Item: Adobe Workfront
Rating: 7
Author: Patrick Stephens

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

This is for a consulting position I held - the school had anywhere between 20 to 40 things going at once, projects like enrichment, after school, internal projects for marketing, etc... so this program was reviewed to keep track of them, have visibility and keep an eye on projects that might have normally fallen by the wayside.

Pros and Cons

Tracking (in that you don't easily lose track of projects).
Cross department friendly (it can be used by anyone who needs a role in the project).
Project management (with visibility, employees were less likely to let the project slip away).

Conversations, communications, aren't handled very well in the program.

Most Important Features

Functionality - it can work for you, and it can work very well for you.
It's your robot assistant - it manages things for you so you can focus on the bigger needs.
Support is good (didn't really use them much), and from what I have heard, their help team is amazing.

Return on Investment

Some of the features it has weren't necessary for the business I consulted for, but I did notice it is very robust and can be a great help for those who need those specific features. You will have to use it yourself to see what fits you as my field was education, so some aspects just weren't relevant.
It was really great for the people who tried it out and got into it. They were able to manage their own work consistently, and found it to be a great help in making sure certain projects (like conversion tracking for admissions) didn't slip through the wayside.
Unintended bonus: when certain people left, it was a great way of assisting the training for their replacements!
For the new user, it can be complicated and overwhelming at first. This caused the company I consulted for to see a shift - only about half used the program and then the others refused to touch it. This made the program useless to them.

Alternatives Considered

Basecamp and TeamGantt

I used these programs in comparison to it, in a handful of trials for the staff. I ended up not selecting Adobe (or the others) because the technology aspect became too overwhelming for some staff - meaning, they didn't use the program, would complain about every little thing, and ultimately render the product useless. This program would be perfect for a company with forward-thinking employees who are not insulted that they need help managing products. As a result, it did affect my score because I know that user accessibility is a very important thing. If I'd been consulting for a marketing company familiar with CRMs, CMSs, or other Project Management software, I'm certain the score would have been higher because I would have seen a more extensive experience.

Key Insights

Do you think Adobe Workfront delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Adobe Workfront's feature set?

Yes

Did Adobe Workfront live up to sales and marketing promises?

I wasn't involved with the selection/purchase process

Did implementation of Adobe Workfront go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Adobe Workfront again?

Other Software Used

Basecamp, TeamGantt

Likelihood to Recommend

You need to, first, actually have a need for a project management system. If you are doing well with a spreadsheet, then you don't need to spend money on this. It has a LOT of functionality, but you need to have established the need before throwing something like this at your business. A team of two people isn't going to need this. A team that crosses departments which could be between 10 and 50 people would use this very well. I could go on about the features, which are essentially the same as most any project management software these days, but the bottom line is - you need to have the need first to make this work well for you. Otherwise, you are spending money on a tool that will be used by half of the people on the team, and eventually it will become a project that needs managing itself!

Adobe Workfront is Perfect for Certain Organizations, Certain Individuals

Overall Satisfaction with Adobe Workfront