Clarizen provides applications to support work tasks within the enterprise and I first wrote about them in 2008 (see Clarizen: Collaborative Online Project Management for Small-Midsize Businesses). I commented in my first post that project management is one of the killer apps for web 2.0 within the enterprise. It was one of the applications that first excited me about the business potential of web 2.0 (e.g., An Enterprise 2.0 Poster Child in the IT Department). This thought still holds true from my perspective. Since I last spoke to them, Clarizen has undertaken some innovative moves to extend this class of applications.
I spoke with Sharon Vardi about their new moves. Clarizen felt that while many project management tools adequately addressed the planning part, the work execution part was not properly addressed. In addition, some of the tools make project planning too complex. I would agree with both of these points based on personal experience. In response Clarizen has adopted a design approach of what they term “robust simplicity” and extended functionality beyond the planning phase.
To address what they refer to as the work execution phase, Clarizen has combined some of the features found in project management tools with those found in collaboration tools. They also have designed these features to be easily used by all types of project teams members and not just the program management experts. This includes such capabilities as resource management, scheduling & planning, budgeting, time and expenses, issues tracking and email integration.
The implementation process has been simplified so they can both sell and deliver via the phone and the Web. On the ground implementation services are not necessary. They simply run two webinars and most firms are good to go. This has allowed them to adopt a “land and expand” strategy. With one client they sold 90 seats and within a month they had expanded by hundreds of additional subscriptions.
In the past many work processes tended to be static and fixed. This allowed for a greater focus on planning since once the work started it often did not change. Now the work situation is much more likely to change quickly and a work execution tool needs to be flexible to accommodate these changes. I can remember about ten years ago having to take the top four people on a project off the work execution to spend three months re-planning the project using one of the very complex project management tools. We felt it was a huge waste of time. Today it would be even more of a disaster.
Clarizen also developed email integration so team members could work where they tend to spend much of their time. You can see all of the emails related to a project through a single click. You can also have Clarizen receive updates through email. They have extended this integration to apply to many of the commonly used enterprise apps such as Salesforce.com, Google Apps and Intacct. For example, this allows you to go from Salesforce.com to Clarizen once a deal is closed and the related work needs to start. You can also go from the popular help desk application, Zendesk, to Clarizen when more complex issue resolution is required.
Clarizen is promoting transparency with their cross-application integration and the features within their tool. To demonstrate some of this transparency, Clarizen created a road map widget that allows you to share project status with others. To practice their own approach, they have made the status of their own tool updates available on their website. Here is a sample of the road map widget looking at their own efforts.
You can see this for yourself at their site. I like what they are doing and the market has responded. Sharon told me that they have achieved 40% growth for the last six consecutive quarters. Clarizen also received the Codie Award for best project management software for 2010. I look forward to seeing their next moves.
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