Grow Your Own PPM Solution

Two-thirds of organizations use a homegrown PPM solution. Here’s a better way to do it.

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Your Challenge

Throwing expensive technology at bad process rarely works, yet 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. In this case, the technology is aggravating process problems instead of solving them.

Our Advice

Critical Insight

Get your processes in order before you invest in expensive technology. Once you have streamlined and road-tested your processes, you can look at implementing a more complex tool in the long term.
Focus on adoptability. The entire PPM vendor community has less than 20% market share. PPM solutions have mostly failed to help organizations.
PPM solutions are living tools. Make sure that the solution has room to grow and continuously improve with the organization.

Impact and Result

Develop an affordable, adoptable, and effective PPM solution using widely available tools, based on Info-Tech’s ready-to-deploy templates.
Customize the solution to your organization’s capability and PPM requirements to ensure higher adoption rates among end users.
Validate your processes using the homegrown tool before investing in an expensive commercial tool.

Contributors

Martin Baclig, Project Manager, Project and Change Support Office, Alberta Innovates Technology Futures
Molly Clayton, PMO Manager, Hyatt Corporation
John Hansknecht, Director of Technology, University of Detroit Jesuit High School and Academy
Ben Leighton, Academic IT Lead, Durham University
Nancy Roberge, Technical Advisor, Government of Canada
Jochen Sievert, Director of Information Technology, Zeon Chemicals
James Simkins, IT Planning Director, Baptist Health Care

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See how all the steps you need to take come together, with tools and advice to help with each task on your list.

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Get to Action

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.

Assess PPM capability

Assess current PPM capability and set up the Project Portfolio Workbook.
Build and implement the Project Portfolio Workbook

Gather PPM requirements and implement the PPM solution.

Guided Implementation

This guided implementation is a five call advisory process.

Guided Implementation #1 - Assess PPM capability

Call #1: Discuss the results of the current state assessment and/or scorecard diagnostic.
Call #2: Define PPM processes and pilot the Project Portfolio Workbook with your portfolio data.

Guided Implementation #2 - Build and implement the PPM solution

Call #1: Define the implementation requirements of your PPM solution based on your organizational capability and your portfolio needs.
Call #2: Build the Project Portfolio Workbook to meet your organization’s PPM requirements.
Call #3: Implement the solution and use organizational change management best practices to ensure a smooth adoption.

Schedule Your First Call

Onsite Workshop

The Purpose

Assess the current state of project portfolio management capability at your organization. The activities in this step will inform the next steps of this blueprint 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 view of your current portfolio capability.
A cost & benefit analysis of your PMO.
A fully functional high-level PPM solution in Excel.

Activities:		Outputs:
1.1	Assess your current state	Tool success analysis SWOT analysis
1.2	Set up the Project Portfolio Workbook	Project list Resource list

The Purpose

Define a list of requirements for your PPM solution that meets the needs of all stakeholders. It will also include 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

Define requirements for the PPM solution.
A fully customized PPM solution in your chosen platform.
An action plan for implementation and managing resistance.

Activities:		Outputs:
2.1	Define the implementation requirements	Requirements definition document Implementation action plan
2.2	Implement the PPM solution	PPM standard operating procedure