Communication, collaboration and clarity are prerequisites for business success. However, achieving a state of collaboration “zen” – in which a company communicates effectively internally and externally – requires rethinking the way we work.

Consider: We live and work in the age of “information overload.” We read hundreds of emails a day on disparate devices, work in remote offices, share multiple versions of various documents with numerous colleagues and yet are required to be up-to-date on all projects at all times. Collaboration takes place on one island, while the actual work happens on another. Traditional project management has failed to address the fact that different people with diverse skills are scattered throughout the world.

A Professional Services Challenge

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Kaltura, provider of the world’s first open source online video platform, confronted this challenge with its professional services team. The company’s products, which include video players, video editors and a content management system, allow content owners to publish and manage their video and rich-media content. Broadcasters, for example, can publish and distribute videos, enterprises can enhance internal communication and collaboration with social video tools, and universities can improve learning results by adding video to their Learning Management Systems and additional areas across campus.

Kaltura was looking to fill its project management and professional services collaboration-related communication gaps. The company’s professional services team was struggling with collaborating around project-related requests. Basically, the company needed a single, centralized environment in which all work would be managed.

Kaltura’s customer implementation projects can span anywhere from one week to a year-and-a-half. Given the complexity of the projects – and the fact that members of Kaltura’s project management team work remotely – the company needed a new way to work, update and collaborate.

A New Way to Collaborate

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Kaltura began searching for a new online collaboration solution that allowed team members to work together from disparate locations. The team selected enterprise work collaboration software from Clarizen, which allowed Kaltura’s project management team to be connected in real-time despite location. As a SaaS solution, Clarizen allowed Kaltura’s project management team to work remotely and still be able to access their data and share their progress.

Kaltura needed a cloud-based solution so that work could be accessible from anywhere. In addition to a centralized collaboration environment to share and manage work, Kaltura also needed a solution that allowed reports to be easily created from existing data. The company signed on for a 30-day free trial to evaluate how Clarizen would affect work processes.

The Clarizen V6 cloud-based platform has created a “work graph” that connects conversations, actions and deliverables. The enhanced version of V6, in fact, includes new visual reporting, enriched social discussion groups and streamlined time reporting, to help companies collaborate more effectively and get more work done, faster.

Kaltura’s team members came to rely on the social conversations enabled by V6. Also, since these conversations can now be linked to tasks and projects, stakeholders are always on the same page. Clarizen’s V6 connects unstructured conversations with structured work, unifying social engagement with powerful project management capabilities. For example, Kaltura employees no longer have to toggle back and forth through disconnected emails and notes —all discussions created on a specific request are connected to the projects using the hashtag (#). Also, discussion posts on the project news feed are linked directly to work execution items — specific tasks, action items, approvals, progress reports, expense sheets — are visible at all times, no matter where they originated. Workers can also embed images, videos and website previews in posts and create action items/projects from discussions.

In addition, Kaltura can now look across all customer projects to see how specific resources are assigned, the types of projects employees are engaged in, and if the right skill sets are assigned to the right tasks. This real-time, high-level visibility allows Kaltura to instantly identify and respond to overloaded resources, resolve issues that can affect project due dates or profitability, and help them make strategic business decisions.

Cross-team Collaboration Yields Results

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Since implementing Clarizen a year ago, Kaltura reports greater billing efficiency, faster service and greater financial gains from professional services.

Kaltura is in the process of onboarding additional team members to work with the Clarizen system. The team is adding in business rules to create a flow for issue management so that the R&D team can be incorporated into Clarizen and start taking advantage of its benefits as well.

Kaltura’s professional services and project management organization relies on Clarizen V6 as its “main work execution tool” with plans to implement the solution within other departments of the company.

About the Author
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Yehiam Shinder is the Vice President of Professional Services in Kaltura, Inc.

photo credit: melolou via photopin cc