NuVasive Improves Predictability, Consistency, and Collaboration Across R&D with an Integrated Solution

NuVasive wanted to improve predictability and consistency across its R&D new product development projects but was limited in its ability to visualize and plan for incoming demand and resource capacity. With their largest projects requiring collaboration between more than 110 people performing over 30 unique roles, effective resource management and collaboration were challenging.

The company integrated Planview® and Microsoft Power BI to establish a single source of truth to plan projects, assign resources, track progress, and build reports. Team members have the information they need to execute work collaboratively, and executives have real-time data to make informed decisions.

NuVasive, Inc. is a medical device company that provides less invasive procedurally integrated solutions clinically proven to reduce operative time and improve outcomes in spine surgery.

NuVasive’s R&D Project Management Office (PMO) was committed to improving predictability and consistency across all of their R&D projects, as well as increasing resource visibility into cross-functional resource demand. Their average project often involves 15 cross-functional groups creating many moving parts and a number of various interdependencies. The PMO needed a better way to visualize demand over time to identify trends and justify adding headcount. NuVasive desired an integrated solution that would offer greater tracking and visibility into how resources were being utilized to complete project work.

NuVasive began using Planview® to manage New Product Development projects. Planview helped R&D manage collaborative work at the team level, by breaking it down into digital Kanban task cards, and assigning work to the appropriate cross-functional team members to execute the plan.

“We leverage our standard templates to sync directly with Planview while maintaining a single source of record,” explains Travis Dickerson, project manager at NuVasive “Leaders and team members have better visibility into which tasks need to be completed for a project to move forward. The Kanban board allows them to visualize all information relevant to a project and record specific pieces of data necessary for review.”

NuVasive’s R&D PMO also integrates Planview Projectplace with Microsoft Power BI, which allows them to pull relevant Planview Projectplace data automatically into Power BI. They can then model that information in Power BI to create custom reports and dashboards that can be sent to select team members and stakeholders. Since data updates automatically, they have eliminated the time-intensive manual reporting used previously.

“We can do so much with our integrated solution. For example, through the application of labels and tags, we are able to better understand the cross-functional demand placed on our projects over time, overlaying trend lines to see if we need to hire more staff,” says Dickerson. “We now have increased visibility into when specific project resources will be required, allowing us to plan for future constraints, such as holidays or personnel departures.”

NuVasive is now able to collect critical project performance data, improving visibility into resource modeling, increasing product launch predictability, and driving consistency across projects. With one standard system in place that all teams use and with standardized nomenclature across Kanban cards, the data is more reliable, and teams are working together like never before. “Our integrated solution allows us to structure projects to provide unique data, link workspaces directly to modeling software, create unique and comprehensive models, and refresh data in real-time,” says Dickerson. “We are more efficient and unified. I couldn’t ask for a better solution.”

With project management plans, activities, and tasks linked in one integrated system, NuVasive is better able to identify demand and capacity issues early on, before they cause product delays. Planview has empowered the company to build a culture of collaboration, bringing people together from cross-functional areas to contribute to the execution and delivery of their strategy. NuVasive has established the foundation to continually improve its practices through a transparent, standardized process that brings measurable business value.

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