Case Study – Phase One: Portfolio Foundation
World Vision International’s Global Marketing & Communications (GMC) department struggled with fragmented project management across 392 team sites, using disparate tools like Jira, Smartsheet, and Excel. They needed a unified Microsoft-based solution to align strategic goals with project execution while preparing for their 2026 agile transformation.
Business Situation
World Vision International’s Global Marketing & Communications (GMC) department was navigating significant challenges in managing its global project portfolio. The organization had accumulated a staggering 392 disconnected Microsoft Teams sites, each operating without a consistent governance structure. This lack of oversight led to fragmentation, inefficiencies, and an inability to effectively collaborate or surface critical project information.
Project management efforts were spread across a wide array of tools—including Jira, Smartsheet, Monday.com, and Excel—resulting in siloed data and limited visibility into cross-functional work. These disparate systems made it nearly impossible to consolidate information or gain a unified view of project performance and progress across teams.
A further complication was the lack of resource transparency. Leadership had no centralized view of capacity across departments, making it difficult to allocate staff effectively or plan for upcoming demands. Executive reporting processes were largely manual, requiring hours of data collection and formatting, and still lacked real-time accuracy or meaningful insight into strategic alignment.
Moreover, projects were being planned in lengthy annual cycles that didn’t reflect the organization’s evolving desire for agility. Leadership struggled to identify cross-departmental dependencies, and there was no system in place to track how individual projects aligned with overarching strategic objectives. These issues created a pressing need for a unified, scalable, and future-ready solution.
Solutions Delivered
To address these challenges, Advisicon partnered with World Vision’s GMC team to design and implement a Microsoft-based portfolio management solution tailored to their global structure and goals. At the heart of the solution was a unified project intake workflow built using Project Accelerator (a Power App solution). This streamlined the way new initiatives were proposed, evaluated, and initiated across the organization.
To ensure alignment with enterprise goals, Advisicon implemented a strategic framework that connected project intake and execution to measurable KPIs, helping stakeholders clearly see how each effort contributed to larger objectives. A key feature of the solution was the integration of data from various systems—including Jira, Planner, and Azure DevOps—into a single, centralized dashboard. This allowed leadership to view project status, dependencies, and progress in one place, eliminating silos and enhancing decision-making.
Automated status reporting was introduced using the Loop methodology, providing consistent updates and reducing the manual burden on teams. A shared resource pool was established to improve capacity planning and give leadership insight into team availability and utilization across departments. The implementation of Power BI reporting offered historical tracking, trend analysis, and customizable visualizations to support executive-level insights.
To bring structure and clarity to collaboration, Advisicon developed a Teams and SharePoint governance framework that established naming conventions, security protocols, and lifecycle management for workspaces. The entire solution was designed with scalability in mind, supporting both traditional waterfall and modern agile methodologies, enabling World Vision’s GMC team to move confidently toward more adaptive and effective portfolio management.
Benefits Realized
- Single platform, consolidated view of all GMC projects and initiatives
- Executive reporting time reduced from days to minutes
- Real-time visibility into cross-departmental dependencies
- Automated project status updates and stakeholder communications
- Standardized project intake process aligned with strategic objectives
- Historical tracking of project performance and decision logs
- Foundation for 2026 Sgile transformation
- Elimination of duplicate efforts across teams
World Vision International Today
World Vision International’s GMC department now operates with a unified portfolio management system that bridges their current state with their Agile vision. Teams can work in their preferred tools while leadership maintains visibility through integrated dashboards. The solution scales across their global operations, from marketing campaigns to child sponsorship initiatives, enabling data-driven decisions and strategic alignment. With automated reporting and clear governance, GMC has transformed from fragmented operations to a cohesive unit ready for their agile future.
Case Study – Phase Two: Strategic Portfolio Acceleration
Business Situation
World Vision International (WVI), a global humanitarian organization with more than 33,000 staff across 100+ countries, sought to further modernize its portfolio management capabilities to better align field operations with enterprise-level strategic objectives. While thousands of humanitarian projects were being executed globally, leadership lacked a unified, end-to-end view of the portfolio.
Strategic goals were not consistently connected to project execution, making it difficult to clearly demonstrate donor accountability and organizational impact. Manual reporting processes consumed significant staff time, and fragmented tools across regions created persistent data silos. Field teams required mobile-friendly access to project information, while executive leadership needed high-level dashboards that reflected portfolio health, performance, and alignment to global objectives. WVI required a scalable, integrated solution capable of supporting its complex global environment.
Solutions Delivered
Building upon earlier portfolio improvements, Advisicon implemented the WVI Strategic Portfolio Accelerator — a custom Dataverse-based solution fully integrated within the Microsoft 365 ecosystem. The solution was designed to connect strategy to execution while improving visibility at every level of the organization.
A Strategic Goals Module was developed to directly link enterprise objectives to active projects, ensuring measurable alignment across programs. Automated project intake and prioritization workflows streamlined governance and reduced administrative overhead. Multi-level Power BI dashboards were implemented to serve distinct audiences, including executive leadership, program managers, and field teams, delivering the right level of insight to each stakeholder group.
To support global operations, the platform was optimized for mobile access, enabling remote field teams to update and monitor project information in real time. Three structured discovery workshops were conducted to define requirements for portfolio management, governance standards, and user adoption strategy, ensuring the system reflected WVI’s operational realities and long-term goals.
Benefits Realized
The Strategic Portfolio Accelerator delivered end-to-end visibility, connecting strategic goals directly to individual project execution. Reporting processes were automated, reducing manual effort by an estimated 60% and freeing teams to focus on mission-critical work.
Leadership now benefits from real-time project health monitoring, including RAG indicators and proactive alerts. Strategic alignment has improved significantly, with greater clarity that all projects contribute to organizational objectives. Integrated reporting capabilities have strengthened donor accountability, while the scalable architecture supports WVI’s continued global growth and operational complexity.
World Vision International Today
Today, World Vision International continues to leverage the Strategic Portfolio Accelerator to manage its global humanitarian portfolio. The solution enables more informed decision-making, stronger resource allocation, and measurable alignment between strategy and execution — supporting WVI’s mission to serve vulnerable children and communities in nearly 100 countries.