The Complete 2023 PPM Software Buyers Guide for PMO’s
You may think that the best PPM software is the one that fulfills all 150 of your requirements. It’s not true; we have seen companies create a long list of requirements and select the solution that best fit those requirements only to go on to waste hundreds of thousands of dollars and scrapping it later because users did not like the solution. Usability and adoption are king.
In this guide we will give you some straight talk to help you consider the important factors when selecting portfolio management software including:
- Organizational maturity
- Usability (versus complexity)
- Cost to implement (value gap)
- Capabilities (to avoid unnecessary complexity)
- Organizational change
- Portfolio management expertise
Project Management Software versus Project Portfolio Management Software
In terms of software, project management software is really focused on managing individual projects and can help communicate information about a specific project. Project management software is commonly used by Project Managers and the project team members. Portfolio management software though is focused on the entire portfolio of projects to give senior leaders holistic visibility of those projects. Portfolio management software helps senior leaders to make better strategic decisions.
Now that we have established the difference between project and portfolio management, let’s start looking at the differences between project management software and portfolio management software. Keep in mind that there are in fact some overlaps between project and portfolio management software.
How to Effectively Prioritize Projects
Portfolio management is about maximizing organizational value delivery through programs and projects. In order to maximize value delivery, the governance teams that approve work and prioritize projects need to share a common view of “value” in order to select the most valuable work and assign the right resources to that work.
Understanding the relative “value” of each program and project in the portfolio is at the heart of portfolio management and determines what work is selected, how it is prioritized, where resources are allocated, etc. In order to select a winning portfolio, every governance team needs to share a common understanding of value; without it, you’ll fail to realize the full potential of your portfolio.
Best Practices for Resource Capacity Planning
Resource capacity planning is one of the most commonly cited functions of project portfolio management. Senior leadership rightly wants to understand whether they have adequate resources to take on more project work and whether their existing work will get done on time. Most companies recognize the scarcity of resources to do project work and thereby look for portfolio capacity views to answer these two important questions:
- When can we take on new projects?
- Can we get our existing work done?
