When it comes to choosing Project Portfolio Management (PPM) software, there can be a lot to consider. There are a lot of options on the market that will allow you to manage projects, but not all of them will allow you to manage an entire project portfolio (i.e., the collection of projects across an organization) because they weren’t built for that purpose.
Types of projects and the people working on them
If your primary focus is IT, perhaps your focus can be a little narrower, but even so, not all IT projects are the same. You may have some traditional projects with a fixed scope, timeline, and budget that would be well suited for a Waterfall approach. Or perhaps you have some other development efforts that are much less defined and are better suited for a more iterative approach like Agile. Or…maybe you’re moving beyond IT to manage projects for other departments like Human Resources, Marketing, Finance, etc. In all of these cases, you need PPM software that is flexible—and scalable enough to tackle whatever comes your way, allowing you to fit the methodology to the project and/or the people working on that project as needed.
But PPM software is about more than managing projects. To manage a project portfolio to you also need to be able to look across all projects within your organization to see if any are at risk, what the road blocks are, and to be able to communicate all of that information to stakeholders and project resources alike.
Why PPM Software Alone is Not Enough
While purpose-built PPM software can certainly provide tremendous benefits, there’s another piece to the puzzle, and it’s one that shouldn’t be overlooked. According to a recent TeamDynamix survey, 61% of respondents are planning to move to a one-platform approach for IT Service Management (ITSM) and Project Portfolio Management (PPM) so they can gain better control over all their IT resources.
With resource capacity planning, you’re able to get a big-picture view across your entire IT organization, which in turn enables to you balance project-based work along with the day-to-day operational work that helps to keep the lights on.
Here is a short list of benefits that resource capacity planning offers when you bring ITSM and PPM together:
- Improved IT productivity
- Improved IT performance measurement & reporting capabilities
- Improved quality of service (QoS)
Interestingly, though, the same survey found that 77% of respondents are not currently engaging in resource capacity planning.
Clearly there is a lot of work to be done in this area and choosing a platform that includes both PPM and ITSM is the key to moving toward true resource optimization.
Other reasons to bring PPM and ITSM together
There’s another benefit to bringing PPM and ITSM together on one platform that we haven’t discussed yet—a sort of “cross-pollination” effect. Say you get a report of a Wi-Fi issue—followed by hundreds more. Soon you determine a router needs to be replaced, and with ITSM and PPM on one platform, you’re quickly able to group related incidents into a problem, spin up a project, and see it through to swift resolution. Conversely, while working on a project you might need to request a visitor badge for a contractor that’s coming on site tomorrow. From that project you can easily create a ticket that’s routed to the Security or Facilities group for fast resolution.
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