TransAlta Corporation, a Canadian power generation and wholesaling company, needed to better “compare apples to apples” when selecting its portfolio of capital projects across fuel types and investment streams.

1. Case Study: Enterprise Portfolio Management
ORGANIZATION PROFILE
TransAlta Corporation is an electricity
power generator and wholesale
marketing company headquartered
in Calgary, Alberta. It operates over
70 power plants in Canada, the
United States and Australia.
TransAlta’s operates geothermal,
wind, hydro, natural gas and coal
power generation facilities.
How a Power Company Saved
Time and Reduced Capital
Expenses Through Better
Project Portfolio Management
“We knew that some sort of project portfolio
management was foundational for our future
competitiveness in the marketplace.”
- Carl Souchereau,
Director of the Enterprise Project Management Office
INDUSTRY
Utilities
SIZE
2,400+ employees
COUNTRY / REGION C
Canada, United States, Australia
TransAlta Corporation, a Canadian power generation and
wholesaling company, needed to better “compare apples to
apples” when selecting its portfolio of capital projects across fuel
types and investment streams. It wanted to make better
decisions and reduce time spent searching for information.
SOFTWARE USED:
 UMT 360
SITUATION
 Microsoft Project Server
TransAlta is the largest power
generation and wholesale marketing
company in Canada. “What makes our
situation particularly complex,” says Carl
Souchereau, Director of the Enterprise
Project Management Office at TransAlta,
“is that we generate electricity through
five different fuel types: coal, natural
gas, hydro, wind, and geothermal.”
ABOUT UMT CONSULTING
UMT is a recognized provider of
Project Portfolio & Integrated
Portfolio Management solutions and
management consulting best
practices. For over two decades UMT
has helped Global 2000 companies
gain transparency across their
business and technology asset
portfolios, rationalize costs,
collaborate to make smarter
investment decisions and maximize
ROI. UMT is Microsoft's Worldwide
PPM Partner of the Year 2013 and
has been twice named a Gartner Cool
Vendor in PPM and is positioned as a
Visionary in Gartner's Integrated IT
Portfolio Analysis Magic Quadrant.
some sort of project portfolio
management was foundational for our
future competitiveness in the
marketplace.”
SOLUTION
TransAlta discussed its needs with
several potential providers, and
eventually chose UMT. “What UMT
brought was a simplified, automated,
fast method of boiling down a vast
Souchereau says, “In choosing which
universe of data to a meaningful subset
projects to do, we had no mechanism to on which executives could make
compare apples to apples.” High-level
decisions,” Souchereau says.
executives thus spent a great deal of
UMT Senior Vice-President Richard
time debating capital investments during
Evans was impressed with TransAlta.
their annual budgeting sessions.
“Too often project portfolio
Furthermore, they found these debates
management is just an IT initiative—in
frustrating because they knew they
part because of this very complexity in
could make better decisions if their data
comparing projects across disciplines,”
sources could cut through complexity to
he says. “But TransAlta was committed
provide objective criteria.
to enterprise-wide transformation.”
“We didn’t yet know what we needed,”
Souchereau says, “UMT had a very good
Souchereau says, “but we knew that
approach. Most importantly, they were
www.umt.com

2. not pushy. They listened, they sought to
Meanwhile, however, Souchereau sees
understand our pain points and what we project management as a world of
wanted to accomplish. They were patient, continuous improvement. He sees three
and wanted to keep the solution simple
and user-friendly.”
With strong encouragement from UMT,
Souchereau developed a working group of
project managers from different TransAlta
sectors to design and test the solution.
“Culture is a tough nut to crack,”
Souchereau says. “We knew that for this
solution to be effective, the change
management surrounding it had to come
from the business users, and not be
pushed down from on high.”
UMT assisted in the design and
configuration of the solution and the
training of users. “UMT didn’t just dump it
in our lap and run,” Souchereau says.
“They helped us with change
management, staying to train and teach,
which we really needed.”
The resulting Project Portfolio
Management System (PPMS) is TransAlta’s
system of record for the creation,
selection, planning, and management of
all projects in the company regardless of
size, complexity, or investment type.
PPMS—which is built on Microsoft Project
Server, UMT 360, and Microsoft
SharePoint Server—uses a structured
series of tasks and workflows to assist the
organization at all levels to make the best
use of time, money, and people.
TransAlta now does its annual budgeting
in PPMS rather than its SAP enterprise
resource planning solution, making the
process easier for executives and
eliminating the time spent on manual
uploads.
Looking forward, TransAlta is interested in
tackling asset management. “We have
capital-intensive investments in assets
such as coal plants that have a defined
lifecycle,” Souchereau says. “If we could
map that lifecycle in PPMS, scheduling
maintenance routines and other projects,
we may be able to both improve our longrange forecasting and ensure that we’re
maximizing the value of these assets.”
keys to success in implementing projects:
defining scope, aligning interests, and
executing with discipline.
BENEFITS & BUSINESS IMPROVEMENTS
1. A single source of the truth. Souchereau says the top benefit of PPMS is that
it provides a single place where anybody can find up-to-date information about
projects. “If somebody has a question about the portfolio, they don’t have to ask
ten different people and get ten different answers—they can look it up in PPMS,”
he says.
2. Time savings. In the fall of 2012, Souchereau took top executives through the
annual capital budgeting process using PPMS, not SAP, for the first time. “The
process took a fraction—less than 25 percent—of the time we had spent
previously,” he says. “This was a huge benefit, because these executives’ time is so
valuable. Our improved efficiency in capital reviews, by itself, paid for the cost of
the solution.” Project teams also save time throughout the year by using the
system’s reporting functions. “The preformatted reports have not just reduced but
eliminated the time that project teams used to spend doing reports,” Souchereau
says. “If project sponsors or reviewers want an update, they don’t need a custom
report—all they have to do is refresh the software to get the most current
information. So the project team can spend less time reporting and more time
working.”
3. Improved decision making. Souchereau is already seeing benefits in earlier
flagging of projects ripe for deferral. “Where under the old system we might not
decide to defer a project until the fourth quarter, now we have the data and the
comprehensive view to make that decision earlier, often in the second quarter.”
When a project is not ready, TransAlta can liberate the people and money that
had been earmarked for it to do higher-priority work. Souchereau expects this
improvement to reduce capital expenses for the company as a whole. “I don’t
have the numbers yet—it’ll take at least a year to show up—but I know that we’re
better at choosing projects based on profitability,” Souchereau says. By choosing
projects of higher value, and more quickly eliminating lower-value projects,
Souchereau expects that TransAlta will have accomplished the same amount of
work with reduced capital expenses.
4. Better capital stewardship. Making better decisions is one important
component of using capital wisely. Another is ensuring sound execution of those
decisions—and PPMS is helping with that as well. On one level, it frees project
managers from reporting duties so that they can have more time to focus on
execution. But on a deeper level, because TransAlta is using a single project
management system, it is moving diverse sectors into more standard
methodologies. “We now have our hydro projects and gas projects, for example,
using the same reports,” says Souchereau. “Our teams are using the same
templates and workflows. And because our project managers are always planning,
scheduling, and executing projects the same way, they can more easily move
among sectors.”
Evans, of UMT, notes that these changes are likely to have far-reaching benefits.
“Most journeys into improved portfolio management are about creating a culture
of better decision making and swifter execution,” he says. “I’m impressed with
TransAlta’s first-year efficiency gains, but I think even more profound value is yet
to come.”
The information above is being provided by TransAlta Corporation without consideration and TransAlta Corporation does not make any representations or warranties in regards to either UMT or the PPMS. The experiences of TransAlta have been identified as being specific to TransAlta and there is no assurance that other company’s would experience similar results or achieve comparable benefits; and the actual results may differ materially from those identified by TransAlta and UMT
above.
1 Battery Park Plaza, 4th Floor, New York, NY 10004, (212) 965-0550 | Copyright © 2013 UMT. All Rights Reserved