With more and more organizations now having centralized project management offices (PMOs), project portfolio management has also become more prevalent as a role. Project portfolio management is about having strategic oversight over many or even all of an organization’s projects, allowing greater alignment with the company’s strategic objectives.
The goal of effective project portfolio management is to ensure resources, timelines and focus are monitored and supported. Considering the breadth of the role’s responsibilities, it’s no surprise that it is a field which requires as much technological help as possible. That’s where project portfolio management tools come in.
How Project Portfolio Management Tools Can Help
Improved tech and dedicated management tools have changed the way project management happens and are having the same effect on the broader scope of project portfolio management. Here are just some of the ways they are doing it.
Resource Distribution and Tracking
One of the core responsibilities of a project portfolio manager (PPM) is to ensure that the organization’s resources are being deployed in the best manner possible and are performing as expected. Modern teams rely on flexible resource usage to adapt to razor-thin success margins. If the wrong resource is left sitting on an unimportant task, the whole project can get backed up.
With the transparency into project progress that is offered by project portfolio management tools, it is possible for anyone with appropriate access to drill down into specific project tasks and individual resources to maintain oversight of how they are performing and where resource strain and capacity exist.
Pipeline Management
Kind of like how air traffic controllers always have to plan for future slot availability when bringing each plane in to land, PPMs have to consider the project pipeline and where one task or project finishing can free up time and resources to fit another one in. Having the right tools in place means that PPMs can gain high-level oversight of where each project is beginning and ending, allowing superior planning and pipeline management.
Portfolio Monitoring
As a link between the C-suite and individual PMs and team leaders, the responsibility for a PPM’s portfolio of projects ultimately rests with them. This means that, even if everything’s going perfectly (which isn’t exactly a common occurrence), it’s still vital for them to be able to check in and find out the status of each project. If they can do this remotely through an online portfolio management tool and avoid getting in the way of actual project work, then all the better.
Collation and Analysis of Project Data
The advantage of specifically created project portfolio management tools over spreadsheets and other kinds of management aids is the ability to gather data, crunch numbers and gain real insight into how all of an organization’s projects are performing. With the adaptable and customizable dashboards offered by Planview AdaptiveWork’s products, data from across the whole organization can be compiled and presented as the exact snippets of information that relate to your company’s unique KPIs.
Project portfolio management has been transformed through the introduction of custom-built tools which are designed to support the role. Planview AdaptiveWork’s range of products offer unprecedented insight and tracking as well as greatly improving the ease with which PPMs can oversee multiple projects at the same time. To find out why Planview AdaptiveWork leads the way in project portfolio management tools (as voted for by Gartner Peer Insights Customers’ Choice), get in touch to organize a guided demo today.
