PPM Perspectives

Making "pesto" and managing projects - Huh?

Yesterday in a call I said I would submit a post to PPM Perspectives about making pesto sauce, joking that PPM really stood for Pesto Pasta Mangia (mangia=eat in Italian). Afterward, I realized it was actually a very good idea; but then again, being Italian I may have somewhat of a bias. Read on and you'll discover the astonishing lessons for successful projects hidden in making a good pesto :)

Culure Fit

There was an excellent article in January 2008 by Mark Mullahy about the "Politics of Portfolio Management."  Certainly, one could just as easily write about the politics of CRM, or Supply Chain automation, or choosing your water cooler vendor.  The point I'm making here is simply that any organizational change can become political.

The Project Network Part 2

The Project Network Part 2 from Demian Entrekin on Vimeo.

Bottoms Up

3. Bottoms Up from Demian Entrekin on Vimeo.

Supply and Demand

In a June 25, 2007 article by Christopher Koch, CIO magazine interviews two McKinsey consultants about a trend to separate Supply from Demand within the IT organization. The article is titled "Why IT Executives Split Staffs to Create Supply, Handle Demand for Technology Services." While I'm not sure the article answers the question of Why, it does at least make the claim that this trend is happening, and that the positive impacts are substantial.

IT Governance Biopsy

I've read through the excellent posts on the Yahoo groups discussion on IT governance, and I enjoy the debate, especially the mode of questioning and learning.

I've been working on (banging my head against?) taking Project Portfolio Management (PPM) solutions to market for 5 years now and many of the issues you are talking about are critical to our clients.

One thought I would throw into the pile is that IT leaders need to start by establishing a simple, non-technical understanding of "IT Value."

Information Uncertainty

I was working on some Use Case scenarios the other day and I came across an interesting idea. I had started by working with a macro-level view of a generic PPM process, and I was digging down into some of the micro processes as well. The first reaction to this kind of exercise could very well be a big yawn, but good use case grunt work can help you see things you couldn’t see before.

PPM as a Service

I have expanded my thoughts on an earlier post on Software as a Service for PPM.

Software as a Service (SaaS): As SaaS continues to move from interesting to viable to a competitive threat, PPM solutions are ideally suited to run as SaaS applications, otherwise known as PPM On Demand. There are several reasons why SaaS is so well suited for PPM: rapid deployment; team collaboration; reduced risk of failure; tighter vendor/customer relationships; reduced cost of implementation and support. But perhaps the biggest reason is the rapid innovation cycle. SaaS is at least twice as fast at delivering innovations to customers, and as a result PPM using a SaaS model is evolving rapidly.