Webinar Recap: How UMKC Improved Project Visibility Across Teams
Quick Summary
Most teams do not fix project management until something breaks.
In this webinar, the team at the University of Missouri–Kansas City shared how missed deadlines, duplicated work, and lack of visibility pushed them to rethink how work was managed across teams.
The biggest takeaway was not about choosing a new tool. It was about creating structure around how work flows, who owns it, and how progress is tracked.
Teams typically approach this in one of two ways. Some define process first and then select a tool. Others adopt a platform and shape their workflows within it. Both approaches can work, but only when there is clear ownership, visibility, and adoption.
The outcome is not just better organization. It is being able to see what is actually happening without chasing updates or guessing.
It didn’t look broken at first
One of the more interesting parts of this story is that nothing felt completely out of control in the beginning.
Work was getting done. People were busy. Deadlines were being hit, at least some of the time.
But underneath that, things were starting to fragment.
Work lived in email threads. Files sat in shared drives. Some teams used one tool, others used something else. A lot of work was being tracked individually, which meant it was invisible to everyone else.
This is what poor project visibility looks like in practice. Work is happening, but no one can clearly see it across teams.
There was no single place to go to understand what was happening.
That is a situation a lot of teams recognize. It is not chaos. It is something quieter than that. Everything sort of works, but nothing is clear.
This is often the stage where teams begin evaluating more structured approaches to managing work, especially as projects become more cross-functional. Many organizations start exploring solutions like Workzone at this point, but the underlying issue is usually not the tool itself. It is the lack of shared visibility.
When project management starts to break
The shift does not come from one failure. It comes from repetition.
Deadlines slipping more often than expected. Work being duplicated across teams. Leadership asking for updates that take too long to compile and still do not feel fully reliable.
As Alia Herrman shared during the session, “For us, it wasn’t one big moment, it was a pattern that kept repeating.”
This is where the problem becomes real.
Not because work is not getting done, but because no one can confidently say what is happening.
Why most teams struggle to fix it
Once the problem is clear, the instinct is to find a better tool.
That can work, but only if it is done intentionally.
There are two common paths teams take:
Some teams define their process first. They map out how work should flow, who owns each step, and what completion looks like. Then they select a tool that supports that structure.
Other teams adopt a platform first and evolve their workflows inside it. This can work when the platform provides enough structure to guide behavior.
Both approaches are valid.
What does not work is skipping structure entirely.
Without clarity on how work should run, any tool will reflect the same issues that already exist.
What actually changed
The turning point for this team was not the tool decision. It was alignment.
They got clear on how work should operate in practice.
What happens when a request comes in
Who owns it from start to finish
How work moves across teams
What “done” actually means
This is where most teams struggle, especially when different groups operate in different ways.
Once that alignment was in place, the rest became easier.
The shift from activity to visibility
Once structure was introduced, work became visible, which is where real project visibility starts to take shape.
Project visibility means having a clear, real-time view of who owns work, where it stands, and what is at risk, something most teams simply do not have when work is spread across tools and conversations.
That changed how the team operated.
Instead of chasing updates, they could see progress.
Instead of reacting to urgency, they could prioritize intentionally.
Instead of relying on meetings for status, they had access to it.
A simple example highlights the difference. A request comes in through email, gets forwarded across a few people, and ends up in a spreadsheet. No one is sure who owns it. Days later, multiple people are working on different versions of the same task.
This is not unusual. It is how work breaks down in most teams.
When there is one place to track work and clear ownership, that confusion disappears.
Why adoption determines success
Even with the right structure, this only works if people adopt it.
This is where most teams fail.
The difference in this case was how change was introduced.
It was not a full transformation overnight.
It started with one workflow. One area where the impact would be clear.
People experienced the improvement in their own work instead of being told about it.
As Alia explained, “Once a few people saw how much easier it made their work, it became less about convincing and more about momentum.”
Successful adoption tends to follow a pattern:
Start small and prove value
Focus on real problems teams already experience
Involve the people closest to the work
Reinforce change through daily use, not training sessions
When the new way removes friction, adoption becomes natural.
How to apply this to your team
Most teams try to fix everything at once. That usually slows things down.
A better approach is to start with clarity.
First, understand where your work actually lives today. Email, shared drives, spreadsheets, and tools all contribute to fragmentation.
Next, choose one workflow to improve. Define how it should run, who owns it, and how progress is tracked.
Then create a single place where that work lives.
For teams in higher education environments, this step is especially important because work often spans departments, stakeholders, and approval layers. Solutions like Workzone are designed to support that kind of coordination.
Finally, prove that it works. Show how it reduces follow-ups, improves visibility, and clarifies ownership.
Once that value is clear, expansion becomes much easier.
Watch the full webinar
This recap covers the key themes, but the full session shows how this played out in practice.
What leadership needed to see
Where resistance showed up
What changed first
What made the approach stick
Watch the full session here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vq7a4859sE
Frequently Asked Questions
What causes project management to break down
Project management usually breaks down when work is spread across too many tools and there is no clear ownership or visibility. In the webinar example, teams were using email, shared drives, and individual tracking systems, which made it difficult to understand what was actually happening across projects.
What is project visibility in project management
Project visibility means having a clear, real-time view of who owns work, where it stands, and what is at risk. Without that visibility, teams rely on meetings, follow-ups, and manual updates to understand progress, which slows everything down.
Should you define process or choose a tool first
Both approaches can work. In some cases, teams define how work should run before selecting a tool. In others, they adopt a platform and shape their process within it. The key takeaway from the webinar is that structure must exist either way. Without it, the same problems will continue.
Why do project management tools fail
Project management tools fail when they are introduced without changing how work actually flows. If ownership, intake, and workflows are unclear, the tool will reflect that confusion rather than fix it.
What is the first step to improving project visibility
The first step is understanding where your work actually lives today. In the webinar, this was a turning point. Once the team saw how fragmented their work was, it became much easier to identify what needed to change.
How do you get teams to adopt a new system
Adoption works best when change is introduced gradually. In the webinar example, the team started with one workflow and showed clear improvement before expanding. When people see how the new approach makes their work easier, adoption becomes much more natural.
Bringing visibility to how work actually runs
The challenge most teams face is not effort.
It is visibility.
Without structure, teams spend time chasing updates, tracking work across systems, and trying to piece together what is happening.
With structure, that changes.
Work becomes visible. Ownership becomes clear. Decisions get easier because the information is already there.
That is the shift.
Not from one tool to another, but from guessing to knowing how work actually runs.
For teams in higher education, where work spans departments, stakeholders, and approval layers, that visibility becomes even more critical.
Last updated on May 4, 2026
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