The document discusses the results of a survey about Project Portfolio Management (PPM) and Project Management Offices (PMOs). Key findings include: 1) Most organizations have PPM processes, methodologies and tools in place but still see room for improvement in governance, especially regarding risk management and decision making power. 2) While strategic goals guide PPM, portfolios are often defined by business lines rather than goals. Cost reduction is the most common strategic objective for projects. 3) Over 75% of respondents have a PMO to support PPM, most often set up by business line. PMOs' main responsibilities include support, administration and standards. 4) Governance works best for

1. PPM and PMO in the current market
In relation with Strategic Goals, IT Governance and
lessons learned from implemented Solutions
Spring 2012
Capgemini

3. 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

5. 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
PPM and PMO in the current market 1

6. PPM and PMO in the current market 2

7. 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
PPM and PMO in the current market 3

8. 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
Finance
Public
Industry
Retail
Non-Profit
Consultancy & IT
Research & Development
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
Strategy
Strategic Mapping & KPI Dashboarding
Benefits Mapping & Tracking
Benefits Logic
People Organization
Competence profiles Project- versus line organization
Personal development of PM’s Project Management organization
PM training & Assessment Portfolio Office
Coaching Project Management Office
PM Awareness for sponsors Project Support Office
Change way of working Assessments (Quick Scan, P3M3, OPM3)
Project team collaboration Project Centre
Processes
Integrate new methods
Management of issues, risk, changes Methods and Tools
Project and Programme Management Project Portfolio Management Solutions
processes Reporting
Portfolio Management processes: Interfacing
Transformation mapping Project archiving and lessons learned
Road mapping Project Management Templates
Capacity and Resource Management
Portfolio constrains
PPM and PMO in the current market 4

9. 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
1. Cost Reduction 54
2. Quality Improvement 46
3. Quality & Governance 46
4. Projects external customers as a service 42
5. Compliance Legacy 38
6. Growth 25
0 25 50 75
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 ™).
PPM and PMO in the current market 5

10. Exhibit 4: Governance of Project Portfolio works well in these areas
100%
75%
50%
25%
N/A
0% Disagree
Planning
Organization
Progress (Monitoring &
Change management
Risk management
Business Case Management
Quality Management
Agree
Control)
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
Business Line (62%)
Supplier (0%)
Funder (0%)
Product Line (8% )
Strategic goal (23%)
Other (8%)
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
Corporate (31%)
Division (23%)
Department (15%)
Other (31%)
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.
PPM and PMO in the current market 6

11. To balance the portfolio, the main criteria on which projects are prioritized are ‘Strategic
alignment’ and ‘Resource Utilization’.
Exhibit 7: Basis for balancing portfolios
100%
75%
50%
25%
Disagree
Agree
0%
Resource Utilization
Time-to-Market
Optimize risk
Short and long term
We Don't prioritize and
Strategic Alignment
Budget
effects
optimize
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)
50
25
0
Strongly Agree Agree (25%) Disagree (42%) Strongly disagree
(17%) (17%)
Further improvement can be found in re-evaluating running projects when re-balancing the
portfolio (so not contemplating future projects only).
PPM and PMO in the current market 7

12. Exhibit 9: Biggest challenges to establish a well functioning Portfolio Management
1. Required Competence
2. Decision making power
3. Mandate and Ownership
4. Aggregation and availability of right data
5. Internal Politics and power struggles
6. Clear process and procedures
7. Guidelines and methods/models
8. Too many interdependencies between projects
9. Too many programs programs and projects
0 25 50 75 100
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 With 67% updating 1-3 times a year, this challenge
process with frequent update cycles seems to be addressed
Consider financial but also non-financial With strong focus on strategic alignment and
criteria e.g. impact on strategy, resource utilization this indicates a shift away from
attractiveness, or probability of success only using financial criteria.
Aim for a more systematic approach and ‘Mandate and Ownership’ as well as ‘Internal Politics
accept the dominating factor of IT project and power struggles ‘still appear as clear challenges.
selection is still gut feeling and political New Portfolio Management standards and
influence 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]
PPM and PMO in the current market 8

13. 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
75
50
25
0
Strongly Agree Agree (62%) Disagree (15%) Strongly disagree
(23%) (0%)
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
Hub and Spoke Model (15%)
Decentralised PMO's per BL (54%)
One centralized PMO (8%)
N/A (23%)
PPM and PMO in the current market 9

14. 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
Project Management Program Management Portfolio Management
Office Office Office
1. Administering
1. Giving support 1. Giving support the project,
program, portfolio
2. Administering the 2. Administering
2. Staffing
project, program, the project,
projects
portfolio program, portfolio
3. Supplying 3. Supplying
3. Advising top
standards for tools standards for
management
for projects tools for projects
4. Maintaining 4. Managing the
4. Staffing projects processes and portfolio, program,
methods project
5. Maintaining 5. Staffing
processes and projects 5. Giving support
methods
6. Advising top 6. Supplying
6. IT-Projects and
management standards for tools
business projects
for projects
7. Managing the 7. Competence 7. Maintaining
portfolio, program, Development processes and
project methods
8. Advising top 8. IT-Projects and 8. Competence
management business projects Development
9. Managing the
9. Competence portfolio, 9. IT-Projects and
Development program, project business projects
0 25 50 75 0 25 50 75 0 25 50 75
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.
PPM and PMO in the current market 10

15. Exhibit 14: Areas in which the governance of project portfolios works well
100%
75%
50%
25%
N/A
0% Disagree
Planning
Organization
Progress (Monitoring &
Change management
Risk management
Business Case Management
Quality Management
Agree
Control)
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
100%
75%
50%
25%
N/A
0% Disagree
Planning
Monitoring & Control
Organization
Blueprint
Communication & Stakeholder Mngt
Management of Dependencies
Benefit management
change management
issue management
risk management
Financial Management
Business Case Management
Quality Management
Resource Management
Agree
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.
PPM and PMO in the current market 11

16. 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
6 Months 12 months 2 years
1. Supplying tools 1. Maintaining 1. Competence
for projects processes and Development
methods
2. Maintaining
2. Operational
processes and 2. Administering the
Projects
methods project portfolio
3. Managing the
3. Managing the
3. Staffing projects portfolio, program,
portfolio, program,
project project
4. Administering the
4. Giving Support 4. Giving Support
project portfolio
5. IT-Projects and 5. Supplying tools
Business projects 5. Staffing projects for projects
6. Managing the
6. Operational 6. Administering the
portfolio, program,
Projects project portfolio
project
7. Operational 7. Supplying tools 7. Advising top
Projects for projects Management
8. Competence 8. IT-Projects and
8. Giving Support
Development Business projects
9. Maintaining
9. Competence 9. Advising top processes and
Development Management
methods
10. Advising top 10. IT-Projects and
10. Staffing projects
Management Business projects
0 25 50 0 25 50 0 25 50
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.
PPM and PMO in the current market 12

17. 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
Home Grown
Principal Toolbox 6%
Clarity
10%
32%
Other PPM Tool
10%
EPM
None 13%
26%
MS Project
3%
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:
PPM and PMO in the current market 13

18. Exhibit 18: PPM Management areas that are supported by IT Tooling
100%
75%
50%
25% N/A
0% Disagree
Program / Project
Management
Project Control
Portfolio Management
Resource Management
Knowledge Management
Project Cost
Agree
Management
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
2
around PPM Solutions and IT Governance . 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
1. Planning & Control
2. Standardization
3. Coordination and Communication
4. Transparency
5. Time to Market
6. Knowledge Management
7. Cost reduction
8. Quality Control
0 25 50 75
2
PPM Solutions for IT Governance – The User Perspective [2007-08 – Tjie-Jau Man, Erwin Dunnink]
PPM and PMO in the current market 14

19. Exhibit 20: Overview of how well the objectives of the 4 most important goals for a PPM
solution have been reached after implementation
Planning & Control Standardization
50 50
25 25
0 0
Not reached Hardly Reached Well Fully Not reached Hardly Reached Well Fully
at all reached half way reached reached at all reached half way reached reached
Coordination & Communication Transparency
50 50
25 25
0 0
Not reached Hardly Reached Well Fully Not reached Hardly Reached Well Fully
at all reached half way reached reached at all reached half way reached reached
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)
Planning&Control
Transparency
Standardisation
Coordination&Communication
Cost reduction
Time-to-market
Other
Quality Control
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
% respondents selecting this objective
% achieved after software implementation
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
PPM and PMO in the current market 15

20. 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:
50%
% of respondents
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
Very dissatisfied Very satisfied
PPM solution Other tools
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
Portfolio Management Program / Project Management
60 60
40 40
20 20
0 0
Improve or (Switch to) No plans for Improve or (Switch to) No plans for
extend current New tool improvement extend current New tool improvement
tool tool
Resource Management Project Cost Management
60 60
40 40
20 20
0 0
Improve or (Switch to) No plans for Improve or (Switch to) No plans for
extend current New tool improvement extend current New tool improvement
tool tool
Project Control Knowledge Management
60 60
40 40
20 20
0 0
Improve or (Switch to) No plans for Improve or (Switch to) No plans for
extend current New tool improvement extend current New tool improvement
tool tool
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.
PPM and PMO in the current market 16

21. 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
6 Months 12 months 2 years
1. Resource
Allocation 1. Time & Expense 1. Financial Project
Management Management Management
2. Project Execution 2. Customer and
2. Program Delivery
Management Partner
Management
management
3. Program Delivery 3. Idea & Portfolio 3. Idea & Portfolio
Management Management Management
4. Service Delivery 4. Financial Project 4. Project Execution
Management Management Management
5. Financial Project 5. Resource
5. Service Delivery
Management Allocation
Management
Management
6. Project
6. Time & Expense 6. Time & Expense
Execution
Management Management
Management
7. Resource
7. Customer and 7. Service Delivery
Allocation
Partner management Management
Management
8. Idea & Portfolio 8. Program Delivery 8. Customer and
Management Management Partner management
0 25 50 0 25 50 0 25 50
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
PPM and PMO in the current market 17

22. 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.
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23. 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.
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