Riedel Communications
Pioneers in Communications Solutions in the Media and Events Space
Riedel Communications, based in Wuppertal, Germany, is a leading global supplier of innovative technologies for the media, event, and broadcasting industries. For decades, Riedel has been shaping the market with pioneering audio, video, and communication solutions.
From Formula One to the Olympics, Riedel’s products and expertise are used in the most demanding environments.
Riedel’s Challenge
New Development Processes and Challenges for Resource Planning
The media and broadcast industry has changed; trends are moving towards complex, hybrid systems instead of pure hardware. This development created new challenges for Riedel’s resource planning.
The Change from Hardware to Software
It used to be all about innovations in hardware. Today, however, hardware is generally standardized, while software sets a product ahead of the pack. Hardware, software, and applications teams must work and coordinate more closely.
The Need for a New Planning Method
To stay competitive, Riedel needed to adjust their development process and achieve a better overview of their available resources. Strategic planning for the next 6-18 months posed an especially difficult challenge.
The Search for a Fitting Solution
How will we organize all of this? How long do we need for which project? Three years? Five? Seven? What are we doing first? Where will we have scheduling conflicts?
Riedel was looking for a tool to optimize the organization of the development of new products across teams and long periods of time, to set priorities, and to avoid resource conflicts.
Our Interviewees
The Faces behind Riedel’s R&D
We spoke directly to Riedel to find out how they approach the shifts in the industry, why they chose Meisterplan, and what has changed since they’ve introduced the software.
Peter Glättli, Executive Director of R&D
David Lane, Director of R&D Transformation
The strategic resource planning across teams and groups, the core feature in Meisterplan, is what we’ve searched for a long time.
Riedel Communications
Riedel’s Solution
Meisterplan as the Anchor of Strategic R&D Planning
Riedel decided to go with Meisterplan because it offers the optimal combination of functions that are necessary for realistic, strategic resource planning – nothing more, and nothing less. Riedel especially loves the following functions:
- Scenarios and roles for realistic planning
- All teams at a glance with the Smartsheet and Jira integrations
- Better alignment with Lean PPM and current data
- Real-time transparency with the Power BI integration
Scenarios and Roles for realistic planning and against unforeseen costs
A decisive plus of Meisterplan is the ability to plan different scenarios. How long do we need for which project? And what are we doing first? Where can there be scheduling conflicts?
Nowadays, Riedel checks how new projects, as well as changed priorities and capacities, will affect the R&D portfolio. The fact that you can plan with roles like Software Engineer, Hardware Engineer, or Firmware Engineer has two advantages at once:
- On one hand, it’s not necessary to plan with concrete details or employees.
- On the other hand, you can see far in the future if there may be a need to hire new people.
Does the timing work out? The role-based approach in scenario planning in Meisterplan is exactly the thing you need to answer questions like this.
Riedel Communications
Agile and classic, Smartsheet and Jira – All Teams at a Glance
In the new R&D world of Riedel, hardware, software, and firmware teams all have to be planned together, regardless of how, or with which tools, they organize themselves. In Meisterplan, Riedel has an overview of all relevant information and gets the data they need (thanks to the connectors and APIs!) from sources like Smartsheet, automatically in their system.
Jira Connector for Meisterplan
Meisterplan REST API
Microsoft Power BI
Smartsheet
Better Alignment with Lean PPM and Current Data
Riedel, in addition to implementing Meisterplan, also started using several aspects of Lean PPM Framework. Today, for example, David Lane meets with the director of project management on a monthly basis to talk about priorities and capacities. Thanks to the centrally-available data from all teams and the simple views, it’s easy for the two of them to come to well-founded decisions.
Real-Time Transparency for CEOs through Connecting Power BI
Instead of working with data dispersed across different tools and creating reports manually on Confluence, Riedel sets up a central hub on Meisterplan. Everyone maintains their projects and resource data there – either via automatic import, or with just a few clicks.
David Lane’s Power BI Dashboard automatically receives data from Meisterplan, thanks to the Reporting API. This is how he delivers executives a real-time look at project status and resource utilization.
I’m a big advocate of having this information available and transparent.
Riedel Communications
Riedel’s Bottom Line
Noticeable Effects and Potential
For both of our interviewees, there is still more potential in Meisterplan to explore – especially when considering the Jira connector, and the benefits of the financials views. Nevertheless, there are already noticeable effects of Meisterplan at Riedel:
- Predictable, realistic time plans for developers
- Shared use of resources between teams
- Automatic visibility and traceability for management
- All stakeholders feel better informed about planning
So, would Riedel recommend Meisterplan?
For strategic resource planning and tactical decisions about priorities, I can absolutely recommend Meisterplan. It is truly a lightweight portfolio and progress management tool.
Riedel Communications
Are you confronting similar challenges?
Find out if Meisterplan is the right answer for your use case.
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Christoph Gallas
Christoph loves stories. For him, there is nothing greater than following movie characters on their journeys. Or to get lost in a good book. ...
