JourneyLab Update: December 2024

Welcome to our first public JourneyLab update! 👋

A lot has happened this year, and we've admitted been pretty quiet due to our focus on other priorities. With this post though (and others in the series to follow), we're ready to start sharing more often and more openly so everyone in our community can stay up to date with how things are going.

Looking back at 2024

Our team has been working hard to polish the JourneyLab platform this year ahead of our first big push in 2025. We're encouraged and excited by the feedback we've been getting from our Product Council as well as other experts from around the globe.

Here are some of the improvements we're most proud of:

New Features

For everyone:

• Value stream visualisation - As an industry, it's widely recognised that best practice involves aligning around value streams, regardless of whether any specific initiative is "waterfall", "agile", "hybrid", or anything else. Seeing these "golden threads of value" typically requires lots of manual effort when using tools like Excel and Powerpoint, especially when things are being iterated on (perhaps during your planning cycle) or keep changing (due to disruption). With JourneyLab, all you need to do is press a button.
• Search bar - You can now find a project needle in a portfolio haystack by typing in a couple of key words. Matches take names and descriptions into account, so you can filter down to, say, all your "regulatory", "innovation", "net zero", or "SDG" related initiatives in seconds and see how they stack up (or duplicate effort).
• One-click reporting templates - Stuck on what to include in a stakeholder update? We've included a set of templates based on best practice that you can insert with one click. There's one with prompts that help you to think through what's relevant, and others that auto-populate using data you've already provided.
• Initiative-on-a-page (Overview tab) - Get a dynamic, interactive, one-page summary of every initiative, without additional effort. Whether you're developing a new concept with your manager, onboarding new team members, or an executive who's short on time, this will make it easy for them to get up to speed.
• 'Important' flags - You can mark objectives, risks, and attachments as important. These will be highlighted in purple, and be surfaced on the Overview tab to help communicate current priorities.
• Best practice guides - With more noise than ever in online channels and AI-generated content that only looks helpful until you read through it, it can be hard to spot the good ideas amongst the rest. We've started to curate and embed best practice guides to share expert perspectives on what actually works.
• Get started page - We're always available for a live call, but for those who want to try things in your own time or want a refresher after signing up, we added this step-by-step onboarding guide as well!

For workspace administrators in particular:

• On-demand portfolio analytics - Since the data is all in one system, we can automatically visualise the portfolio for you - from data quality checks, to common breakdowns. All you need to do is select the cut you want.
• Configurable terminology - RAG statuses mean different things at different organisations. Now you can customise what they represent to you! Just head to your workspace settings and change the default terms to whatever you prefer.
• Import/export flows - We've added the ability to import your existing master list of initiatives from an Excel spreadsheet (or export what's already on JourneyLab). It's super simple and something we use ourselves when helping clients set up on JourneyLab for the first time.

Fixes and Optimisations

• Rich text formatting - Add various formatting options to better structure your stakeholder updates and draw attention to what matters.
• Prettier PDFs - We've snazzed up our PDF exports with a cleaner look and feel, so you can proudly share them with stakeholders who need it in that format.
• More convenient action buttons - Want to make changes to an initiative? It's easier to do that from any screen now, with relevant action buttons and menus now available in more places.
• Mobile optimisation (ongoing) - To date, we've been primarily designing JourneyLab for larger screens (desktops, laptops, tablets). Mobile wasn't one of our initial priorities, but it was always something we had in mind. Lately, we've started to add that mobile polish, for those times you need it while on the move.
• Bug fixes - We're continuously refining the platform and have eliminated most of the unexpected surprises. Thanks to everyone who pointed things out (and for your patience when we ran into issues); you've helped make JourneyLab better for everybody!

Events

Off the back of presenting at PMI Global Summit 2023, we started appearing at more project management meetups. Meeting more people in the industry and sharing our perspectives with practitioners was as exciting as it was fulfilling. This included:

• Giving the keynote presentation at PMI Sydney Chapter's February event
• Featuring in a fireside-style AIPM national webinar on AI's potential impact on the project management industry
• Being a panellist / coach for Sydney University PMSoc's inaugural Industry Night and Roundtable Networking evening
• Attending various PM Mixers organised by PMLogic
• Guest lecturing at the Canterbury Institute of Management

We hope to connect with more practitioners and students in the coming year.

Leadership changes

With Yuyan deciding to leave earlier this year, Paul has taken on additional leadership responsibilities.

We'll be looking to expand the team again next year, and are planning to focus more on brand building, marketing, and partnerships. If any of those tickle your fancy (or you know someone who might be interested), feel free to reach out to us.

Roadmap for 2025

In terms of the platform, our next stage is making it even easier for practitioners and consultants to try out and adopt JourneyLab into operating rhythms. Here are the big ideas we're most committed to:

In development

• Prioritisation sandbox - This has been in the works for some time, and we're excited to release it soon! It closes one of the big gaps in strategy-execution: focusing on the right things. If you're a consultant working in this space, or a strategy or EPMO lead looking to manage a portfolio with an outcome focus, we're looking to change the game for you.

In research

• Integrated Green Project Management - With planetary temperatures now breaching the +1.5°C threshold and climate breakdown accelerating, it's clear that every organisation needs to take more concerted climate action to maintain their social license. In the same way that portfolios have financial budgets and management practices, regulatory changes in many countries will also see the rise of carbon budgets. As leaders of change in organsations around the world, we can do more together by applying green practices that are actually effective from an outcome and cost perspective. More to come on this later.
• Outcome-focused risk management - In (project) management, we can't guarantee success, but we can mitigate potential failures. With that in mind, we are working on a new approach to help you manage risks proactively (and no it's not another checklist). We're also working towards ISO 31000 compliance — reach out if you'd like to see an early design.
• Advanced integrations - We're considering whether to build tighter (API-based) integrations with other popular web tools. If there's a particular tool you really want to deep link, please get in touch, or join our Product Council to have your say.

Until next year!

Thanks for reading our December update!

We're gearing up for a big 2025. If you're serious about realising strategic impact for your organisation or for your clients, let's grab a coffee and make it happen, together.

For now and on behalf of the entire JourneyLab team, have an amazing year-end, and a safe and restful festive season! ✌️