Is your organization at that point where you are looking for more control over your expanding project portfolio? Are you looking for a full featured project portfolio management (PPM) solution because your organization and project portfolio have both grown and you now are seeking to take the next big step in the process? Do you have budget in place? How big is your project portfolio now? What are you expecting as annual project growth? Project revenue growth? Project resource growth? Overall PM infrastructure change and growth?
All these things are considerations on whether a project portfolio management tool is necessary for your organization. If your project portfolio is more than 10 projects and over $1 million, you likely need a PPM tool. There are several things you'll want to consider along with that. Are you traditional waterfall or agile in your project management and software development environment. If you're both, consider a hybrid PPM solution that works well for both. Your project successes are too vital to almost any size organization so be sure to cover all areas. But how standard can you go or how progressive and scalable should you go?
How Standard Can You Go?
So the next thing to decide is how far do you go with PPM? Can you go with a standard PPM solution or do you need one that can be highly customized to meet your current needs as well as likely future project growth needs.
A few ways in which the portfolio management process helps support the fundamentals of project management:
Project portfolio management sets out a methodology used to predict potential problems, review progress towards operational goals, manage budgets, and address stakeholder concerns, allowing project managers to then follow up with precision execution.
The Right High Level View
Project portfolio management gives companies a bird’s eye view of upcoming, current and past projects. By seeing the big picture of how a proposed project will fit into the goals and objectives of the organization, companies can make better decisions on what projects to choose and what initiatives will create the most return.
Given that most complex organizations need this type of solution and these various features and are also experiencing growth to some degree and and some relative pace, it is likely that most would benefit from a more customizable PPM solution. Is that you? Likely.
Enterprise portfolio tools decrease the reliance on multiple applications that can increase overhead and confuse workflows. Because project portfolio management is inherently complex due to how much is being managed at once, it's important to select an enterprise project management tool that is simple and easy to use for everyone in the organization – not just the early adopters. And one that is customizable for the company's specific project and resource related needs. Be sure to look for tools that minimize overhead, manual effort, and excessive documentation, opting instead for a tool that features intuitive design, simple functionality, and a mobile application that allows everyone in your organization to access the tool, wherever they are.
Summary / call for input
The right enterprise PPM solution can help move your organization forward in terms of PM successes, resource management and customer responsiveness and retention. Making the right decision can be critical – understand your organizational needs well before researching and selection.
What about our readers – what are your thoughts and experiences with your own PPM needs and choices? Please share and discuss.
All these things are considerations on whether a project portfolio management tool is necessary for your organization. If your project portfolio is more than 10 projects and over $1 million, you likely need a PPM tool. There are several things you'll want to consider along with that. Are you traditional waterfall or agile in your project management and software development environment. If you're both, consider a hybrid PPM solution that works well for both. Your project successes are too vital to almost any size organization so be sure to cover all areas. But how standard can you go or how progressive and scalable should you go?
How Standard Can You Go?
So the next thing to decide is how far do you go with PPM? Can you go with a standard PPM solution or do you need one that can be highly customized to meet your current needs as well as likely future project growth needs.
A few ways in which the portfolio management process helps support the fundamentals of project management:
- Avoids project management disasters by pointing out good projects versus bad projects, the ROI and the projected value the project might have to the organization
- Offers a clear path to prioritization that allows project managers to create flexible timetables
- Lists what team members and project managers are available
- Helps assign monetary value to a project, making project budgets firm
- Integrates easily with other key PM related tools. Bidirectional Jira integration and others may be a consideration.
- Integrated resource management to help keep resource allocation in check across all projects
Project portfolio management sets out a methodology used to predict potential problems, review progress towards operational goals, manage budgets, and address stakeholder concerns, allowing project managers to then follow up with precision execution.
The Right High Level View
Project portfolio management gives companies a bird’s eye view of upcoming, current and past projects. By seeing the big picture of how a proposed project will fit into the goals and objectives of the organization, companies can make better decisions on what projects to choose and what initiatives will create the most return.
Given that most complex organizations need this type of solution and these various features and are also experiencing growth to some degree and and some relative pace, it is likely that most would benefit from a more customizable PPM solution. Is that you? Likely.
Enterprise portfolio tools decrease the reliance on multiple applications that can increase overhead and confuse workflows. Because project portfolio management is inherently complex due to how much is being managed at once, it's important to select an enterprise project management tool that is simple and easy to use for everyone in the organization – not just the early adopters. And one that is customizable for the company's specific project and resource related needs. Be sure to look for tools that minimize overhead, manual effort, and excessive documentation, opting instead for a tool that features intuitive design, simple functionality, and a mobile application that allows everyone in your organization to access the tool, wherever they are.
Summary / call for input
The right enterprise PPM solution can help move your organization forward in terms of PM successes, resource management and customer responsiveness and retention. Making the right decision can be critical – understand your organizational needs well before researching and selection.
What about our readers – what are your thoughts and experiences with your own PPM needs and choices? Please share and discuss.
RSS Feed
