TreasureMap by Buried Wins — Benchmark Transcript #6
Deal Status: Closed Lost (no decision — stayed with status quo)
Contact: James Okafor, Director of IT
Contact Company: Summit Regional Health
Interview Date: March 4, 2026

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Buried Wins Moderator (00:00:10 - 00:00:16)
James, thanks for making time. How are you?

James Okafor (00:00:16 - 00:00:20)
Good, thanks. Appreciate you accommodating the reschedule.

Buried Wins Moderator (00:00:22 - 00:00:34)
No problem at all. We're researching how teams evaluate project management solutions. Everything is anonymized and combined with other interviews. Mind if I record?

James Okafor (00:00:34 - 00:00:36)
That's fine.

Buried Wins Moderator (00:00:38 - 00:00:44)
Great. Tell me about your role and what you oversee.

James Okafor (00:00:46 - 00:01:28)
I'm Director of IT at Summit Regional Health. We're a regional healthcare system — three hospitals, about a dozen clinics, 2,500 employees total. My IT team is 18 people and we manage everything from infrastructure to application support to project delivery. We've got probably 15 active IT projects at any time, ranging from EHR upgrades to network infrastructure to new clinic buildouts. Everything touches compliance. HIPAA, state regulations, joint commission requirements — it's a constant overlay on everything we do.

Buried Wins Moderator (00:01:30 - 00:01:36)
What got you looking at project management tools?

James Okafor (00:01:38 - 00:02:22)
Our CIO got pressure from the board about IT project visibility. We had a security infrastructure project that went 40 percent over budget and nobody in leadership knew until the invoices hit. The CIO came to me and said we need a system where leadership can see project health in real time — budget, timeline, risks — without waiting for my team to compile a monthly report. We were tracking everything in a combination of spreadsheets and a legacy tool that nobody liked but everybody knew how to use. It was inefficient but it was the devil we knew.

Buried Wins Moderator (00:02:24 - 00:02:30)
Walk me through the evaluation.

James Okafor (00:02:32 - 00:03:10)
We looked at four options. ProjectCommand came recommended by a consultant we'd worked with on a previous initiative. TreasureMap was brought to my attention by a colleague at another health system. Nexus PM was suggested by one of my senior engineers who'd used it in a previous role. And QuickPlan was on the initial list because my project coordinator had seen it at a conference. We dropped QuickPlan early — it didn't meet our compliance documentation requirements.

Buried Wins Moderator (00:03:12 - 00:03:18)
Tell me about ProjectCommand in this context.

James Okafor (00:03:20 - 00:04:12)
ProjectCommand was the most credible option on paper. They have healthcare customers, they understand compliance requirements, and their audit trail capabilities are exactly what our CIO was asking for. The portfolio dashboard would've given leadership the visibility they wanted. But the implementation was a problem. They estimated 16 weeks and wanted to bring in their professional services team at a cost that was almost equal to the first year of licensing. My team is already stretched thin — we don't have the bandwidth to support a four-month implementation while keeping the lights on. The ongoing admin burden was also a concern. ProjectCommand needs a dedicated administrator, and I don't have a headcount for that.

Buried Wins Moderator (00:04:14 - 00:04:20)
How about TreasureMap?

James Okafor (00:04:22 - 00:05:22)
TreasureMap was probably the strongest overall experience during the evaluation. The setup was manageable — we had a pilot running within two weeks. The interface was clean and my project coordinator picked it up quickly. The cross-project visibility was exactly what the CIO was asking for, and the reporting was good enough to replace those manual monthly reports. Support was exceptional — they were responsive, they understood healthcare wasn't their typical customer and they asked good questions about our compliance needs rather than just saying yes to everything. The pricing was reasonable and didn't require a multi-year lock-in. Documentation was clear and practical.

Buried Wins Moderator (00:05:24 - 00:05:30)
Sounds like a strong evaluation. What about Nexus PM?

James Okafor (00:05:32 - 00:06:08)
Nexus PM was a non-starter for most of my team. My senior engineer loved it but he's the most technical person on the team. Everyone else found it confusing. The interface is built for software developers and my team is a mix of infrastructure people, project coordinators, and support analysts. When I asked Nexus PM about training for non-technical users, they pointed me to their documentation, which is comprehensive but assumes a level of technical comfort that most of my team doesn't have. I couldn't see my project coordinators using it daily.

Buried Wins Moderator (00:06:10 - 00:06:18)
So if TreasureMap evaluated well, why didn't you move forward?

James Okafor (00:06:20 - 00:07:28)
This is the hard part. TreasureMap was the best option we evaluated. I believe that. But we didn't move forward with anything. The CIO got cold feet when we presented the options. The concern was change management — we're asking 18 people plus project stakeholders across the organization to change how they work. Our legacy tools are terrible but everyone knows them. The CIO wanted guarantees about adoption and asked whether TreasureMap could demonstrate that similar healthcare organizations had successfully rolled it out. TreasureMap didn't have healthcare-specific case studies. ProjectCommand did, but the cost and implementation timeline scared us. So the CIO decided to table the decision until next fiscal year and told us to keep using what we have. Classic no-decision.

Buried Wins Moderator (00:07:30 - 00:07:38)
Was there anything TreasureMap could have done to push the decision over the line?

James Okafor (00:07:40 - 00:08:30)
Two things. Healthcare case studies, or at least references from similar regulated environments. The CIO isn't going to green-light a new system without proof that someone in our shoes has done this successfully. It doesn't have to be healthcare specifically — financial services or government would've worked. Any heavily regulated industry where change management and compliance matter. Second, a more structured change management offering. If TreasureMap had come to us with a playbook — here's how we've helped similar organizations roll this out, here are the adoption benchmarks, here's the training plan — that would've given the CIO confidence. Instead we were left to figure out the rollout ourselves, and that's where the fear set in.

Buried Wins Moderator (00:08:32 - 00:08:40)
How did the pricing factor in across the options?

James Okafor (00:08:42 - 00:09:18)
TreasureMap was the most affordable for what we'd get. ProjectCommand was the most expensive — probably three times TreasureMap's cost when you include implementation services. Nexus PM was between the two. But in healthcare IT, the cheapest option isn't always the winner. We have to justify to the board that we're choosing something proven and defensible. TreasureMap's value was clear to me, but translating that to a board presentation without industry-specific proof points was the gap I couldn't bridge.

Buried Wins Moderator (00:09:20 - 00:09:28)
Do you think you'll revisit this next year?

James Okafor (00:09:30 - 00:10:02)
I hope so. The problem hasn't gone away — we're still running on spreadsheets and the CIO still gets surprised by project overruns. If TreasureMap builds that industry credibility over the next year, they'd be my first call. The product impressed me. The experience during the trial impressed me. The gap was entirely about organizational confidence, not product quality.

Buried Wins Moderator (00:10:04 - 00:10:10)
Any final thoughts on the competitors?

James Okafor (00:10:12 - 00:10:48)
ProjectCommand is living off its reputation in healthcare IT. The product is powerful but the cost and complexity are becoming harder to justify. If they didn't have those healthcare case studies, nobody would pick them over TreasureMap. QuickPlan is not a serious option for healthcare — no compliance features, no audit trails. Nexus PM is for software companies, not healthcare IT departments. TreasureMap is the right product at the wrong time for us. I genuinely hope they're still around when we're ready.

Buried Wins Moderator (00:10:50 - 00:10:54)
Really appreciate your time, James. Thank you.

James Okafor (00:10:54 - 00:10:56)
Glad to help. Take care.