The Complete Guide On Project Portfolio Management Software

PPM Software, or Project Portfolio Management Software, helps in supervising, planning and executing various projects through collaborative features with continuous reporting and monitoring. Businesses often find themselves handling multiple projects at once – and they may not even be related. While the timeline for one needs to be expedited, the other may need more resources – sounds like a massive headache, right?

Well, with PPM Software, business stakeholders gain critical real-time information about each project in the portfolio. Hence, PPM Software provides the visibility, oversight and flexibility needed to help companies prioritize and execute multiple projects. Heck, it can also forecast the future needs for certain projects to ensure a smooth ride down the success lane!

If you’re interested in knowing more, take this road trip with us and explore the world of Project Portfolio Management Software!
 

Understanding Project Portfolio Management Software

Road trips are fun but require a lot of planning. There are various aspects to be managed – accommodation, transport, sightseeing, budgeting and whatnot! #Relatable

Imagine the situation for businesses; they must manage multi-faceted projects with multiple phases. Now, imagine managing such projects, each more complex than the last – is your head spinning yet?

Well, thankfully, businesses leverage Project Portfolio Management (PPM) Software to centralize the management of the organization's projects. When all the projects are managed under one umbrella (called a portfolio), it becomes easier to oversee and allocate resources and budgets.

PPM Software also helps in streamlining the priority order of projects, assigning relevant project managers, planning execution strategies and monitoring the outcomes and status. When you put one person in charge of the food and another to make hotel bookings for a road trip, it becomes easier to manage the entire activity.

Before we hit the road, let’s travel to the past for a quick look at the evolution of PPM Software!
 

Evolution And Origins Of Project Portfolio Management Software

 
During the olden days, well not that old, project managers prioritized one metric over every other: to ensure a project was delivered on time. However, this approach minimized the focus on other factors, specifically two others: the budget and quality levels. Soon, business stakeholders and project managers realized the need to balance all three factors – a project needed to be delivered on time, meet the required quality standards and not exceed the allocated budget. Sounds tough, right?

This new concept meant businesses would need to optimize the allocation of resources, timelines, workflows, manual labor, etc. to achieve delivery on time, within the budget and of the expected quality.

Large organizations realized that they have several projects underway at the same time which may be closely related to each other. Hence, these projects would benefit from having a planned sequence, shared resources and a top-down overview. Soon, businesses started managing similar projects under one umbrella, called a program. According to Robert Handler, Research Vice President at Gartner, “Program Management is the overlay of management on top of those interdependent projects, so you have an element of coordination."

The next breakthrough in this arena was looking at all concurrent projects – whether they were related or not – through a single organizational pane of glass. This streamlined the allocation of budgets, resources and assets for each project and helped get a broad overview of the project portfolio.

Naturally, with digital transformation, this process was outsourced to software which led to the creation of Project Portfolio Management Software.

End of history lesson – let’s get into the good stuff; the working of PPM Software!
 

How Does Project Portfolio Management (PPM) Software Work?

Project Portfolio Management Software centralizes the management and maintenance of ongoing business projects, allowing the portfolio of projects to be managed as a whole. This necessitates striking a balance between available resources, time, manual labor, budgets, risk mitigation, etc. without compromising quality.

To do this, PPM Software takes into account these essential factors:
 

• Change Management

  Project and portfolio managers can balance the business strategy and regulatory requirements with the financial and operational constraints of each project by identifying and prioritizing change requests.

• Risk Management

  Businesses can create a risk-averse strategy to reduce uncertainties within the project portfolio by identifying risks in each project.

• Financial Management

  Financial decisions can be made concerning the organizational goals and strategic objectives by managing the financial resources allocated to each project in the portfolio.

• Proposal Management

  Businesses can simplify their project portfolios by assessing proposals and change requests based on internal criteria to decide if they are worth executing.

• Resource Management

  To complete each project to the best of their ability, businesses can manage the allocation of their limited resources efficiently and effectively.

The next time you plan a road trip, break it down using the above-mentioned factors to streamline your planning! Here are the advantages of doing that for a road trip – or business project.
 

Benefits Of Project Portfolio Management Software

Imagine you’re going on a road trip with your friends – will the itinerary be based on the sightseeing options, or the other way round? Do you allocate more budget for shopping or recreational activities? Should you rent a car or take your own?

Don’t worry; we’re sure you and your friends will figure it out:
 
Yet, if there are so many decisions involved in planning a road trip, imagine the challenge faced by businesses handling multiple high-stakes projects. This is where PPM Software helps:
 

• Align Project Outcomes With Business Objectives

  Meeting strategic objectives is every company's primary goal. As a result, project managers who fail to ensure that their projects are in line with business strategies and objectives risk project overload, resource wastage and rework. PPM Software aids in evaluating, prioritizing and approving projects that align with the business strategy.  

• Make Informed Decision-making

  From a strategic standpoint, Project Portfolio Management Software provides high-level visibility of all projects in the business portfolio. It gives information about project metrics, including costs, profitability, duration, timelines, quality standards and resource usage. This strengthens decision-making and analytics for projects. 

• Streamline Project Selection

  Not every project can align with the strategic objectives of a business. Hence, Project Portfolio Management Software assists businesses in selecting ideal projects based on a well-defined framework that allows them to adhere to the organizational goals and objectives.  

• Enhance Risk Mitigation

  Businesses must understand that every project carries a certain amount of unavoidable risk. PPM Software assists companies in managing financial risk by identifying budget variances between planned and actual work. This enables businesses to create a portfolio of high-value, low-risk projects as it cautions stakeholders about potential budget overruns, delays and technical deficiencies. 

• Optimize Resource Utilization

  PPM Software allocates corporate assets for the most effective and optimized outcome. It assists project managers in determining the demand for various resources and their availability based on previous levels of visibility. This helps businesses utilize resources to their fullest potential. 

• Deliver Projects In Time And Budget

  Most business projects fail due to overspending, inaccurate cost projections, improper resource management and poorly communicated project scheduling. PPM Software offers advanced reports such as forecast vs. actual cost, forecast vs. actual resource utilization, real-time resource availability, etc., to give a quick overview of deviations. With real-time information, project managers can make necessary corrections before they have an adverse effect leading to on-time deliveries. 

• Simplify Collaboration

  PPM Software offers a real-time view of the status of every project in the business portfolio. Dashboards provide an overview of each project's progress and its interdependencies to project managers and stakeholders. As a result, there is a shared culture among project teams, leading to quick problem-solving through collaboration. 

That sounds awesome – but what’s more awesome is the future of PPM Software!
 

What’s The Future Of Project Portfolio Management Software?

 
According to research by Reportlinker, the PPM Software market size will grow from $4 billion in 2019 to over $5.6 billion in 2024. That’s an impressive compound annual growth rate of 6.9 percent! #Nice

You may be aware that over the past few years, Artificial Intelligence has become increasingly important for businesses. Organizations will leverage artificial intelligence in project portfolio management to help them with project prioritization, outcome selection, data analysis and financial decision-making. Soon, this reliance on AI will lead to the development of automated PPM Software with AI integrations. #Welcome AI

Furthermore, it is impossible to overstate the value of agile methodologies; project managers will break down the project portfolio and related work into manageable chunks by taking inspiration from agile software development. This will enhance stakeholder collaboration throughout the entire process leading to faster and optimized outcomes.
 

To Sum Up

Organizations use Project Portfolio Management Software to identify, prioritize, coordinate, monitor, and align projects with their strategy and goals. This method analyzes the risk-reward ratio of each project, the available resources, the duration of the project, the anticipated results, etc., to find the ideal balance between projects.

For example, during the last quarter of the year, businesses can use a fourth quarter planner tool integrated with PPM Software to ensure all ongoing projects are completed on time and meet strategic objectives. Project portfolio management places more emphasis on the bigger picture than project management, which is concerned with the effective completion of individual projects. Whether it's road trips or business projects – you can't miss out on the magical planning wizard, PPM Software!