20th PLANTA User Forum: Two Days Full of Inspiration and Exchange of Experiences

Presentations with PM Use Cases, Interactive Workshops, Networking, and a Fresh Breeze

PLANTA’s 20th User Forum was, once again, a particularly exciting event marked by high temperatures. It almost seems to be a tradition that outside there is a baking heat while indoors heads are spinning with inspiring presentations, interactive workshops, and intensive networking. Customers and employees were equally thrilled by the unique atmosphere and participated vividly. After an eventful programme throughout the day which conveyed profound project management knowledge and experience from day-to-day project management practice, the evening program allowed the participants to enjoy a pleasant breeze and cool drinks while cruising on the Rhine. A welcome cooling down which allowed everybody to recharge their batteries for the second day. Many participants took the opportunity to make new contacts both during the evening program and during this year’s extended breaks between presentations and workshops. Furthermore, the participants extensively tested the new PLANTA software at the demo counters. This year’s raffle presented another point of attraction.

The User Forum offered a wide range of project management topics, including agile and hybrid approaches, portfolio management, data protection in project management, and Project Management Office (PMO). Testimonials of renowned companies such as Heidelberger Druckmaschinen, Losan Pharma und Thyssenkrupp Uhde provided exciting insights and showed best practice examples from the sectors of insurance, mechanical engineering, pharmaceutics, and plant construction. The workshops by metisleadership and VISTEM provided practical tips for agile task management, multi-project management, and portfolio management.

One of the highlights of this year’s User Forum was the keynote by Prof. Dr. Schönert from RFH Cologne. She gave five essential tips for successfully turning ideas into projects, emphasizing, a.o., the importance of Focus (key words “Volition” und “72 hours rules“) and the importance of getting supporters, since success can rarely be achieved alone. In a live demonstration, she showed how AI can be a key factor for successful project planning.

At its 20th User Forum, PLANTA gave a live presentation of the new features of its upcoming software release: in PLANTA Project the focus was on usability improvements of input/output fields, context menus, and tooltips, extensions in portfolio management (e.g. Gantt chart, new charts, web portfolio), mini workflows with Microsoft 365 (Adaptive Cards), chart customizer, master data synchronization via LDAP, optimized update procedure. For the agile planning and collaboration tool extensions in the area of user-defined fields, project management, and notifications were presented. In hybrid use of the traditional planning tool in PLANTA Project in combination with the agile tool, the most significant optimization is the automatic synchronization and improved operation. One highlight of the presentation was the integration of AI in the PLANTA software: “PLANTA GPT” is a generative AI on the basis of PLANTA’s Online Help which provides the user with quick answers to his/her questions on software operation.

There is always a next User Forum: the PLANTA team already works full steam to put together a programme for 2024 which is just as inspiring and informative and reflects the needs and interests of our customers.