When you’re responsible for the Communications and Signaling infrastructure of a transit system that moves nearly 240 million riders a year, the stakes of a missed deadline or an unsigned document aren’t abstract. They’re operational. An SVP overseeing half a dozen departments, 60+ active projects, and hundreds of documents requiring her review needed more than a better tool — she needed a system designed around her role.
This is how OrangeDot built it.
What We’ll Cover
- About the client and the scale of their transit operations
- Challenge 1: Project data scattered across tools with no executive-level visibility
- How OrangeDot built a Portfolio board giving the SVP a live view across all six departments
- Challenge 2: No structured process for SVP review and document approval across 60+ projects
- How OrangeDot built a dedicated SVP task board with two-way sync and Executive Assistant integration
- The combined impact: one source of truth, faster approvals, and increased cross-department collaboration
About the Client
This tri-jurisdictional public transit agency was created by the United States Congress as an interstate compact between three East Coast states. Operating rail, bus, and paratransit services across a 1,500-square-mile service area, the system averages nearly 240 million riders annually — approximately 871,000 per weekday. It is the second busiest Metrorail system in the United States, complete with its own dedicated police force.
As an organization committed to innovation in public transit, the agency’s Communications and Signaling team manages a large and complex portfolio of infrastructure projects that keep the system running. With half a dozen departments operating under a single SVP, the coordination requirements are significant — and the margin for disorganization is effectively zero.
Two Challenges Behind a System That Wasn’t Working
Prior to engaging OrangeDot, the Communications and Signaling team was using Microsoft Projects as their project management tool. Having technology in place was a step in the right direction — but the tool hadn’t been implemented with the structure needed to keep a portfolio of this complexity organized. Two specific problems had emerged that were affecting the team’s ability to operate effectively and the SVP’s ability to do her job.
Information about active projects was stored across multiple locations — different files, different tools, different formats depending on the department. The SVP, who oversaw the entire Communications and Signaling portfolio, had very little visibility into what was happening across the six departments she managed. Getting an accurate picture of project status required hunting across systems rather than looking at a single current view.
For a leader overseeing more than 60 active projects at any given time, that lack of visibility wasn’t just inconvenient — it was a structural barrier to doing the job. She couldn’t quickly identify which projects were on track, which were behind, or where her intervention was needed most. Decision-making was reactive rather than proactive because the information required to be proactive wasn’t accessible.
The team needed a system that gave leadership the high-level view they required while still giving project managers and team members the granular detail they needed to execute. Those two needs — the portfolio view and the working view — had never been connected.
When project data lives in multiple locations without a connecting layer, leadership visibility is always lagging. Executives can only see what’s been manually assembled and surfaced to them — which means they’re rarely looking at the current state of things. At the scale of 60+ concurrent projects across six departments, that lag has real consequences for how quickly bottlenecks get identified and addressed.
The Solution: A Portfolio Board with Department-Level Organization and Executive Roll-Up
Centralized Portfolio board organized by department
OrangeDot built a high-level Portfolio board that centrally housed all active projects across the Communications and Signaling team. Projects were organized by department, giving the SVP a clear view of all activity across the full team at a glance — with the ability to filter down to a specific department when she needed to examine a particular area more closely.
Individual project boards for PM-level detail
Within the Portfolio board structure, each individual project was managed in its own board. Project managers and team members could work at the granular level they needed — tracking tasks, milestones, and dependencies in detail — while only the most relevant summary information rolled up to the Portfolio view that leadership monitored. Each team could manage their work the way they needed to without overwhelming the executive view with operational detail.
Live project health visible to leadership at all times
Because the Portfolio board pulled live data from each project board, the SVP’s view was always current. There was no report to pull, no status meeting required to get a read on where things stood. Projects behind schedule surfaced automatically, giving leadership the visibility to intervene early rather than discovering problems after they’d already caused delays.
A core part of the SVP’s daily work is reviewing and signing off on documents. At any given time, she has hundreds of documents requiring her attention across more than 60 active projects. Without a structured system for surfacing what needed review and tracking what had been approved, this process was fragmented — requests came in through scattered channels, the status of pending approvals was difficult to track, and the SVP had no centralized location to manage her own workload.
There was also no reliable mechanism for teams to communicate directly with the SVP about specific project items without going through informal channels. And because the SVP’s Executive Assistant often needed to be looped in to help manage actions and follow-ups, the lack of a structured communication channel meant coordination between the SVP, her EA, and project teams was slower and less reliable than it needed to be.
When an executive’s approval queue lives across email threads, file requests, and informal check-ins, the speed of organizational decision-making is limited by the clarity of her inbox. At 60+ projects and hundreds of documents, a scattered process isn’t just slow — it creates a compliance risk. There needs to be a clear paper trail, a structured place to receive requests, and a reliable signal for what requires attention today.
The Solution: A Dedicated SVP Task Board with Two-Way Sync and EA Integration
A dedicated task board built specifically for the SVP’s daily workflow
OrangeDot created a separate board designed around how the SVP actually works. This board functions as a master list of everything requiring her attention — documents pending review, approvals needed, project updates that require her sign-off. Rather than asking her to navigate six departments’ worth of detail, the board distills everything down to what she needs to act on.
Two-way sync between project boards and the SVP board
The SVP’s task board is synced directly with all project boards in the portfolio. When a team member updates a project, the relevant information automatically appears on the SVP’s board. When the SVP takes action on her board, that update is reflected back in the source project board. Data is never entered in two places. Both views always stay current without any manual coordination between teams.
Completed projects section to keep focus on active work
The SVP’s board includes a dedicated section for completed projects, which automatically separates resolved items from the active queue. This keeps her focus on the projects still in progress — particularly those behind schedule — so she can immediately identify where to direct her attention and where to step in to unblock progress.
Direct team-to-SVP notes with Executive Assistant CC
Team members can send notes directly to the SVP through their project boards, flagging items that need her awareness or action. Her Executive Assistant is automatically copied on each note, enabling the EA to help triage, schedule, or action follow-ups without any additional communication overhead. Every note is tied to the relevant project record, creating a clean and searchable paper trail across the entire portfolio.
The Combined Impact
A Single Source of Truth Across the Entire Portfolio
With one Portfolio board connecting six departments and a dedicated SVP board surfacing everything that requires executive attention, the team’s project data is no longer scattered across tools and locations. The latest information is always easy to access, project health is visible at both the summary and the detail level, and the SVP has confidence that what she’s looking at is accurate and current.
Faster Document Review and a Clear Approval Trail
The SVP can now review and approve documents at significantly faster speed, with a clear paper trail maintained automatically across all 60+ projects. Requests that previously arrived through informal channels now flow through a structured system, are tracked from submission to completion, and are visible to both the SVP and her Executive Assistant in a single shared location.
Increased Cross-Department Collaboration and Communication
With each team able to see what the other departments are working on through the Portfolio board, collaboration across the Communications and Signaling division has meaningfully improved. Teams that previously had no visibility into adjacent work can now identify dependencies, coordinate proactively, and avoid the redundant effort that comes from working in silos.
Hours Saved Weekly and Increased Confidence in Project Data
The new boards and workflows have saved the team measurable hours each week that had previously been spent tracking down information, manually updating multiple systems, and coordinating through informal channels. Equally important: the team now has confidence that project data is accurate, current, and reliable — a foundational shift for an organization where outdated information can have real operational consequences.
~240M riders served annually · 60+ projects tracked in one live portfolio · Six departments working from a shared system · SVP review queue always current, always complete
FAQs
How does the two-tier system balance executive visibility with team-level detail?
The Portfolio board is designed to show leadership only what they need to see: project health, status by department, and items requiring attention. The individual project boards give PMs and team members all the granular detail they need to manage day-to-day work. Because both views pull from the same underlying data, nothing has to be manually translated or re-entered between them. Leadership gets clarity without noise; teams get flexibility without losing accountability to the portfolio view.
How does the two-way sync between the SVP board and project boards actually work?
monday.com’s mirror column and automation features allow data to flow in both directions between connected boards. When a team member updates a status, uploads a document, or sends a note on their project board, the relevant information appears automatically on the SVP’s board without anyone having to manually copy it. When the SVP takes action or adds a comment on her board, that update reflects back in the source project board. Both views stay in sync in real time, so there’s never a question of which version is current.
Can this type of portfolio system scale as the number of projects grows?
Yes. The architecture OrangeDot built for this engagement was designed to accommodate additional projects and additional departments without structural changes to the Portfolio or SVP boards. New projects are added using the same board template and connect to the existing portfolio automatically. The system becomes more useful as volume grows — because the more projects there are to track, the more valuable the centralized view becomes.
Is monday.com appropriate for public sector organizations with complex governance requirements?
monday.com is used by organizations across the public and private sectors, including government agencies and entities with strict compliance and documentation requirements. The platform supports role-based permissions, audit trails, document storage, and structured approval workflows — all of which can be configured to meet the governance standards of complex organizations. OrangeDot works with clients to ensure the implementation reflects both operational needs and institutional requirements from the start.
Final Thoughts
Running the Communications and Signaling function of one of the country’s busiest transit systems requires operational precision at every level. When the systems meant to support that precision are fragmented — when an SVP can’t see the status of 60+ projects without manually assembling the picture — the organization absorbs that friction as inefficiency, delay, and risk.
The solution OrangeDot built didn’t add complexity. It removed it. A Portfolio board that surfaces what leadership needs to know. A task board that gives the SVP a daily starting point. A two-way sync that keeps both views current without anyone having to maintain them separately. The right architecture makes the work visible — and visibility is what makes the work manageable.
If your leadership team is managing a high-volume project portfolio without the visibility to stay ahead of it, we can help you build a system that closes that gap. Talk to an OrangeDot expert →