Transitioning to Pigment: Lessons Learned

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Published by Indira Martinez, last updated on

Starting a journey with a new tool like Pigment can be both exciting and challenging. This blog post shares insights and lessons learned from our experience and those of our customers in transitioning to Pigment, a versatile, cloud-based planning tool for data analysis and collaborative workspaces. Drawing on experiences from previous roles and tools, the post offers practical advice for overcoming initial hurdles and maximizing the potential of Pigment. Key tips include shifting mindset from Excel or legacy planning systems paradigms, embracing the trial-and-error process, and collaborating effectively.

Introduction

Are you new to Pigment? Me too! I started transitioning to Pigment a couple of months ago and wanted to share some lessons learned from my experience.

First, a little bit of context. I consider myself confident with my Excel knowledge. While I’m not an expert in VBA, I can handle everything else or figure it out with internet guides. In my last job, I was asked to use a cloud-based, all-in-one collaborative workspace. I was tasked with creating various models and data analyses within the tool. The method used is different to Excel, because instead of considering each cell as a unit, a whole column is considered a unit, a block; so, the formulas are built to impact the whole column. In addition to working with blocks, the formulas are a bit more like coding than traditional formulas. It wasn’t my favourite tool.

Therefore, while doing the initial courses in Pigment, I was happy to realize that I could transfer some knowledge to this new challenge.

Becoming a Pigment User

After finishing the courses at Pigment Academy, I didn’t feel ready to start a new application by myself. Although the courses provided good general knowledge, I felt that the examples were simple and not challenging enough. My next challenge was to create a new internal application for my job. Here are my top lessons learned while transitioning to Pigment:

1. You learn more by failing than by succeeding:

It is hard, but the goal is to try, and try, and try until you reach the expected result. I had to start the model again from scratch, and the second time around was simpler and easier because I knew where to start and what to do.

Transitioning to Pigment

2. Stop thinking in Excel terms:

This might be the hardest but the most important lesson. In my first try, I felt defeated because you can’t design a model as you would in Excel. Your mind must shift to start thinking in Pigment terms. As soon as you make this shift, it becomes easier to adapt.

Changing Mindset

3. There is not only one way to solve an issue:

In math, any problem has multiple methods to solve it. This is true in modelling as well. While there might be a better, more efficient solution, that will come with more practice.

Transitioning to Pigment

4. Discussing your issues out loud helps to gain insight:

Working with others can help you get fresh ideas on how to solve problems and see them from different perspectives. However, dividing the work in a model with another person can be challenging if the vision and general structure are not clear to everyone.

 

Transitioning to Pigment

5. Prep work is key:

I would not recommend jumping directly into model construction without writing down the ‘big picture’ structure of the model. What element is a dimension? How do you create the relationships? What is related to what? Do you have some properties that can help create the structure?

Transitioning to Pigment

Starting with a new tool may be challenging and intimidating, but it can be exciting and fun. Stop worrying about doing it right on the first try. There is a learning curve.

You can shorten the learning curve by our agile implementation methodology. At Planadigm, we guide and support our customers in their implementation by transferring our knowledge during the project implementation.

More about Pigment

I have tried various tools for ERP, IBP, S&OP, and financial control, and Pigment is the most flexible and user-friendly so far. It is not the perfect solution yet, but Pigment continues to improve and listens to developers about what we feel is missing.

Pigment is a cloud-based tool that can connect end-to-end a company. What I love about Pigment is its focus on user-friendliness by creating dashboards, making information and data easy to analyse and digest. This approach is more realistic in the current working environment. I have worked in automotive, investments, real estate, construction, and education, and this tool could be used across all these industries.

If you are interested in how Pigment can be used to improve your business, reach out!

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