Grow Your Own PPM Solution
- As portfolio manager, you’re
responsible for supporting the intake of new project requests, providing
visibility into the portfolio of in-flight projects, and helping to facilitate
the right approval and prioritization decisions.
- You need a project portfolio management (PPM) tool that promotes the maintenance and flow of good data to help you succeed in these tasks. However, while throwing expensive technology at bad process rarely works, many organizations take this approach to solve their PPM problems.
- Commercial PPM solutions are powerful and compelling, but they are also expensive, complex, and hard to use. When a solution is not properly adopted, the data can be unreliable and inconsistent, defeating the point of purchasing a tool in the first place.
Our Advice
Critical Insight
- Your choice of PPM solution must be
in tune with your organizational PPM maturity to ensure that you are prepared
to sustain the tool use without having the corresponding PPM processes collapse
under its own weight.
- A spreadsheet-based homegrown PPM solution can provide key capabilities of an optimized PPM solution with a high level of sophistication and complexity without the prohibitive capital and labor costs demanded by commercial PPM solution.
- Focus on your PPM decision makers that will consume the reports and insights by investigating their specific reporting needs.
Impact and Result
- Think outside the commercial box. Develop an affordable, adoptable, and effective PPM solution using widely available tools based on Info-Tech’s ready-to-deploy templates.
- Make your solution sustainable. When it comes to portfolio management, high level is better. A tool that is accurate and maintainable will provide more value than one that strives for precise data yet is ultimately unmaintainable.
- Report success. A PPM tool needs to foster portfolio visibility in order to engage and inform the executive layer and support effective decision making.
Grow Your Own PPM Solution Research & Tools
Start here – read the Executive Brief
Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should grow your own PPM solution, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:
- Grow Your Own PPM Solution – Phases 1-3
1. Right-size your PPM solution
Scope an affordable, adoptable, and effective PPM solution with Info-Tech's Portfolio Manager 2017 workbook.
- Grow Your Own PPM Solution – Phase 1: Right-Size Your PPM Solution
- Portfolio Manager 2017 Cost-in-Use Estimation Tool
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2. Get to know Portfolio Manager 2017
Learn how to use Info-Tech's Portfolio Manager 2017 workbook and create powerful reports.
- Grow Your Own PPM Solution – Phase 2: Meet Portfolio Manager 2017
- Portfolio Manager 2017
- Portfolio Manager 2017 (with Actuals)
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3. Implement your homegrown PPM solution
Plan and implement an affordable, adoptable, and effective PPM solution with Info-Tech's Portfolio Manager 2017 workbook.
- Grow Your Own PPM Solution – Phase 3: Implement Your PPM Solution
- Portfolio Manager 2017 Operating Manual
- Stakeholder Engagement Workbook
- Portfolio Manager Debut Presentation for Portfolio Owners
- Portfolio Manager Debut Presentation for Data Suppliers
4. Outgrow your own PPM solution
Develop an exit strategy from your home-grown solution to a commercial PPM toolset. In this video, we show a rapid transition from the Excel dataset shown on this page to a commercial solution from Meisterplan. Christoph Hirnle of Meisterplan is interviewed starting at 9 minutes.
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Workshop: Grow Your Own PPM Solution
Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.
1 Scope a Homegrown PPM Solution for Your Organization
The Purpose
Assess the current state of project portfolio management capability at your organization. The activities in this module will inform the next modules by exploring your organization’s current strengths and weaknesses and identifying areas that require improvement.
Set up the workbook to generate a fully functional project portfolio workbook that will give you a high-level view into your portfolio.
Key Benefits Achieved
A high-level review of your current project portfolio capability is used to decide whether a homegrown PPM solution is an appropriate choice
Cost-benefit analysis is done to build a business case for supporting this choice
Activities
1.1 Review existing PPM strategy and processes.
1.2 Perform a cost-benefit analysis.
Outputs
Confirmation of homegrown PPM solution as the right choice
Expected benefits for the PPM solution
2 Get to Know Portfolio Manager 2017
The Purpose
Define a list of requirements for your PPM solution that meets the needs of all stakeholders.
Key Benefits Achieved
A fully customized PPM solution in your chosen platform
Activities
2.1 Introduction to Info-Tech's Portfolio Manager 2017: inputs, outputs, and the data model.
2.2 Gather requirements for enhancements and customizations.
Outputs
Trained project/resource managers on the homegrown solution
A wish list of enhancements and customizations
3 Implement Your Homegrown PPM Solution
The Purpose
Determine an action plan regarding next steps for implementation.
Implement your homegrown PPM solution. The activities outlined in this step will help to promote adoption of the tool throughout your organization.
Key Benefits Achieved
A set of processes to integrate the new homegrown PPM solution into existing PPM activities
Plans for piloting the new processes, process improvement, and stakeholder communication
Activities
3.1 Plan to integrate your new solution into your PPM processes.
3.2 Plan to pilot the new processes.
3.3 Manage stakeholder communications.
Outputs
Portfolio Manager 2017 operating manual, which documents how Portfolio Manager 2017 is used to augment the PPM processes
Plan for a pilot run and post-pilot evaluation for a wider rollout
Communication plan for impacted PPM stakeholders