Amplify Strategy Execution

Vorteile

I needed to quickly implement a benefits tracking system for a public sector tertiary education institution undergoing significant change, due to budget cuts. Within hours, I defined the 25 initiatives including the roles, sponsors, benefit targets and timing. The Import feature made the process very easy. Being cloud based meant that the client can implement right away.

Nachteile

Admittedly, the user interface needs updating to current web design standards, which I believe is in the pipeline for changing relatively soon. Also, some of the menu navigation could be more streamlined.

Vorteile

Overall Amplify strikes a difficult balance between PMO features and Benefit/Cost realization without spending months on developing the instance thus losing valuable time.

Pros:
- Its a quick process depending on how much of the program's business case is defined at launch. The tool itself under the guidance of the Amplify team can be spun up in several weeks allowing fast cost/benefit realization tracking
- Its scalable, able to support programs with hundreds of initiatives without becoming unwieldy
- Dynamic views of the program hierarchy specific to each user
- Fast Configuration feature allows for bulk uploads of initiatives, benefit values, etc.
- Tool combines PMO features with benefit maturity tracking enabling users to derive critical insights regarding financial impact of dependencies
- Custom reporting with Power BI embedded supports creation of client specific reports with ability to export. In house dashboards are also user friendly
- Benefit Ledger and table views are excel friendly with copy/paste options and additional options for customization
- [SENSITIVE CONTENT HIDDEN] and the rest of the Amplify team are very accessible and wonderful to work with. They offer lots of support in the onboarding process and questions submitted by the customer service portal are answered promptly. In nearly 2 years I've never had a negative experience.
- The UI and other tool features are regularly updated. Clients can also help shape future updates depending on their needs

Nachteile

Cons:

-Some features like the investment dashboard can feel a little rigid despite customization options
- Amplify supports tracking of non financial KPIs but dashboard views are limited to Power BI
- Navigating in demos with admin access can feel a little overwhelming to clients at times but once users are in the tool from the Steerco to the single initiative owner there's typically no issue as it supports user specific rights.

In my experience the pros far outweigh the cons and with regular updates Amplify is only becoming a better tool.

Vorteile

The Amplify tool is incredibly powerful and is a full portfolio and strategic management tool. At our company we have used Amplify to centralise and consolidate all portfolio change across the business and align it to our strategic goals. This has supported portfolio prioritisation, business planning and visibility of Product visions and roadmaps.

The benefits mapping and management within Amplify is also very powerful and intuitive and being able to add any item on to the map allows you to highlight dependencies between initiatives and how they are contributing to strategic goals.

We have also used the Resource capacity and demand module which is at a appropriate level for portfolio planning, giving us information on demand for resources and any capacity issues we need to plan for based on implementation of initiatives.

In terms of navigation Amplify is really easy to get around because of the breadcrumbs and search functionality.

The set up and configuration for Amplify was really intuitive, the admin settings are powerful and can be a little overwhelming at first, but once you understand the way the different categories inter-relate you realise how much you can tailor and customise for your organisation e.g. we have lots of custom fields which we can report against and allow us to understand portfolio themes. The integration spreadsheets also work really well for the initial bulk upload of initiatives and mapping to the system.

Nachteile

The API integration is missing - but I know this is on the roadmap. As an organisation Amplify is the top level of our planning framework and our development and project work is on Azure DevOps. An integration between these systems would be ideal. I think it would also be beneficial to have a viewers only license at a lower price for users who are more occasional.

Vorteile

Amplify was easy to implement with out of the box integration that made it easy to transition from other software and spreadsheets into Amplify in just two months. While the software has an incredible tool set out of the gate the admin capabilities add significant control to meet multiple execution strategies. User training was not complicated as it is built as a very intuitive tool. The ability to design multiple approval paths is slick, the ability to add your own custom fields can help you meet the most complex need. The audit trail capture ensure all actions are captured and available. There are a large number of reports that come with Amplify, it can be connected to PowerBI, if you have the right inhouse resources you can write your own custom reports.

Nachteile

I knew you were going to ask me this question. I'm finding it hard to come up something despite having used the software for over a year. In the initial selection process I independently found another customer and called them for a reference and their reference sounded just like this one. Of course sometimes we are a bit skeptical but [SENSITIVE CONTENT HIDDEN] delivered 100%.

Vorteile

1. Amplify provides great customer support:
-we were able to configure quickly multiple templates for various types of projects we deliver across our consultancy competencies
-they worked with our wish list requests and promptly made enhancements to their tool
2. Intuitive and flexible
3. Power BI integration
4. Data security
5. Financial and non-financial benefits tracking

Nachteile

It's not quite mature on the PMO resource management. I know it's on their roadmap to address it.

Vorteile

Amplify helps to create the transparency that we need to steer our company effectively and enables us to react quickly in case of challenges.
We have more than 430 active users in the tool and a recent internal survey showed that the majority is very satisfied with the overall tool peformance & that Amplify is intuitive to use. Due to this there are now als other functions of the company asking to use Amplify.
Our Management Dashboard is a great asset and we don't create any PowerPoints anymore when presenting to the Executive Board because the Dashboard shows everything that we need.
The support by Amplify is very good, both in regards to problem solving and continuous improvement of the tool.

Nachteile

There is some room for improvement on the Milestone & Task view.