From Chaotic to Cadence: How Cardagraph Transformed Emtrain's Release Planning

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Improved Planning with Cardagraph

Implementing Cardagraph has revolutionized Emtrain's approach to release planning and product delivery. With Cardagraph's powerful analytics and capacity planning tools, the team can now accurately estimate the effort required for upcoming projects and features. This improved estimation capability has led to a significant increase in on-time delivery rates, with Emtrain expecting to ship 90% or more of their planned work on schedule.


Moreover, Cardagraph has introduced a newfound flexibility into Emtrain's planning process. Instead of being locked into rigid release schedules, the team can now dynamically adjust their plans based on shifting priorities, resource availability, and project complexities. This agility empowers them to make informed decisions about what features to build and when, ensuring that they deliver the most valuable products to their customers in a timely manner.


With Cardagraph's data-driven approach, Emtrain has gained a comprehensive understanding of their team's capacity and capabilities, enabling them to set realistic expectations and avoid overcommitting resources. This transparency has fostered a culture of accountability and trust within the organization, as stakeholders can now have confidence in the team's ability to deliver on their promises.


Partnership with Cardagraph


Emtrain's experience working with the Cardagraph team has been excellent. The support and responsiveness from Cardagraph have been top-notch, with swift responses and constant availability to address any concerns or queries. This level of support has been instrumental in ensuring a smooth implementation and ongoing utilization of the Cardagraph platform.


Furthermore, Bill Takacs, VP of Product at Emtrain, feels that the value they receive from Cardagraph significantly outweighs the cost of the solution. This sentiment underscores the tangible benefits and return on investment that Cardagraph has delivered to Emtrain.




Looking ahead, Emtrain is excited about the prospect of expanding their use of Cardagraph in 2025. This decision reflects their confidence in the platform's ability to drive greater efficiencies and better planning processes within their product development organization.

ROI

As Vice President, Product, Bill oversees Emtrain's technological products, ensuring accurate roadmap plans and on-time product delivery for customers.


Cardagraph has been a trusted and impactful partner of Emtrain since February 2024.

Cardagraph release planning, capacity planning, Gantt roadmap, timeline forecasting, real-time status updates.

About Emtrain

Emtrain is a company that provides a compliance-focused e-learning platform and analytics tools designed to help organizations manage employee relations, business compliance, and workplace risk.


With a total headcount spanning multiple teams, including 15 engineers within the product development organization, Emtrain is dedicated to delivering solutions that foster a safe and compliant work environment for businesses across various industries.


Their flagship product is a comprehensive e-learning platform that offers a wide range of courses and training modules covering topics such as workplace harassment, discrimination, and ethical conduct. These courses are designed to educate employees on best practices, company policies, and legal requirements, ensuring that everyone in the organization is equipped with the knowledge and skills necessary to maintain a respectful and inclusive workplace.


In addition to the e-learning platform, Emtrain also provides powerful analytics tools that allow organizations to monitor and analyze employee relations data, identify potential risks, and make data-driven decisions to mitigate those risks. These tools provide valuable insights into employee behavior, sentiment, and compliance, enabling organizations to proactively address issues before they escalate.



Planning Challenges Before Cardagraph

Emtrain, a leading provider of compliance-focused e-learning platforms and analytics tools, faced significant hurdles in release planning and delivering products to market. The company's VP of Product, Bill Takacs, acknowledged that accurately estimating the time required to complete efforts based on available capacity was a major challenge.


This problem had a tangible impact on Emtrain's operations. With less than 58% of planned work shipped on time in the previous fiscal year, the company's ability to capitalize on market opportunities was limited. Moreover, the product development team lacked confidence in their ability to accurately plan releases, rating their confidence level as very low on a scale of 1 to 10.


The repercussions extended beyond the product development team, as the rest of the organization had minimal trust in the team's ability to accomplish their plans for product development and releases. This lack of confidence and trust hindered cross-functional collaboration and alignment, further exacerbating the challenges faced by the company.



Business Impact of Planning Challenges


Emtrain's struggle with accurately forecasting project timelines and resource capacity led to significant delays in delivering new products and features to market. This sluggish time-to-market severely limited the company's ability to capitalize on emerging opportunities and meet evolving customer needs in the rapidly changing compliance and risk management landscape.


Moreover, the consistent failure to meet committed deadlines eroded stakeholder trust in the product development team's ability to execute on their roadmap effectively. With only 58% of planned work shipped on time in the previous fiscal year, business leaders and cross-functional teams had little confidence that the product organization could deliver on its promises, leading to misalignment and friction across the company.


The combination of missed market opportunities and waning internal credibility posed a serious threat to Emtrain's growth and competitiveness. Recognizing the urgency to address these challenges, the company sought a solution to regain control over its product planning and delivery processes.



Emtrain's product development team quickly embraced Cardagraph, recognizing its potential to streamline their release planning and delivery processes.

Implementing Cardagraph

Emtrain recognized the need for a more robust solution to address their release planning and product delivery challenges. After evaluating various options, they decided to implement Cardagraph, a powerful tool designed to streamline these processes.



The integration process was seamless, thanks to the dedicated support provided by the Cardagraph team. They worked closely with Emtrain's product development team, ensuring a smooth transition and providing comprehensive training on the tool's features and functionalities.



One of the key aspects of the implementation was the alignment of Cardagraph with Emtrain's existing workflows and processes. The Cardagraph team took the time to understand Emtrain's unique requirements and tailored the tool's configuration to fit their specific needs, minimizing disruption to existing operations.

Consistent Failure

90% Confidence

9/10

Emtrain's implementation of Cardagraph has yielded a net positive impact on the company's planning and decision-making processes. By leveraging Cardagraph's capabilities, Emtrain has gained better visibility into the efforts required for various projects, enabling more accurate planning and realistic goal-setting.


The improved planning and increased flexibility in determining what features to build and when to deliver them have empowered Emtrain to make more informed decisions. This newfound clarity has facilitated productive discussions among stakeholders, allowing for a comprehensive understanding of the available options and their implications.


Moreover, Cardagraph has fostered a collaborative environment where different teams can align their expectations and work towards shared objectives. This alignment has streamlined decision-making processes, ensuring that resources are allocated efficiently and that priorities are aligned across the organization.

With Cardagraph's data-driven approach, Emtrain can now make decisions based on reliable insights rather than relying solely on assumptions or guesswork. This data-driven decision-making has not only increased confidence in the planning process but has also contributed to better resource utilization and more effective risk management.


Overall, Cardagraph's impact on Emtrain's planning and decision-making processes has been transformative, enabling the company to operate with greater agility, transparency, and strategic focus, ultimately driving better business outcomes.


"With Cardagraph, we have better planning, better lens on effort, and more flexibility on what we can deliver and when."


Bill Takacs

VP Product

Conclusion

Overall, Cardagraph has proven to be a game-changer for Emtrain, streamlining their release planning processes, enhancing their ability to deliver high-quality products on time, and fostering a culture of trust and collaboration within the organization.


Emtrain is looking to further expand their usage of Cardagraph in 2025 and will continue to grow their user base inside the tool.


© 2024 Cardagraph, Inc. All rights reserved.


Accurate Capacity Planning

Increased On-Time Delivery

Improved Confidence and Trust

Better Decision Making

9/10

Confidence Level for Release Planning with Cardagraph

Large ROI

Increased On-Time Delivery

Cardagraph's software enhanced planning, trust, and delivery for Emtrain. VP Bill Takacs shares its impact on his 15-person engineering team.

Cardagraph, Inc.

From Chaotic to Cadence: How Cardagraph Transformed Emtrain's Release Planning

Bill Takacs, VP Product

Tools

February 2024 through Present

Emtrain's product development team quickly embraced Cardagraph, recognizing its potential to streamline their release planning and delivery processes. The tool's intuitive interface and user-friendly design made it easy for team members to adopt and incorporate into their daily routines.



As part of the implementation process, Emtrain also established clear guidelines and best practices for using Cardagraph effectively. This included defining roles and responsibilities, setting up project templates, and building out teams. Everything else was done automatically by Cardagraph through their API integration. This keeps all data up to date, all the time.

Up from 58%

Confidence Level

Renewed Stakeholder Confidence

Before implementing Cardagraph, Bill and his team lacked confidence in their ability to accurately plan releases. The rest of the organization also had low trust that the product development team would accomplish their plans for product delivery. This lack of confidence and trust stemmed from the challenges they faced in estimating the time and effort required for their planned work.


However, after adopting Cardagraph, Bill's confidence in his team's ability to accurately plan releases has significantly increased. He rates their confidence level as a 9 out of 10. This newfound confidence is a direct result of Cardagraph's capabilities in providing better visibility into the effort required for their planned work and enabling more flexibility in adjusting their plans.


Moreover, Bill expects that the rest of the organization will now have a much higher level of trust in the product development team's ability to accomplish their plans for product development and releases. He estimates this trust level to be an 8 out of 10, a remarkable improvement from the previous low levels of trust.


Cardagraph has empowered Bill's team with the tools and insights necessary to create more accurate and reliable plans, thereby instilling greater confidence within the team and across the entire organization. This renewed stakeholder confidence is a testament to the positive impact Cardagraph has had on Emtrain's product development process.

Overall Impact of Cardagraph

About Cardagraph

Cardagraph is the worldwide leader in release management planning. Founded in 2019, Cardagraph has quickly become the go-to tool for release management teams for the Fortune 500. Through the use of your team’s historical data and their proprietary algorithms, Cardagraph enables those in charge of release planning and management to save hours of time every day while increasing planning accuracy.


Learn more by visiting www.cardagraph.com.


From Chaotic to Cadence: How Cardagraph Transformed Emtrain's Release Planning

This content is only available on desktop.

© 2025 Cardagraph, Inc. All rights reserved.

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© 2025 Cardagraph, Inc. All rights reserved.

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© 2025 Cardagraph, Inc. All rights reserved.

Privacy Policy