft Corp.