Process improvement is notoriously hard to quantify, which makes leadership buy-in hard to earn. Here is how we used Workfront and Workfront Fusion data to turn time savings and automation into clear, quantitative stories that leadership trusted and repeated.

Workfront gives us more than work management, it gives us data

At my previous company, Workfront was really just a way of life. But we knew that Workfront was more than just a work management system. There's so much more that you can get out of Workfront, and there's so much that you can track in Workfront.

A lot of the company's efforts over a two-plus-year period were focused on process improvement and time savings, and process improvement as a whole can be difficult to provide data on. A lot of the senior leaders I worked with were very data driven. They wanted to see the why, and they would ask:

• Why is this a problem?

• How do you know it is a problem?

• How do you know it is something we need to solve for?

• How do you know it was successful?

At the end of the day, what was our team's time spent on? What was the value of that? What was the outcome? And how could we show that with actual quantitative data?

Lead with the story to get leadership buy-in

A lot of the time, senior leadership wants to understand the reason behind everything. They want to know the why, what we are doing, what the goal is, and what the expected outcome will be.

Because of that, we focused on leading with the story behind the work. We built out a Workfront roadmap in Workfront, and within it we used a description column to clearly and simply explain what the request was. We also outlined the expected outcome, whether that was time savings, faster speed to market, or more day to day bandwidth for teams.

Once the work was completed, we would revisit it, pull the data, and present the results in a more cumulative, data driven way. That approach made the overall story much more impactful.

What I found was that leadership responded best to clear numbers, graphs, and meaningful data they could understand quickly without needing to dig through detailed Workfront reports. At the same time, they still valued the narrative that provided context, since they were not in the work day to day.

They needed to be able to look at a status update, summary, or description and immediately understand what the item was and why it mattered, without needing to know every detail of the process behind it.

Explaining Workfront improvements at the right level

One of my biggest challenges was that I was so immersed in Workfront day to day. I started as a power user and eventually moved into a role where I was leading Workfront administration and process improvement.

Because I understood the processes so deeply, I had to learn how to communicate that work to senior leadership without going too far into the technical detail, but also without staying so high level that the impact got lost.

If I just said, "We automated this process," that sounded great, and I knew exactly what that meant. I knew what it meant for the teams involved. I knew the effort that went in behind the automation, and I knew the time spent and the time saved, but senior leadership didn't necessarily have that context.

At the same time, they didn't need to know that this person went into Workfront, clicked this button, clicked that button, copied something over here, and then moved it over there.

When I was first getting into it, I really wanted to share everything because I was excited, but that was a little over the top. Then I went the other way and kept it very high level with just bullet-point information, and that wasn't enough.

So it became about finding the right level of information to share, enough that leadership understood exactly what was done in Workfront, what we accomplished, what problem we resolved, and why it mattered, without getting lost in the technical details.

Repeated Workfront and Fusion wins are what keep leadership bought in

As we started to identify limitations within certain teams, we turned to Workfront and Fusion to help solve them. The continuation of doing that time and time again helped keep leadership bought into the platforms and the work we were doing.

It got to the point where, when leadership found out about a problem in a workflow, they were turning to us and asking, "How can we solve this with Workfront or with Fusion?" because they had seen us successfully solve so many other problems.

The expectation became that we would continue pushing out as much process improvement and automation as we could.

And as long as we continued to do that, report on the outcomes, and tell the story behind the work, it continued to strengthen leadership's buy-in.

That's something I think applies beyond any one organization: when you consistently show measurable outcomes, Workfront and Fusion stop being viewed as just tools your team uses and start being viewed as ways to solve broader business problems.

For teams looking to build the same habits, the Adobe Workfront documentation and Adobe Workfront Fusion documentation are good starting points for the reporting and automation described here.

Why showing Workfront outcomes matters

Showing these outcomes matters for your own personal career development. It matters for your team, the story you're telling about your team, and the work you're accomplishing.

At a higher level, it also matters to senior leadership and the story they are telling about the broader organization.

In my previous role, the information and data we shared from Workfront and Fusion around time savings, automations, and processes implemented was ultimately shared in department reviews and even board meetings.

That was really cool to see. It wasn't just senior leadership hearing about the work we had done. They were taking those results and sharing them more broadly to demonstrate how well the department and the company were performing.

And I think that's ultimately the bigger opportunity with Workfront data. You're not just showing how much work your team completed. You're showing the impact of that work, the problems you solved, the time you gave back to teams, and the value that process improvement can bring to the business.

Frequently asked questions

What Workfront data is most useful for showing process improvement value?

Time savings, number of automations, and speed to market are the metrics leadership responds to most. Pair the numbers with a short description of the problem each change solved so the data carries context.

How do I keep reporting from getting too technical for leadership?

Aim for the middle. Explain what was done, what problem it solved, and why it mattered, without walking through every click in Workfront. Lead with the outcome and offer detail only if someone asks.

How does Workfront Fusion fit into this?

Fusion handles the automation behind many process improvements. Reporting on Fusion outcomes alongside Workfront work shows leadership how much manual effort was removed and where time was given back to teams.

How do I keep leadership bought in over time?

Repeat the pattern: solve a problem, report the outcome, and tell the story behind it. Consistent, measurable wins turn Workfront and Fusion from tools your team uses into ways the business solves problems.