Question 1

What is Project and Portfolio Management Software?

Accepted Answer

As opposed to project management software which focuses mostly on execution, project and portfolio management (PPM) software helps companies create and implement strategies for project portfolios. A portfolio is a mix of interrelated projects, meaning they have a similar scope and shared resources. For instance, an architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) company may have three portfolios: one for architecture and design, another one for civil and industrial engineering projects, and a third for residential and commercial construction. Each portfolio may include dozens or hundreds of projects which need to be managed and monitored as a whole. 
 The high number of projects that are part of a portfolio makes it difficult for companies to plan, allocate resources, execute, and monitor performance. Typical project management software is used to manage individual projects but usually doesn’t include robust features for portfolio management. 
 Key Benefits of Project and Portfolio Management Software 
 
Customer experience and satisfaction are essential to companies focused on delivering projects. Customer loyalty is achieved only when the company constantly delivers good quality work at reasonable prices. Project quality is difficult to manage across multiple portfolios and PPM helps to address this challenge.
Project and portfolio visibility allow stakeholders across the company as well as partners and customers to track milestones, deliverables, and identify potential issues. While tracking individual projects is relatively easy, only PPM software is able to monitor hundreds of projects simultaneously. Also, since the projects in a portfolio are interrelated, unexpected changes in one task may propagate across multiple projects and harm the entire portfolio.
Tracking costs and profitability avoids unnecessary spending, compares estimated and actual costs, and provides insights on how to improve revenues. There are many costs related to project portfolios (resources, contractors, labor, etc.), and each one of them needs to be monitored closely. At the project level or for each task, the expenses may seem insignificant; but when analyzed by portfolio, they may accumulate into a noteworthy amount.
Improves business agility and accelerates project delivery across a company or group of companies. Agility helps companies adapt to customer demand and market changes, and improved deliverability makes the business more efficient.

Question 2

Why Use Project and Portfolio Management Software?

Accepted Answer

The main benefit of PPM platforms is their ability to manage portfolios of numerous projects and maintain the relationships between them. This helps companies plan and execute dozens or hundreds of projects simultaneously. Additional benefits of PPM software include the following: 
 Collaboration across projects and portfolios — Collaboration between multiple teams and external stakeholders is difficult without robust software. PPM systems allow everyone involved in projects to communicate and share data without overwhelming them with unnecessary information. 
 Analytics and performance — Portfolios of projects are the main revenue driver for many professional services providers and their performance directly impacts profitability. It is therefore essential that companies use analytics to track portfolio performance, identify bottlenecks and risks, and find opportunities for improvement. 
 Strategic alignment across the company — Medium and large companies tend to be bureaucratic and rigid, negatively impacting the performance of the business. PPM provides features to define and monitor common goals which improves business alignment and company performance.

Question 3

Who Uses Project and Portfolio Management Software?

Accepted Answer

PPM software can be used by anyone in the company and even by external users such as partners and customers. It is therefore critical to clearly define user roles and access rights to protect intellectual property, confidential data, and the privacy of all the parties involved. 
 Head of project management office (PMO) — A PMO is a team or department within a company that defines and implements standards for project management. For large companies, PMO employees also need to create standards for project portfolios. Once created, the standards are enforced across the company to ensure compliance and communication with customers and partners. PPM standards need to be updated regularly to keep up with changing regulations. PMO teams also use PPM software to monitor how standards are implemented and take corrective actions when required. 
 Project managers — Project managers use PPM to plan and execute projects that are part of various portfolios. They also need to ensure that everyone working on a project follows the standards defined by the PMO department. Project managers also use PPM to maintain direct communications with customers, identify risks, and escalate issues to managers and executives. 
 Executives — Managers and executives benefit from data analysis, reporting, and dashboards that provide information on the status of projects, associated costs, risks, and compliance. Data is also used to identify how to optimize portfolios as well as new business opportunities. Also, historical project portfolio information is the starting point of any budgeting and forecasting activity. 
 Partners and contractors — Large portfolios of projects often require the involvement of third-party companies, vendors, suppliers, and independent contractors. Companies are also partnering with freelancers increasingly when it is too expensive to hire and train employees for tasks that aren’t critical for project success. All these external stakeholders need to access project and portfolio information, ideally through a portal rather than documents and spreadsheets. Companies need to be careful to protect their intellectual property and customers’ privacy when sharing data externally.

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