You Can’t Fix What You Can’t See
Municipalities today are expected to deliver more with less. More transparency. More results. More community impact. But instead of being equipped with modern tools, many cities and counties are still tracking projects in spreadsheets, sharing updates by email, and juggling disconnected systems. And what happens when you run a 21st-century city with decades-old methods? The cracks begin to show.
Department heads can’t get a clean picture of what’s happening, and councils ask questions no one can confidently answer. Teams are overextended. Projects go off track and over budget without warning. Huge compliance issues loom. And yet, there’s no end in sight. Demands pile up with more capital planning, housing issues, sustainability goals, infrastructure upgrades, IT enhancements, and more.
If this sounds familiar, you’re not alone. At Rego Consulting, what we see time and again is not a lack of vision or commitment, but a lack of visibility.
This article demonstrates how municipalities are unlocking success with modern Project Portfolio Management (PPM) tools to boost transparency, align projects with council goals, optimize resources, and deliver meaningful results across departments.
The Real Problem: Too Many Tools, Not Enough Clarity
As conscientious stewards of your community, you’re constantly trying to answer big questions like:
And beyond those big questions, you need to know the current status of many important priorities:
But all too often, the answer is, “We don’t know.”
Most municipalities aren’t suffering from a lack of effort; they’re suffering from a lack of shared visibility. Different departments use different systems. Budget data lives in one place, while project timelines live in another. Resource planning might happen on a whiteboard, and reporting to the council happens in PowerPoint the night before.
This means:
Behind these issues is the silent problem of siloed data and inconsistent tools. Disconnected systems make it difficult to consolidate project status, resource availability, and balance budget realities across departments. Even worse, when municipalities rely on homegrown systems built by individuals, they risk losing critical institutional knowledge if that person leaves.
“We hear stories like this all the time,” said Brian Toplicar, a strategic advisor at Rego.
“A city had a custom Excel system built by – let’s call him ‘Steve’ – and his homegrown system worked perfectly, until ‘Steve‘ retired. Then no one knew how to maintain it, and everyone was left with chaos.”
Without a modern PPM tool, time and effort are needlessly wasted.
How Clarity Brings it All Together
Modern PPM tools like Clarity solve these problems by bringing all your data together into a single source of truth. Whether you’re tracking capital projects, council initiatives, or internal IT programs, all your departments can have real-time visibility into what’s happening, who’s doing it, and how it aligns with your strategic goals.
Here’s what Clarity enables that spreadsheets can’t:
And the best part? Your teams don’t have to change how they work. Clarity supports agile, waterfall, and hybrid methodologies. Project managers can continue to operate the way they prefer, while leadership still sees the full picture.
How Municipalities Are Already Using PPM Tools
This level of success is not theoretical; it’s happening today.
Real Life Example: From IT to Council Chambers
One Canadian municipality began using Clarity in its IT department. Over time, they expanded usage across more departments: Transportation, Infrastructure, Early Childhood Development, and even the Executive Council. Today, they use Clarity dashboards to track progress against election promises, giving both leadership and the public visibility into key performance areas.
“They’re literally showing whether promises made during the campaign are being delivered – and how that ties into funding, staffing, and timelines,” Brian explained.
“That’s real accountability.”
Real Life Example: From Drowning to Trust
One of the largest municipally owned utilities in the U.S. used to spend a week manually preparing reports for leadership. Not only was the process time-consuming, but it also created distrust in the data. Today, their dashboards in Clarity update in real-time, cutting prep time by 75% and restoring confidence in decision-making.
75%
TIME
SAVED
Signs You’ve Outgrown Your Tools
Sometimes it’s not obvious that you’re the frog in the nearly-boiling water. Here are common signs your municipality may be outgrowing its current project management setup:
Sound familiar? It’s time to explore a modern PPM solution.
Getting Started: A Practical Path for Municipal Success
You might be thinking, “Migrating to a modern PPM solution … How big of a lift is that?”
Rest assured, you don’t need to overhaul everything to get started and see meaningful results. Modern platforms like Clarity are designed for flexibility. With no-code configuration, departments can tailor their experience without compromising data integrity.
“We don’t recommend flipping the switch overnight,” said Brian.
“We help municipalities get small wins fast – then scale intentionally.”
Most municipal clients that work with Rego follow a crawl-walk-run approach.
1. Crawl: Start Small, Focus Big
Backed by 18 years of Project Management expertise, Rego leads you through each step of your journey so you’re never left guessing what comes next. Begin with Rego’s readiness assessment to identify your biggest pain points. Often, these are found in resource planning, reporting, or alignment to council goals. Then pick one high-impact department (such as IT, Finance, or Capital Planning) and pilot Clarity with a focused use case, like resource visibility or roadmap planning. Early wins build momentum.
2. Walk: Connect the Dots
Expand to related departments. Standardize language, workflows, and data expectations across teams. Build cross-department dashboards that eliminate reporting silos and offer real-time views into project status, resource needs, and financial alignment. Begin tracking election mandates and strategic objectives in a single view.
3. Run: Scale with Strategy
Scale across the enterprise. Align every project with council priorities, integrate time tracking and financial systems, and enable scenario planning to support funding decisions. Use Clarity as the strategic lens through which your municipality evaluates, funds, and tracks initiatives from concept to completion.
There are stages most government agencies go through as they mature. Here’s what a successful journey might look like:
Your journey will be tailored to your needs, ensuring you have the transparency and control every municipality needs.
What Success Actually Looks Like
So what happens when a municipality partners with Rego to implement Clarity?
You will start to hear things like:
And you’ll see the change – across every part of your organization …
📊 Visibility That Drives Action
Clarity replaces stitched-together spreadsheets with live, trustworthy dashboards. Executives see how projects align to community goals. PMs update status in minutes. And the public? They get transparency dashboards that show where their tax dollars are going and what’s getting done.
🛠️ Resource and Financial Confidence
No more guesswork about who’s available or what it costs. Clarity gives resource managers clear visibility into availability, allocations, assignments, and actuals. Finance teams can instantly see CapEx vs. OpEx, track to budget, and support audits without scrambling.
🔄 Integrated, Consistent Processes
Teams move faster when data isn’t siloed. Clarity supports shared language, consistent workflows, and best practices across departments. Whether you’re managing IT projects, capital programs, or council mandates, everyone works from the same playbook.
🔐 Audit-Ready Compliance and Stewardship
Governance becomes proactive, not reactive. Clarity supports compliance through integrated financial periods, audit-traceable records, and structured oversight. No more reinventing the wheel when complaints, audits, or reporting deadlines hit.
📈 Measurable Results, Lasting Culture Change
Once Clarity is embedded, the metrics improve:
But the biggest positive shift isn’t just in tools, it’s in the culture. When everyone from frontline staff to city leadership is working from the same system, toward shared goals, decisions are easier. Work flows more smoothly. And outcomes improve across the board.
Because when your tools finally match the complexity of your mission, big things get done.
What Rego Brings to Your Table
Rego Consulting has helped over 700 organizations, including municipalities, utilities, and government agencies, deploy and optimize PPM solutions. We contribute to municipalities around the world, including MISA Canada. Our consultants aren’t just software experts, they’re former PMO leaders, municipal staffers, and program managers.
We understand the public sector. We know how to navigate internal politics, procurement processes, and departmental silos. And we tailor every engagement to your maturity level, budget, and goals.
Some of the ways we help:
We also offer prebuilt integrations, portlets, and training resources through our RegoXchange library, which accelerates time-to-value for our clients.
Ready to Take the First Step?
Whether you’re still living in spreadsheets or just not getting enough from your current tools, there’s a better way to manage the complexity of municipal work.
- Watch the webinar: Unlocking Municipal Success with Modern PPM Tools.
- See how Rego’s guidance leads transformation: City of Seattle ITD’s Excellent Clarity Adventure.
- Consider: What to Look For in a Project Portfolio Management Tool.
- Schedule a Free Readiness Assessment with Rego’s municipal experts.
- Get Rego’s Municipal PPM Toolkit for templates, dashboards, and guidance.
About the Author: Liz Rodgers
