01
Analyse
Map how each team really worked in the old tool: structures, habits, and the templates worth keeping.
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Case study · B2B services company, name withheld
27 people. Six weeks. Zero loss.
Moving a whole company from one work-management tool to another, mid-flight, with live client projects running. How it was analysed, built and rolled out, and what it changed far beyond the delivery team.
27
people moved, across every team
≈ 6 wks
from decision to full cutover
≈ 36%
lower tool cost
0
deal or data lost on the way
01 — Diagnosis
The tool steered. It didn't run the work.
The existing tool was fine for steering, less so for day-to-day operations. Before choosing anything, I listed what the business actually needed, team by team.
- 01
Calculations in the board
Formulas inside the columns, instead of numbers living in side spreadsheets.
- 02
Planning you can forecast with
Gantt views to see load and delivery dates ahead of time.
- 03
Tools that talk to each other
A native link between the CRM, the chat and finance.
- 04
Time tracking where the work is
Hours logged on the task itself, not rebuilt afterwards.
- 05
A lower bill
Around 36% cheaper for the whole company.
02 — Approach
Build it better first. Then move.
About six weeks, four steps. The rule: nobody moves until the new setup is at least as good as the old one, and already better where it counts.
02
Build
Recreate equivalent structures, and improve them before anyone moves. Templates built from the teams’ own methods, to gain speed from day one.
03
Enable
A champion, fluent in the old tool and technically curious, takes over governance. Side-by-side comparison slides, and small build challenges to learn by doing.
04
Switch
Every live project migrated, old ones archived with their history. Automations rebuilt, new workflows and integrations added (Slack, Google scripts).
The risky part // client side
A client was in the middle of the move.
One client had a live project and still had playbooks, data and templates to hand over. Had they kept uploading into the old tool, we would have lost data, or lost face.
The answer was a clean cutover and clear communication, so the client always knew where to send things, and nothing kept landing in the old tool.
Result → no data lost, and no awkward moment with the client.
03 — Outcome
One flow, from quote to invoice.
The biggest gain was not for the consultants. It was the link between teams: a signed quote now creates the project, and a finished project triggers the invoice.
CRM
Quote signed
HubSpot
WORK
Project created automatically
monday.com
FINANCE
Full or partial invoicing, triggered at delivery
Pennylane
BOOKS
Accounting up to date
Accounting
Simpler
Projects are easier to run, with one way of doing things.
Visible
Everyone sees the same information, and shares it more easily.
Faster
Better forecasting gave the teams real velocity.
Balanced
The load of each stage could finally be measured and adjusted.
Automated
The move surfaced optimisations and automations nobody had seen.
Connected
Sales, delivery and finance now work on one continuous flow.
04 — What I keep from it
- Analyse before you build
- Improve during the move, not after
- Teach by doing
- Protect the client first
- Connect teams, not just tools