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Information Management technology leader transforms project management with OpenText™ Project and Portfolio Management for CSO AI team

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About OpenText

OpenText helps companies securely capture, govern, and exchange information on a global scale. From small businesses to the world’s largest enterprises, OpenText solves digital business challenges across industries.

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  • Founded in:
    1991
  • Employees:
    23,000
  • Customers:
    120,000+
  • Footprint:
    180 countries

Summary

Challenges

  • Fragmented project tracking systems limited visibility.
  • Disparate tools across teams made it difficult to manage workloads.
  • Difficulties in creating consolidated statuses and offering global visibility.

Solution

  • Streamlined engineering and operations projects.
  • Automated weekly status reports for better visibility.
  • Enabled intelligent solution development to bridge product gaps.

Results

  • Streamlined project management for over 180 projects
  • Saved 360 hours per week across all projects
  • Laid the foundation for AI-driven project automation

Challenges

  • Fragmented project tracking systems
  • Use of disparate tools across teams
  • Difficulties in creating consolidated statuses and offering global visibility

Usha Talasila, VP of AI PMO – Cloud Services PS, has spearheaded a transformative initiative to streamline project portfolio management across OpenText Engineering and Operations. Previously, the organization faced significant challenges due to fragmented project-tracking systems—projects being managed in disparate tools like JIRA, Microsoft Project, and Excel, making it difficult to consolidate statuses and maintain visibility across more than 180 active initiatives.

These projects were not routine quarterly releases, but high-impact, strategic efforts driven by the CEO, CPO, and Operations leadership. Without a centralized system, project data was scattered across individual desktops, and identifying the right project manager or accessing up-to-date status reports was a time-consuming and manual process.

Later, Usha was appointed to a new role in Professional Services, where projects form the backbone of operations and project and portfolio management is central to tracking performance. Afterwards, with the company’s strong strategic focus on AI, the need for a unified project management solution for coordinating initiatives has once again emerged as a critical priority.

Close-up of a person using a stylus on a transparent digital dashboard overlay above a laptop keyboard, showing charts, progress bars, and data metrics.

We want everyone in professional services to adopt PPM for project management. And use it as a one source of truth for project statuses and things like that.‘

Usha Talasila,
VP of AI PMO, OpenText

Solution

To address the challenges of fragmented project tracking and lack of visibility for Engineering and Operations teams, Usha Talasila and her team began exploring a centralized solution with OpenText Project and Portfolio Management.

Products deployed

Streamlined engineering and operations projects

To address the challenges of fragmented project tracking and limited visibility across engineering and operations teams, Usha Talasila and her team began exploring a centralized solution with OpenText Project and Portfolio Management (PPM).

This included managing project initiation requests (PIRs), which are critical for evaluating cross-functional demands—whether it's provisioning environments, logging defects, or initiating patch management. PPM helps distinguish between ad hoc requests and substantial projects requiring formal oversight.

PPM was also extended to support internal cross-functional programs such as FedRAMP, Protected B, and the OCP-to-GCP conversion—initiatives that span IT, engineering, support, and services.

A major advantage was the ability to generate automated, standardized weekly status reports—an immediate value-add for a global organization with frequent requests for updates.

Previously, status reporting was a manual, time-intensive process, with stakeholders relying heavily on Usha’s team for the latest insights. With PPM, the team could consolidate all project data in one place, enabling seamless reporting without disrupting existing formats. The transition was smooth for internal teams and stakeholders, who continued receiving familiar-looking reports with enhanced accuracy and consistency.

PPM was adopted for two primary purposes:

  • Managing internal requests: Streamlining intake and assignment of cross-functional requests to appropriate project managers.
  • Tracking project plans and milestones: Automating weekly status reports and maintaining visibility into timelines and deliverables for both internal and external stakeholders.

PPM offered a way to consolidate all project data in one place, streamlining reporting and making it easier to track progress across more than 180 active projects.

The initial rollout of PPM within engineering, operations, and IT was well received, with teams quickly adapting to the new system.

The journey to adopting PPM began when the PPM senior product manager introduced R&D resources that provided foundational training and guidance. Through these resources, Usha and her team learned how to use PPM effectively and collaborated with experts to define tailored workflows.

Today, a dedicated PPM senior consultant supports the team in expanding PPM usage for AI-related initiatives and broader adoption within professional services.

The deployment itself was swift and efficient—completed in under two months. The rollout was phased, based on project types: product-based initiatives, internal bridging or patching efforts, and operations-focused projects. Training was customized for each group of project managers, starting with operations, followed by engineering.

Adoption was rapid. The team made a decisive shift by announcing a cut-off date: starting Friday, no new data would be entered into legacy systems like JIRA. Since many project initiations had already been logged in JIRA, the development team was able to port that data into PPM quickly. JIRA, which lacked capabilities for managing project plans and milestones, was never designed as a true project management tool—making the transition to PPM both logical and necessary.

By the following Monday, the team had fully transitioned to PPM. JIRA access was disabled for project updates, and all project management activities were centralized. This marked a significant milestone in streamlining operations and improving visibility across teams.

Enabled intelligent solution development to bridge product gaps

In 2023, Usha transitioned into a new role within the Chief Strategy Office (CSO), led by Paul Duggan, to oversee CSO AI Initiatives. Once again, she encountered a lack of standardized tools—teams were using Planview, Excel, and other disconnected systems. This prompted a second wave of PPM adoption, this time within professional services and focused on supporting AI-related projects.

The AI landscape was rapidly evolving, with teams launching initiatives independently, often duplicating efforts due to limited visibility. To bring order to this innovation surge, PPM was introduced to:

  • Centralize AI innovation requests
  • Prioritize use cases
  • Assign resources effectively
  • Ensure governance and security compliance

OpenText Project and Portfolio Management now serves as the intake and tracking mechanism for internal AI adoption efforts, including:

  • Automating project plan generation based on historical data
  • Searching project documentation to create SOWs and RFPs
  • Managing internal tools for meeting notes, risk identification, and action item generation
  • Supporting intelligent solution development to bridge product gaps

All requests are now funneled through a business justification process, documented via a standardized slide deck, and tracked within OpenText Project and Portfolio Management —replacing scattered documentation across SharePoint and personal drives.

Two coworkers wearing ID badges and glasses review information on a tablet together inside a modern office workspace, smiling as they discuss.

When we implemented PPM across engineering and operations, we saw massive efficiency gains—project managers went from spending nearly two hours per report to just a few minutes. With around 180 active projects, that translates to saving over 360 hours every week [...].

Usha Talasila,
VP of AI PMO, OpenText

Results

The rollout of OpenText Project and Portfolio Management within engineering and operations delivered significant efficiency gains across the organization.

Streamline project management for more than 180 active projects

Prior to implementation, each project manager spent approximately 1.5 to 2 hours per week manually preparing status reports. With around 70 project managers, each overseeing three to four projects, the cumulative time spent on reporting was substantial—especially with over 180 active projects.

Saved 360 hours per week across all projects

After adopting OpenText Project and Portfolio Management, reporting time has been reduced dramatically. Instead of manually compiling updates, project managers can now input status information directly into OpenText Project and Portfolio Management during meetings or as part of their regular workflow. The system then automatically generates the weekly status reports, typically by Friday afternoon, requiring minimal effort from the team.

This automation has transformed a previously time-consuming task into a matter of minutes. The time savings are considerable—roughly 360 hours per week across all projects. Beyond time efficiency, the solution has improved consistency, reduced errors, and provided leadership with timely, reliable insights into project progress.

Laid the foundation for AI-driven project automation

Our goal is to drive full adoption of OpenText Project and Portfolio Management across professional services (CSO), positioning it as the single source of truth for project management, status tracking, and reporting. By standardizing on OpenText Project and Portfolio Management, we aim to eliminate fragmented tools and processes, ensuring consistency and visibility across all teams.

In addition to broad adoption, we’re excited about the potential of OpenText Project and Portfolio Management AI—the integration of artificial intelligence capabilities within the platform. We want to be among the first users to explore and test these features, contributing real-world use cases that are meaningful for project managers and can enhance productivity.

When we began discussing the second phase of OpenText Project and Portfolio Management implementation focused on AI projects, we were particularly interested in how AI could help automate tasks and improve efficiency in tracking and managing those initiatives. Essentially, it’s a meta-layer: using AI within OpenText Project and Portfolio Management to manage AI-related projects. Our immediate priority is to introduce a structured intake process for AI innovation requests. Once AI capabilities within OpenText Project and Portfolio Management become available, we plan to leverage them to streamline prioritization, resource allocation, and reporting. We’re eager to be beta testers for these new features and are ready to provide feedback and help shape its development.

The long-term goal is to fully integrate AI capabilities into OpenText Project and Portfolio Management itself—enabling smart recommendations for project plans, risk assessments, and resource allocation based on similar past initiatives. This will further enhance efficiency and decision-making across the organization.

For project managers, the core focus remains:

  • Efficient intake and prioritization of requests
  • Resource assignment
  • Lifecycle reporting and visibility

OpenText Project and Portfolio Management is now positioned as a strategic enabler for both operational excellence and AI innovation within CSO.

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