Top 3 Mistakes to Avoid When Selecting a Project Portfolio Management Software

Selecting your next project portfolio management software with confidence

Selecting a project portfolio management (PPM) solution for 2022 can be quite challenging if you don’t have clear selection criteria. A quick glance at existing solutions yields an assortment of tools with different focuses, different capabilities, and very different time-to-value benefits.

Finding the right solution for your organization is critical to accelerate growth, meet business goals, and keep everyone focused on the same objectives and priorities.

In this article, we share the top 3 mistakes that we found to be most commonly made when evaluating project portfolio management software. Use our checklist of features below that you should look out for especially if your organization is running multiple elaborate projects with cross-functional teams and dependencies, where clarity and an easy-to-use solution for all stakeholders will be key.

Mistake #1: You’re being misled by so-called “capabilities”

Today, several ticket management systems and communication systems in the marketplace are misleadingly labeling themselves to be a “Project Management” solution or even a “PMO/PPM” solution. They are oftentimes misleading because they do not provide the high-level view of a project portfolio and the necessary capabilities for organizations running multiple projects, with multiple dependencies and stakeholders.

To identify the right solution, use this checklist of items that contains fundamental criteria you should look out for to qualify the right project portfolio management solution:

• Top-down planning: Starting from your strategic goals down to your tactic operations
• Portfolio visualization: High-level view of all your projects, with timelines and statistics
• Tracking capabilities: Ongoing project progress tracking and analytics
• Project visualization: Project diagram that people understand
• Share options: Ability to collaborate with people over a shared, online timeline
• Resources management: Mid- and longer-term resources capacity calculation
• Data collection: Ability to add metadata, files, and notes to any project object
• Built-in collaboration: Communication within the project team at all levels
• Budget management: Target, plan, and capture actual expenditures
• Task management: Short-term execution in the context of your projects

Mistake #2: The PPM tool is not really that “easy”

If you didn’t fall for mistake #1, you already know that you will be getting the basic capabilities from your selected solution. But how long will it take to extract the expected value? Is the effort-to-value reasonable, and is it worth the effort at all? These questions are extremely important since so many project management tools just can’t get through the day-to-day difficulties and existing (bad) habits of their users. Some solutions are just too complicated, too hard to adopt, or just not modern enough.

Consider the ability to deploy with these criteria:

1. Is this solution adoptable for various users?
   
   Will people learn it alone or will it require weeks, or even months of training? Solutions that require expert know-how will mean that it will be difficult to get everyone within your organization to contribute to a single source of truth, which in turn will create data islands, and ultimately make it more difficult for PMOs to stay aligned with their goals.
   
2. What kind of support do I get as an admin when onboarding the solution?
   
   Questions are inevitable. Make sure that the solution you choose will have onboarding support that is easily accessible, fast, and helpful. It will save you time and effort, and it will increase the chance of success.
   
3. Customization
   
   You don’t really like to go back to the vendor with every change. What kind of customization capabilities are built-in for the end user? Make sure that you don’t need any external help, and that these are self-managed options.

Mistake #3: Choosing a solution that doesn’t give you a competitive edge

Having a competitive edge not only will put you ahead of your competition, but it will also help open the door to new opportunities and innovation in your organization.

Here are several leading-edge capabilities to consider:

• Strategic goals alignment – Allow the director-level to connect the organization’s strategic goals with the operational plans
• Customized visualization – Allow users to build their own high-level views, dashboards, and data tables
• Project lifecycle management – Managing projects goes beyond task assignment and execution. See your projects through from ideation to delivery in the same platform that you execute.
• Mobile adoption – Don’t count on people installing mobile apps! Modern solutions can be adopted into mobile screens with the web app and a standard web browser
• Remote work or separately located team members – Ability to collaborate over a shared timeline from multiple locations in real-time
• Project prioritization – With so many project ideas and pipeline projects, prioritization is key to keep the team focused on what really matters
• Integrations – How the solution interacts with other applications, office suites, and Enterprise operations solutions
• Risk management – An integral part of project management methods, project risk analysis must be tracked to avoid obstacles and delays.

Summary: Avoid These Mistakes When You Choose Proggio

If you’re running elaborate projects that involve cross-functional teams and dependencies, and you’re looking to avoid these mistakes, the good news is that you don’t have to waste your time in your search. Proggio is the project portfolio management solution that was crafted for organizations looking to with all of the significant capabilities that you need to deliver as you wish with ease and full control.

 Want to gain control of your project portfolio?

Good luck in selecting your next solution!