PPM and PMO In The Current Market

PPM and PMO in the current market

In relation with Strategic Goals, IT Governance and

lessons learned from implemented Solutions

Spring 2012

Capgemini

Authors: Klaas Bruinsma

Erwin Dunnink

Yves Vervloesem

Hendrik Zondag

Capgemini Nederland B.V. Capgemini Belgium N.V./S.A.

Papendorpse weg 100 Bessenveldstraat 19

PO Box 2575 – 3500 GN Utrecht B-1831 Diegem

Phone. +31 30 689 00 00 Phone: +32 2 708 1111

© 2012 Capgemini. No part of this document may be modified, deleted or expanded by any process or

means without prior written approval from Capgemini

1 PPM and PMO in the current market

Table of Contents

Foreword ........................................................................................................................ 3

1. Introduction ........................................................................................................... 4

2. PPM and Strategic Goals ...................................................................................... 5

3. Governance is Key in the PPM Organization ...................................................... 9

4. PPM Solutions (Processes, Methods and Tools) .............................................. 13

5. Our vision on the future of PPM and PMO ........................................................ 17



Foreword

At Capgemini, we have a passion for Project Portfolio Management (PPM) and Project

Management, and our thought leadership in this area is evidenced by the books, surveys and

papers that our consultants contributed to in the past few years. In these publications we aim to

share our insights and experiences gained in the field.

The last couple of years, supporting functions like PMOs have become an increasingly important

element in improving governance of the project-based organization. Therefore, this study is built

on a survey that treats PPM processes and tools, as well as the role of PMOs in organizations.

The authors (Klaas Bruinsma, Erwin Dunnink, Yves Vervloesem, and Hendrik Zondag) have

distilled the main findings from the survey and placed these in light of recent developments in the

area of PPM and PMOs.

I would like to thank the respondents for their time and effort to share their experience.

I hope that you enjoy reading this paper and especially that you can combine our thought

leadership with yours, in order to help you grow even further.

Lia de Zoete

Principal Consultant PPM/PMO


1. Introduction

In 2011 we sent out a questionnaire of 51 questions to learn more about how our customers and

other contacts are dealing with their Project and Portfolio Management (PPM) including the

support and governance around it enabled by the PMO’s, and received responses from 34 of our

customers and contacts, in a variety of organizations.

Exhibit 1: Distribution of responses across industries

Based on our integrated approach (exhibit 2) to Project Portfolio Management (PPM) and Project

Management Offices (PMO’s), the findings are clustered around the following four topics:

■ PPM and Strategic Goals

■ Governance is Key in the PPM Organization

■ PPM Solutions (Processes, Methods and Tools)

■ Our vision on the future of PPM and PMO

In our experience, the components in the figure below are key in bringing about improvement in

project-based organizations. And in order to bring or maintain this continuous and sustainable

improvement, all the areas (exhibit 2) need to be addressed in a pace that can be absorbed by

the organization. The bottom-line is that we see organizations getting grip on status and financials

of their investment portfolios through an integrated approach.

Exhibit 2: Our integrated approach for improving Project-based organizations

Finance

Public

Industry

Retail

Non-Profit

Consultancy & IT

Research & Development

StrategyStrategic Mapping & KPI Dashboarding

Benefits Mapping & TrackingBenefits Logic

PeopleCompetence profiles

Personal development of PM’sPM training & Assessment

CoachingPM Awareness for sponsors

Change way of working

Project team collaboration

OrganizationProject- versus line organization

Project Management organizationPortfolio Office

Project Management OfficeProject Support Office

Assessments (Quick Scan, P3M3, OPM3)

Project Centre

ProcessesIntegrate new methods

Management of issues, risk, changesProject and Programme Management

processesPortfolio Management processes:

Transformation mapping

Road mappingCapacity and Resource Management

Portfolio constrains

Methods and ToolsProject Portfolio Management Solutions

ReportingInterfacing

Project archiving and lessons learnedProject Management Templates


2. PPM and Strategic Goals

Project Portfolio Management (PPM) and Project Management Offices (PMO) contain the

disciplines of strategic alignment, prioritization and governance of initiatives, projects and

programs. Within this definition, governance encompasses the structures, accountabilities,

policies, standards, processes and control mechanisms that are the basis for decision-making.

They help to answer the key strategic questions 'Are we doing the right things?', 'Are we doing

them the right way?' and ‘Are we realizing the benefits?’.

Project and programs are set up related to a variety of strategic goals. The survey shows that

‘Cost Reduction’ is the most common objective, followed by ‘Quality Improvement’ and ‘Quality &

Governance’. ‘Growth’ is not today’s most important objective, our respondents claim.

Exhibit 3: Programs/Projects are carried out with the following strategic goals

Project and program governance is needed to provide a decision-making framework that is

logical, robust and repeatable to govern an organization’s capital investments. In this way,

strategic goals remain the guiding lines.

Respondents indicate that Project Portfolio Governance works best in the areas of ‘Planning’ and

‘Progress Monitoring and Control’. For risk management the survey shows that there is still a

large area of improvement. Too often risk & issue management has a detailed project-based

view. With regard to risk management, the solutions used could improve by offering an integrated

approach to risks and issues for the investments that are part of the portfolio. This may explain

the increasing interest for methods like Management of Risk (MoR ™).

25

38

42

46

46

54

0 25 50 75

6. Growth

5. Compliance Legacy

4. Projects external customers as a service

3. Quality & Governance

2. Quality Improvement

1. Cost Reduction


Exhibit 4: Governance of Project Portfolio works well in these areas

Portfolios are mainly defined per business line (62%) and not in the first place per strategic goal

(23%).

Exhibit 5: Criteria around which portfolios are created

Management of these portfolios is seen on all levels from corporate (31%), divisional (23%), to

department (15%) level. This requires different levels of analysis of partially the same data.

Exhibit 6: Levels of Portfolio Management

If we look at the criteria around which portfolios are created it seems contradictory that the survey

showed that strategic goals are the guiding lines for balancing portfolios. This is however not a

contradiction: business lines (product lines in some organizations) contain and translate corporate

strategic goals into their portfolios, and these strategic drivers are then used to align portfolios on.

0%

25%

50%

75%

100%

Change managem

ent

Risk managem

ent

Planning

Progress (M

onitoring &

Control)

Business Case Managem

ent

Quality Managem

ent

Organization

N/A

Disagree

Agree

Business Line (62%)

Supplier (0%)

Funder (0%)

Product Line (8%)

Strategic goal (23%)

Other (8%)

Corporate (31%)

Division (23%)

Department (15%)

Other (31%)


To balance the portfolio, the main criteria on which projects are prioritized are ‘Strategic

alignment’ and ‘Resource Utilization’.

Exhibit 7: Basis for balancing portfolios

Two-thirds of respondents acknowledge rebalancing portfolios is an essential part of truly

‘managing’ portfolios. Still more than half of the respondents indicate that their organizations’

portfolios are not well-balanced. For most, the Portfolio balance and content is reviewed several

times per year and most portfolios (67%) are re-balanced up to 3 times a year. Over 50% thinks

that their portfolio is not balanced well enough. The frequency of re-balancing however (multiple

times per year) indicates that portfolio management becomes decoupled from an annual budget

cycle (once per year). The importance of re-balancing portfolios seems acknowledged, and also

the importance as an input for the budget cycle.

One explanation for this high number of sub-optimally balanced portfolios is that more than half of

respondents answered that projects, once underway, are not killed. Even when their business

case is no longer valid, or projects with a higher priority need to be absorbed in the portfolio.

Exhibit 8: Respondents that actually stop Projects (and Programs)

Further improvement can be found in re-evaluating running projects when re-balancing the

portfolio (so not contemplating future projects only).

0%

25%

50%

75%

100%

Optimize risk

Short and long term

effects

Strategic Alignm

ent

Resource Utilization

Time-to-M

arket

Budget

We Don't prioritize and

optim

ize

Disagree

Agree

0

25

50

Strongly Agree (17%)

Agree (25%) Disagree (42%) Strongly disagree (17%)


Exhibit 9: Biggest challenges to establish a well functioning Portfolio Management

The multiple challenges above suggest that true Portfolio Management is still hampered,

especially by a lack of mandate, decision making power and in the first place by the required

competences for managing portfolios.

On the other hand we notice in our engagements that portfolio management and governance

practices have increased significantly. In a study of 2008, a number of challenges for IT portfolio

management were defined1. How well are some of these challenges currently addressed,

according to this survey?

Exhibit 10: Challenges for IT Portfolio Management

Study of 2008 This Survey

Make IT portfolio selection a continuous

process with frequent update cycles

With 67% updating 1-3 times a year, this challenge

seems to be addressed

Consider financial but also non-financial

criteria e.g. impact on strategy,

attractiveness, or probability of success

With strong focus on strategic alignment and

resource utilization this indicates a shift away from

only using financial criteria.

Aim for a more systematic approach and

accept the dominating factor of IT project

selection is still gut feeling and political

influence

‘Mandate and Ownership’ as well as ‘Internal Politics

and power struggles ‘still appear as clear challenges.

New Portfolio Management standards and

frameworks address this challenge (by setting up e.g.

Portfolio Offices, and by making management buy-in

a condition for portfolio management)

All together we see that the governance of Project Portfolio Management still has room for

improvement. It is noted as well that a process running well is not a given. Facilitating governance

by setting up specific organizational structures (like PMOs) or supporting Project Portfolio

Management (PPM) solutions can help.

In the introduction, we also mentioned Organization as a key component in improving project

based organizations. Let us take a look at how PMOs, as part of the organization, can improve

PPM practices.

1 Empirical Study into the State of Practice and Challenges in IT Project Portfolio Management’ [2008 -

Egon Gleisberg, Hendrik Zondag, Michel R.V. Chaudron]

0 25 50 75 100

9. Too many programs programs and projects

8. Too many interdependencies between projects

7. Guidelines and methods/models

6. Clear process and procedures

5. Internal Politics and power struggles

4. Aggregation and availability of right data

3. Mandate and Ownership

2. Decision making power

1. Required Competence


3. Governance is Key in the PPM Organization

In the last couple of years, companies improved their Project and Portfolio Management by

defining and improving the processes within the PPM domain, especially concerning the resource

and capacity management and the project and portfolio management. Organizations also

implemented Project delivery methodologies like PRINCE2 and PPM Tools.

All respondents in the survey have adopted a formal project method, and only 15% indicated that

projects are not always managed according to this –formal by definition- method.

Exhibit 11: Projects are managed according a formal project methodology

Having these PPM processes, methodologies and tools in place enables a company in getting

more grip on managing investments. Reaching a higher level of maturity can be achieved when

the organization around these PPM processes, methods and tools is set up correctly as well.

A PMO Office contributes to the right governance by:

■ Checking that the agreed methodologies and processes are followed;

■ Supporting the correct usage of tools;

■ Providing the means for control (as well on project level as on a higher managerial level).

In this way, a well functioning PMO can establish a standardized way of gathering project

intelligence and facilitate the right governance within the project and portfolio management of an

organization.

From our survey we learn that over 75% of the organizations have a support organization in

place. The majority of these organizations (54%) have a support organization set up per Business

Line, 8% have a centralized PMO set up and 15% have it set up according the Hub and Spoke

model where there is a centralized PMO with multiple smaller support offices located in different

parts of the business.

Exhibit 12: Organizational forms of PMOs

0

25

50

75

Strongly Agree (23%)

Agree (62%) Disagree (15%) Strongly disagree (0%)

Hub and Spoke Model (15%)

Decentralised PMO's per BL (54%)

One centralized PMO (8%)

N/A (23%)


The maturity of a support organization can be determined based on the tasks & responsibilities of

the PMO, how well PPM is covered by processes, methodologies and tools and if the organization

is set up with clear governance structure to get the best out of these processes and tools.

Exhibit 13: Main responsibilities of a PMO

The survey shows that the main responsibility of the project and program support offices lies

within giving support and administering the projects and programs as well as supplying standards

for tools. The portfolio office main responsibility besides administrating the portfolio is to staff

projects and advise top management.

0 25 50 75

9. Competence Development

8. Advising top management

7. Managing the portfolio, program,

project

6. IT-Projects and business projects

5. Maintaining processes and

methods

4. Staffing projects

3. Supplying standards for tools

for projects

2. Administering the project, program,

portfolio

1. Giving support

Project Management Office

0 25 50 75

9. Managing the portfolio,

program, project






methods

3. Supplying standards for

tools for projects

2. Administering the project,

program, portfolio

1. Giving support

Program Management Office

0 25 50 75




methods

6. Supplying standards for tools

for projects

5. Giving support


project



1. Administering the project,

program, portfolio

Portfolio Management Office


Exhibit 14: Areas in which the governance of project portfolios works well

Having the processes and tooling in place should enable the right governance within the

organization. According to the survey we see that governance of the project portfolio works well

for ‘Change Management’, ‘Planning’ and ‘Progress (Monitoring and Control)’.

Exhibit 15: Areas in which the governance of programs works well

Governance of programs works well for ‘Management of Dependencies’, ‘Monitoring & Control’,

‘Business Case Management’ and ‘Communication & Stakeholder Management’.

The survey however show that the governance of ‘risk management’ is not working well for both

programs and the project portfolio. An area to which a support office (PMO) can clearly contribute.

0%

25%

50%

75%

100%

Change managem

ent

Risk managem

ent

Planning

Progress (M

onitoring &

Control)


ent

Quality Managem

ent

Organization

N/A

Disagree

Agree

0%

25%

50%

75%

100%

Blueprint

Benefit managem

ent

change managem

ent

issue managem

ent

risk managem

ent

Planning

Managem

ent of D

ependencies

Monitoring & Control

Financial Managem

ent


ent

Quality Managem

ent

Com

munication & Stakeholder Mngt

Organization

Resource Managem

ent

N/A

Disagree

Agree


Companies seem to acknowledge the added value of a good functioning PMO because

respondents indicate that organizations with temporary PMOs consider setting up a permanent

PMO.

Exhibit 16: Plan to extend/improve PMO Services within the next 2 years

Respondents indicate they expect that within the next six months PMO Services will focus on

supplying tools for projects and maintaining processes and methods. Within the next year there

will be more focus on portfolio management and giving support. On the longer run (2 years)

PMOs will start focusing on competence development within the organization.

These increasing responsibilities of support offices require that the project portfolio processes are

truly embedded and have matured.

0 25 50

10. Advising top Management


8. Giving Support

7. Operational Projects


project

5. IT-Projects and Business projects

4. Administering the project portfolio



methods

1. Supplying tools for projects

6 Months

0 25 50







4. Giving Support


project



methods

12 months

0 25 50



methods





4. Giving Support


project



2 years


4. PPM Solutions (Processes, Methods and Tools)

In this section, we focus on automated solutions called Project Portfolio Management applications

(tools) including the methods and processes around it.

Most participant in the survey use some form of PPM solutions to help support the project related

processes in their organization. And they use a wide variety of solutions. Some have chosen for a

full blown PPM solution, others manage their processes with home-grown solutions. The

important resemblance is that a common way to register and track projects, programmes and

portfolios in an organization is key. A PPM solution offers this support.

The following figure shows the solutions in use among the respondents in this survey.

Exhibit 17: PPM Solutions/tools in use

Next to “real” PPM solutions, spreadsheets play an important role in controlling and managing the

project-related processes. This is common in almost all organizations. The main reason for this is

that everyone has spreadsheet software installed on their personal computer, and because of the

enormous flexibility it offers. There are however also some pitfalls, particularly from an

organizational point of view, the main one being that there is no single source of truth.

Over the past years, 74% of the participants have chosen to implement a PPM solution to boost

support for the PPM processes. Still it is recognized by 77% of the respondents that the role of

the project manager is a more important factor in project success than processes and solutions. It

underscores the title of this section that PPM solutions can only support.

Several studies have made clear that it is not easy for organizations to really gain the benefits of

PPM applications. Also this survey shows that only a very limited portion of the available

functionality is actually used. Next to this it is recognized that developing the key project portfolio

management necessities are a prerequisite for a proper use of the application. An approach we

recognize and which is also clearly visible in the results of this survey. When asked which

processes are supported in their organizations respondents indicated the following:

Clarity32%

EPM13%

MS Project3%

None26%

Other PPM Tool10%

Principal Toolbox10%

Home Grown6%


Exhibit 18: PPM Management areas that are supported by IT Tooling

We also learn that the main PPM processes covered by tooling are ‘Program / Project

Management’, ‘Resource Management’ and ‘Knowledge Management’. Surprisingly respondents

indicate tooling is hardly used for actual ‘Portfolio Management’, while this is a PPM process that

can benefit from an appropriate use of tooling (although there is more than just a mathematical

character to it, e.g. politics).

This is significantly lower than the outcomes of a previous survey conducted by Capgemini in 2007

around PPM Solutions and IT Governance2. At that time 44% of the respondents in that survey

indicated they used some form of tooling to support portfolio management. The same trend was noted

in the area of ‘Resource Management’.

Another interesting angle is the question whether the objectives stated before implementation of a

PPM solution are actually reached. Most respondents at least partially reached the most

important goals set beforehand, being getting more grip on ‘Planning and Control’ and improved

‘Standardization’ of the PPM processes. The figures are however not very promising. Not even

half of the respondents feel they have at least partially reached the goals for ‘Coordination &

Communication’ and for ‘Transparency’.

Exhibit 19: Objectives for implementing a PPM Solution

2 PPM Solutions for IT Governance – The User Perspective [2007-08 – Tjie-Jau Man, Erwin Dunnink]

0%

25%

50%

75%

100%

Portfolio Managem

ent

Program

/ Project

Managem

ent

Resource Managem

ent

Project Cost

Managem

ent

Project Control

Knowledge Managem

ent

N/A

Disagree

Agree

0 25 50 75

8. Quality Control

7. Cost reduction

6. Knowledge Management

5. Time to Market

4. Transparency

3. Coordination and Communication

2. Standardization

1. Planning & Control


Exhibit 20: Overview of how well the objectives of the 4 most important goals for a PPM

solution have been reached after implementation

When comparing the figures to the results of the survey of 2007, the most important differences is

the area of what has been achieved. In 2007 we published the following graph:

Exhibit 21: Objectives of the Tool, versus achieved (Survey 2007)

Next to some minor differences in what respondent see as the most important goals, the scores

for “achieve after software implementation” are lower now in 2012.

These differences might be explained by something we already recognized in 2007. When asked

for the satisfaction with the PPM solution versus any other home-grown solutions (often based on

Excel) we reported that about 25% was very satisfied with their PPM solution whereas almost

40% was very satisfied with their home-grown solution. The last couple of years organizations

0

25

50

Not reached at all

Hardly reached

Reached half way

Well reached

Fully reached

Planning & Control

0

25

50

Not reached at all

Hardly reached

Reached half way

Well reached

Fully reached

Standardization

0

25

50

Not reached at all

Hardly reached

Reached half way

Well reached

Fully reached

Coordination & Communication

0

25

50

Not reached at all

Hardly reached

Reached half way

Well reached

Fully reached

Transparency

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

Quality Control

Other

Time-to-market

Cost reduction

Coordination&Communication

Standardisation

Transparency

Planning&Control

% respondents selecting this objective

% achieved after software implementation


started to move away from the idea that the PPM solution should support all their PPM processes

and invested more in point solutions, if needed based on Excel.

Exhibit 22:

Of course there always remain aspects to be improved. When asked on which areas the

respondents envision to invest the next 12 -18 months regarding PPM solutions the scores are

more or less evenly spread:

Exhibit 23: Functional areas to invest in

Looking at these figures the respondents want to invest in a further enhancement of the support

by the solutions. Some by extending an existing solution, others by implementing a new

application. These initiatives will further improve the support of PPM processes.

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

Very dissatisfied Very satisfied

% o

f re

sp

on

den

ts

PPM solution Other tools

0

20

40

60

Improve or extend current

tool

(Switch to) New tool

No plans for improvement

Portfolio Management

0

20

40

60


tool



Program / Project Management

0

20

40

60


tool



Resource Management

0

20

40

60


tool



Project Cost Management

0

20

40

60


tool



Project Control

0

20

40

60


tool



Knowledge Management


5. Our vision on the future of PPM and PMO

Now that we have an idea on how most organizations work today, let us assess the directions in

which organizations could evolve in terms of PPM and PMO over the next two years.

When looking at the processes to be supported the respondents indicated the following:

Exhibit 24: Plan to extend/improve PPM Processes within the next 2 years

Based on the results from the survey as well as our experience we note a number of interesting

trends in the organizations we serve:

■ On the Organization side: a demand from the business to participate more actively in PPM,

both as an information provider to IT (what are the business strategies and requirements) as

well as an IT-information user (what is the status of the projects that I’m funding IT for). We

could call this “Corporate” Project Portfolio Management, moving away from IT PPM, thereby

further strengthening the focus on value delivered through projects, and further aligning

Business with IT, a trend started in the mid-2000s. This will also cause support offices

(portfolio offices) to continue to grow, as traditionally IT has been slightly more mature in PPM.

We see PMOs moving from a temporary project level to a continuous support entity for

portfolios of projects, on a higher level in the organization. Understanding the project pipeline

is key in true project portfolio management. This necessitates a sufficiently frequent updating

of individual project information, like current schedule, value, planned cost, and strategic

alignment. PMOs, empowered by senior management, continue to drive further

professionalization of the PPM organization, which includes the quest for more reliable and

timely project information quality. Enhancing this project information quality enables more

dynamic Project Portfolio Management.

■ On the Process side: an increased demand for executing projects in an agile mode. As more

and more product or software-developing organizations adopt an agile approach to

0 25 50

8. Idea & Portfolio Management

7. Customer and Partner management

6. Time & Expense Management

5. Financial Project Management

4. Service Delivery Management

3. Program Delivery Management

2. Project Execution Management

1. Resource Allocation

Management

6 Months

0 25 50



6. Project Execution

Management


Management



2. Customer and Partner

management


12 months

0 25 50

8. Customer and Partner management


Management



4. Project Execution Management




2 years


development, it should also leave the liberty to these self-organizing teams to choose how

they plan and track. This means the organization as a whole will have to provide operating

environments in which continuously help to remove the impediments that hinder teams

executing their project (using a Scrum framework, but also the more classic waterfall

frameworks).

Furthermore, currently the planned benefit (value) that projects will deliver is often not properly

measured or followed through. However, in an environment of continuous improvement and of

frequent re-ordering of priority, management of value during the execution phase will increase

in importance.

■ On the Tools/Solutions side: a demand for BYO (Bring Your Own) Devices. An increasing

number of employees in every organizations have purchased their own ICT device such as a

personal netbook, smartphone, tablet, etcetera, because this device fits their needs better than

the devices offered by their own organization. Although this may seems trivial in the area of

PPM, we note the first PPM Solution vendors offering access to (part of) their solution through

tablet, smartphone, and so on. This trend supports (and is supported by) another ‘continuing’

trend: SaaS or zero-client applications, and apps that support very personal productivity

needs, so that personal devices can still ‘contribute to’ enterprise-level management

information. With regard to communication: a demand for Collaborative Communication and

Document Sharing, replacing e-mail and attachments. In the coming years, as total change

budgets are expected to remain rather flat, it is key to optimize which initiatives to fund and

which to discard. Within departmental portfolios, we see rebalancing of funds between

projects. However, in order to optimize even further, departmental portfolios will increasingly

be an integral part of the organizational (corporate) portfolio. This means a multi-level,

integrated portfolio management, and will therefore also necessitate proper departmental and

corporate portfolio management, in addition to a solution that supports these management

activities.

The above, in our opinion, will have the following impacts on PPM/PMO processes and tools:

■ Organizations will continue to focus on implementing PPM tool support as “vanilla” as

possible. This means they are willing to adapt their processes to a certain extent to the

standard possibilities which a tool offers. Processes supported include pure planning and

tracking purposes both in a very detailed and a very high-level manner, so that Scrum teams

can still participate in the tooling ecosystem. Data ‘related’ to the PPM processes, like HR,

Finance, and so on, will be managed only in the respective tools that support those functions

(HR applications, Finance & Accounting systems, and so on). Organizations will move away

from an approach in which the PPM solution is highly customized to be able to deal with this

data. Organizations will rather ‘integrate’ the data collected in the PPM tool with data collected

in non-PPM tools by means of business intelligence (BI) solutions. With the reporting out of

these BI solutions, useful ‘integrated views’ can be produced.

■ Secondly we expect to see more PPM processes (and tools) that deal with Project and Service

Portfolio Management. After all, resources (infrastructure, financial, and human) are allocated

to both projects and services, so they need to be managed as one ecosystem.

■ Finally, organizations looking at “the cost of PPM” realize that PPM and PMOs have become a

necessary investment, which is returning not only qualitative benefits, but also quantitative.

They also realize they can further improve or rationalize the organization (e.g. find synergies,

centralize), people competences (e.g., coach on data quality, and proper use of process and

tooling), the tooling (e.g. keep the tooling useful, use only what you need), and processes

(straight-through processing of project-based information with less manual intervention, and

‘good enough’ processes). These investments in improvement, while reducing overall cost, will

even increase the benefits, as the capability increases to actually manage project portfolios,

and not just ‘look at’ project portfolios.


Final Conclusion

In line with our surveys and research of the past, this survey again indicates that PMOs and PPM

Solutions are important, although not the most important part in improving the project-based

organization.

A holistic, balanced approach to a step-by-step but simultaneous improvement of People /

Organization / Process / Tools (all in support of the Business Strategy) is still the most likely to

yield positive results in project-based organizations.

PPM and PMO In The Current Market

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