Why project portfolio management matters for digital transformation

Leaders around the world are moving fast to embrace digital transformation to achieve high performance objectives, including better financial returns, workforce diversity, and environmental stewardship. According to Deloitte, implementing digital technologies can help organizations accelerate progress toward these goals by 22%.

What strategies are in place at your organization to ensure successful digital transformation to better compete in the marketplace? It’s not just a matter of money. There’s an element of planning involved with enterprise agility—and a multitude of projects and products in play at any one time.

It’s a safe bet that project portfolio management (PPM) has a significant role in:

• Improving project visibility

• Keeping teams targeting the same goals

• Helping teams make better decisions

• Achieving project success

With such high stakes, it makes sense as an enterprise decision-maker to improve your understanding of PPM. That way, you can learn what tools are available today to achieve effective PPM outcomes and stay on track with projects to achieve digital transformation goals.

Project basics

No matter your job or industry, at the most basic level, projects refer to the work an organization engages in to change—and enhance—some aspect of how it operates. This could be streamlining internal processes and systems to save money and minimize risk, developing new products and services, or improving ways to market, sell, and support those new products and services.

Thousands of business activities can be classified as projects that require various steps, carry high price tags, and need to be managed—hence, the rise of PPM.

PPM and managing project resources

Things change frequently in project work. One critical need is resource management: having the right people with the right skills in the right place at the right time. That’s difficult to achieve in a constantly shifting environment. With PPM, you can readily consider:

• The resource capacity (the people available) you have for a project

• Resource capabilities you have in the people assigned to a project

• How resources are being used
  
  

Figure 1: Resource management

Benefits of IT business management software

Spreadsheets don’t cut it if you’re trying to optimize PPM and resource management. This is where implementing an IT business management software solution can deliver significant value.

An IT business management solution can help you effectively manage resources, plan the transition from one project to the next, and accurately forecast when resources will be required or released (see Figure 1).

It also allows for optimal use of those resources and helps ensure the best possible return on the investment in them. Additionally, the solution can accurately tackle money management and improve project status reporting.

Payoffs of PPM

Projects exist to deliver enhancements to business operations and to make an organization run better. When projects are managed effectively and efficiently using PPM, your organization can have a higher chance of achieving your goals and objectives and optimizing value—particularly when it comes to digital transformation efforts.

Learn more about PPM in our ebook, Project portfolio management 101.

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