How I gained 10 working weeks a year by switching to WideCharts

Normally you only get to read snippets of what people like about WideCharts but today i've decided to publish a longer form testimonial from one of our earliest customers at WideChart that I really think helps to explain the change in thinking that using a proper high-level planning tool can help to make. Enjoy!...

I'm a senior manager at a large international insurance company. Like anyone in upper middle management, I spend most of my time in meetings. 

2 years ago there was a big merger and my team grew from about 100 to about 300 people overnight. Obviously there are a few layers of management underneath me, and I started using gantt charts to plan out the trajectory for what we'd be working on over the next 12-24 months.

At first I was just making these in word, then I tried excel, and finally gave in and started using some project management software. That was really the worst thing I could have done, because it had all these nuanced, complicated things it could do - which I inevitably started trying to use. Things like dependencies, resources - I was basically becoming a project manager - I even considered hiring someone to manage this document for me.

And then one day I heard about WideCharts and it just hit me - I really didn't need all this detail and control. What I'd originally set out to do was to visualise my 5 teams, and the the top 10 or 15 things that we all needed to be aligned on, and then periodically check how closely this was to reality. Somewhere along the way I'd just slipped into this overly detailed project management mode that wasn't adding any value. 

These days I simply have 1 row for each of my teams, plus a couple more for other teams and key suppliers that we work closely with, and thats it. No dependencies, no major detail - just a high level overview of what we're all working towards. I send it around about twice a month and we have it printed out on A1 periodically and stuck on the wall in the office.

I was spending literally hours a week managing this document - when you add it all up it was almost 10 working weeks a year! Since moving to WideCharts I still look at it most days, but I probably spend about 10 minutes a week checking it and tweaking it. A substantial saving but also a complete shift in my thinking as a manager.