NOW: Compliant implementation of legal requirements using Stackfield

About NOW

The municipal special-purpose association NOW, located in Crailsheim in the Schwäbisch Hall district of the German state of Baden-Württemberg, is the third-largest long-distance water supplier of the state and distributes approximately 29 million cubic meters of drinking water annually to the various association members via a 931-kilometer pipeline network. Today, this network suppplies around 100 cities and municipalities with approximately 600,000 residents in the noth-east of Baden-Württemberg with drinking water.

Larissa Hofmann has been with NOW since 2013, including nine years in a leadership role in human resources. Today, she works in corporate development, managing numerous projects through Stackfield.

Lack of transparency due to Excel-driven project work

Before Stackfield, NOW relied primarily on email and Excel as communication tools for small-scale operations, involving small teams and small projects. But over the years, demands increased, and with them, the workload grew. Larissa Hofmann explains: “We’re constantly evolving, and our association’s territory is also expanding. This means, on the one hand, that the number of projects is increasing, and on the other hand, that the projects are becoming more complex. Excel spreadsheets, in particular, eventually become difficult to manage.” While organizing meeting minutes and project plans in Excel seemed like the obvious choice, it did raise a lot of questions, since it was often unclear whether the latest version had actually been shared with everyone or who was currently working on a file. The company therefore decided to implement a solution at NOW that would enable transparent workflows, especially across departments.

Highest data protection standards with BSI C5 attestation

Although the primary motivation for seeking out a collaboration solution was the lack of transparency in project work, there were no specific functional requirements. From the outset, NOW focused on the high security requirements to which it is subject as a KRITIS operator. “Of course, we looked at various alternatives, but in the end we settled on Stackfield because, as a water utility, we represent critical infrastructure and have extremely high requirements when it comes to data protection and data security.” Stackfield was particularly convincing due to its multiple ISO certifications and the BSI C5 attestation. “Stackfield currently holds the highest possible certification with the C5 attestation, and that was ultimately the deciding factor for us,” emphasizes Larissa Hofmann.

Project-based onboarding at NOW

Since there had previously been a lack of transparent workflows, especially in project work, the decision was made to initially introduce Stackfield exclusively for project management. The company chose to focus on corporate projects that required expertise from various functional areas and departments, in order to introduce Stackfield in a practical way to as many people as possible. For each project, a room, that is, a dedicated workspace, was created in Stackfield. The relevant project team could be added very easily and thus begin collaborating on the project right away. “It’s gotten off to a really good start,” says Larissa Hofmann.

To further facilitate the onboarding process for the various project participants, a brief introduction and a general FAQ forum including short guides were provided, which users could access as needed. Stackfield was then gradually rolled out across the individual departments and divisions, giving everyone the opportunity to map out their work processes in Stackfield independently of the project work. The main goal was to move “away from a purely text-based log.” Instead, the work taking place in the room as well as the room itself was intended to serve as a kind of log, making information and activities visible to everyone involved.

Implementing legal requirements in Stackfield

Several major projects have already been carried out at NOW with Stackfield’s support, including the implementation of the Ordinance on Drinking Water Catchment Areas (TrinkwEGV), which took effect in December 2023. The ordinance establishes requirements for the identification, assessment, and risk management of catchment areas for drinking water abstraction points, aiming to detect threats to groundwater, surface water, and raw water at an early stage. In line with EU requirements, operators of water supply facilities including NOW were required to submit a report for all existing catchment areas by November 2025, focusing primarily on hazard analysis and risk assessment. The TrinkwEGV also creates an ongoing obligation: catchment areas must be reviewed regularly and reports updated accordingly. In addition, any newly designated areas must undergo the same process. “This was a new regulation that had to be implemented, and one of the first projects we mapped in Stackfield,” says Larissa Hofmann.

With the goal of keeping all project participants up to date at all times, a dedicated room was created in Stackfield for this purpose. From now on, every update, every step in the process, and every feedback loop would be tracked here and made visible to other project members. At the heart of this is the task board. Larissa Hofmann explains: “We primarily work with the Kanban board which has proven effective in most areas. We followed a standard approach, which means we defined what needs to be done, what’s currently in progress, and what’s already been completed.” Subtasks are particularly helpful here, as they allow individual work steps to be further defined. “Subtasks are a great feature because you can assign each subtask separately. That means a task isn’t just assigned to one person as a whole; I can break it down further,” Larissa Hofmann praises.

To further visualize how tasks relate to one another over time, projects at NOW often make use of the timeline module (Gantt chart). According to Larissa Hofmann, this makes project work particularly “clear” thanks to small features from the field of project management. For example, critical paths can be displayed as needed, thereby helping to avoid bottlenecks.

Bringing in externals with limited access rights

Some projects at NOW require collaboration with external parties, for example, when implementing new software. To ensure communication via Stackfield can still take place, these individuals are added to the relevant room with restricted access rights. Larissa Hofmann praises: “We see it as a major advantage that we can involve external consultants without giving them direct access to everything.” What is particularly helpful is that the documents can be kept up to date even beyond the company’s boundaries. “To a certain extent, different communication channels always mean some loss of data or information. That’s why it was important to us that external parties also have access to the latest information,” emphasizes Larissa Hofmann.

Work does not slow down, even when employees are absent

The fact that Stackfield provides greater transparency not only ensures that everyone involved stays up to date at all times, but also supports departments and teams, especially during unplanned absences. The work of individual team members can be viewed at any time via the task module for the relevant room including subtasks to be completed and relevant documents, which can be attached to the task with just a few clicks. “This is especially beneficial in the administrative office. If someone has to step away at short notice, Stackfield makes it possible to show the colleague taking over as the official substitute where to pick up the work,” says Larissa Hofmann.

Kudos to the support team

Looking ahead, NOW plans to expand its use of Stackfield even further. In closing, Larissa Hofmann expresses high praise for the support: “One thing I really appreciate, and make sure to share with all my colleagues, is the support that Stackfield offers. In the live chat, you get a response within a few minutes, and if there’s something you don’t understand, you can always ask again. The Online Learning Center is also incredibly helpful because you can work your way through it on your own. That makes things so much easier.”