1. Info-Tech Research Group1 1 Info-Tech Research Group, Inc. is a global leader in providing IT research and advice. Info-Tech’s products and services combine actionable insight and relevant advice with ready-to-use tools and templates that cover the full spectrum of IT concerns. © 1997-2015 Info-Tech Research Group Inc. Grow Your Own PPM Solution Two-thirds of organizations use a homegrown PPM solution. Here’s a better way to do it. Info-Tech's products and services combine actionable insight and relevant advice with ready-to-use tools and templates that cover the full spectrum of IT concerns.© 1997 - 2015 Info-Tech Research Group

2. Info-Tech Research Group2 2 This Research is Designed For:This Research Will Help You:This Research Is Designed For:This Research Will Help You: This Research Will Also Assist:This Research Will Help Them: Our understanding of the problem PMO directors and CIOs who want an effective, affordable, and adopted PPM solution. PMO directors who are looking for more instruction regarding customization options for homegrown tools, as well as guidance for integrating this solution with SharePoint or Google Sites. PMO directors and CIOs who want to establish PPM process discipline before investing in a commercial tool. Reclaim capacity through more effective project prioritization and resource optimization. Manage the portfolio to take more immediate action on project risks and opportunities. Ensure the portfolio is regularly updated with timely, accurate, and useful data. Communicate more effectively with stakeholders, executive sponsors, and project managers. Customize the workbook to suit the needs of your organization. IT managers who want an effective and light- weight tool to help oversee multiple projects on one dashboard. IT managers who want a simple way to manage and track resource allocations. Prioritize and manage projects through the full project lifecycle (from inception to post- completion). Measure, manage, and optimize resource allocations across different projects and types of work.

3. Info-Tech Research Group3 3 Resolution Situation Complication Info-Tech Insight Executive summary As portfolio owner, you’re responsible for supporting the intake of new project requests, reporting progress of in-flight projects, and ensuring projects receive management support. Portfolio management requires tools for aggregating and communicating data on project costs, benefits, risks, and status. Commercial vendors offer powerful and compelling PPM solutions, but they are expensive, incredibly complex, and face low adoption among end users. Organizations often try to implement a commercial tool before establishing the process discipline required to sustain adoption. Organizations must grow their PPM maturity internally before trying to implement a commercial tool. This blueprint will help you develop an affordable, adoptable, and effective PPM solution using widely available tools, based on Info-Tech’s ready-to-deploy templates. The templates in this blueprint are designed to improve on basic PPM spreadsheets (using Microsoft Excel or Google Apps), and the storyboard illustrates two innovative approaches to provide a converged multi-user experience using Google Sites or Excel Services in SharePoint. Customize the solution to your organization’s capability and PPM requirements to ensure higher adoption rates among end users. 1.Focus on adoptability. The entire PPM vendor community has less than 20% market share. PPM solutions have mostly failed to help organizations. 2.Emphasize interaction over documentation. The job of a PPM tool is to facilitate and support conversations and decisions. Organizations often fail at PPM when updating and maintaining data in the tool becomes the end in itself.

4. Info-Tech Research Group4 4 Working without a PPM solution allows time and money to vanish without being accounted for While it might be unrealistic to count every hour, you at least have the ability to estimate your capacity for new projects and avoid these pitfalls: Time and money wasted on cancelled projects. Taking control of your PPM practice means starting fewer bad projects and halting those that turn bad as soon as possible. Quite often, they turn bad because of external factors, and the PPM solution helps people to incorporate external factors with project status updates to have continually valid insight. Unutilized resources. A significant percentage of members with a low level of PPM process maturity run a far higher risk of having potentially useful resources spending hours and/or days NOT contributing to the portfolio, as leaders delay otherwise-sensible decisions because they lack information. Mismatched skills. Human capacity is continually squandered through inefficient matching of skills to assignments. The improved PPM practice will reduce this waste by bringing assignment optimizations closer to the surface. Inefficiency-driven waste will be reduced as duplicate assignments are avoided and unnecessary interruptions are reduced. Info-Tech Insight Aged portfolio data hinders the organization’s ability to make decisions. Without timely and accurate portfolio data, decision-makers are forced to act without insight, which leads to over-allocation. Ultimately, this lack of usable, actionable data leads to added cost, lost revenue, and diminished trust in the PMO or portfolio owner. How many weeks per year is your reporting up to date? This blueprint will help you account for time and reclaim capacity through improved PPM practices. Think of the PMO or portfolio owner as the accounting department for time.

5. Info-Tech Research Group5 5 Info-Tech’s approach to PPM combines leading schools of thought with practical, tactical insider research Why they’re essential: they offer indispensable advice on the alignment of IT strategy and business strategy. Where they fall short: frameworks such as COBIT and ITIL start from the assumption that IT and the business-side exist on an even plane. In truth, most IT departments are there to “serve” the needs of the business, and do not play a role in agenda setting. Why our approach fits better: our approach equips IT departments with the processes to manage stakeholder relations and interject their voices when the business side is setting priorities. Why they’re essential: these frameworks offer fundamental advice about the role of the PMO as an intermediary between the project and executive levels. Where they fall short: these types of frameworks often present a view-from-above portrayal of PPM that doesn’t ring true to the reality of most IT departments, who struggle to attain portfolio visibility not “from above,” but from the trenches. Why our approach fits better: our approach takes into account the realities that our members are facing and offers a simplified, less process-heavy path toward portfolio visibility. Governance frameworks such as COBIT and ITIL: Project Management Frameworks such as PMBOK and PRINCE2 “ITIL calls for a very structured team approach, and it wouldn't work for us in our small shop… We'd just be adding a layer of complexity on the shoulders of those already tasked with keeping the lights on.” - Steven Porter, CIO, Touchstone Behavioral Health (quoted in Caretta) Info-Tech Insight These frameworks assume that organizations have the time and capability to follow them properly. Unless IT has the resources and discipline to implement a rigorous PPM framework, the more viable approach is to implement a set of lightweight processes and tools that match the department’s resource capacity and capabilities. You can introduce more rigor as your capability level matures. -ISACA. COBIT 5. 2012. -PMBOK, 2013. -itSMF, ITIL 3.0, 2007 -PRINCE2, 2009.

6. Info-Tech Research Group6 6 PPM solutions aren’t working for most organizations As portfolio owner, you’re responsible for project portfolio management (PPM) activities, including: Supporting the intake of new project requests. Maintaining the backlog of required projects. Reporting progress of in-flight projects. Ensuring projects receive management support. You need tools and procedures to support these responsibilities, but low adoption shows that commercial PPM tools are difficult and costly to implement. Source: Info-Tech Research Group, n=55 Of Info-Tech clients use a homegrown PPM tool. 67% Only 16% use a commercial PPM tool. Don’t have a PPM solution. 16% 17% 37% 30% 17% 3% 13% Info-Tech Insight You need to establish PPM discipline before you can succeed with a commercial tool. A homegrown tool can make things easier while you build the processes you need to support a more sophisticated solution.

7. Info-Tech Research Group7 7 Commercial PPM tools have far more functionality but are vastly more costly, complex, and difficult to adopt Granular timesheet management Workflow and team collaboration Robust data and application integration Advanced what-if planning Mobile usability High-level resource management Project status, cost, and risk tracking Business case scoring and prioritization Multi-user reporting and request portal Clients often find that it can be difficult to gain adoption with commercial tools. Though homegrown solutions may have less functionality, the higher adoption level can make up for this and also potentially save your organization $1,000-$3,000 per user per year if you forgo a commercial tool entirely.

8. Info-Tech Research Group8 8 Most PPM solutions are based on Excel, but these tools require care and discipline to be used effectively Maintaining a single version of truth as the spreadsheet is copied and emailed across the organization. Maintaining quality as cells and formulas are edited, especially with multiple editors/contributors. Maintaining compatibility across different versions of Excel. Quickly producing compelling, on-demand reports for executive stakeholders. Maintaining continuity when you leave for vacation or move to a different role. You can use intranet-based solutions to overcome some of these problems, but they are often deployed with insufficient process around how they should be used and updated, or where to find them. The biggest problem is that anyone can create Excel spreadsheets — badly. - James Kwak, “The Importance of Excel”The Importance of Excel baselinescenario.com Spreadsheets are the most common PPM tool. They can be created with minimal cost and effort. But remember, when something is easy to do, it’s also easy to do badly. You can use spreadsheets to create a quick-and-dirty project portfolio, but without careful planning and process design, this will lead to the following challenges:

9. Info-Tech Research Group9 9 Looking beyond the peer groups in this study, Info-Tech has identified correlations between certain responses (across 44 in-scope PMOs) in an effort to predict the common scenario for success managing a project portfolio. There is a strong correlation between PPM best practices and the delivery of on-time projects The highest correlation in this study was that of “Quality of project communications” to “Projects delivered on time” (0.7). Info-Tech’s Project Portfolio Workbook acts as a hub for project communications so that you can ensure projects meet their deadlines. Info-Tech Research Group PPM Current State Scorecard, 2015 Our study found that there is a relatively high correlation of “Communication of resource capacity” to “Projects delivered on time” (0.50). Info-Tech’s Project Portfolio Workbook tracks and communicates an up-to-date view of resource capacity so that projects are appropriately resourced to meet their deadlines.

10. Info-Tech Research Group10Info-Tech Research Group10 There is a strong correlation between PPM best practices and the delivery of in-scope projects Info-Tech Research Group PPM Current State Scorecard, 2015 The highest correlation in our study was that of “Quality of project communications” to “Delivery of in-scope projects” (0.61). Info-Tech’s Project Portfolio Workbook acts as a hub for project communications so that portfolio managers can keep track of any projects that begin to deviate from their intended scope. Our study also found that there is a relatively high correlation of “Communication of resource capacity” to “Projects delivered within scope” (0.55). Info-Tech’s Project Portfolio Workbook tracks and communicates an up-to-date view of resource capacity so that projects do not stray from their intended scope and put unnecessary demands on resources. Looking beyond the peer groups in this study, Info-Tech has identified correlations between certain responses (across 44 in-scope PMOs) in an effort to predict the common scenario for success managing a project portfolio.

11. Info-Tech Research Group11Info-Tech Research Group11 Assess performance and satisfaction with individual PPM activities and functions. Gain insight into the sources of resource waste in your organization. Identify and address the greatest causes of waste in the portfolio. Build a data-driven case for investing in PPM improvement initiatives. Use the diagnostic to: Info-Tech’s PPM diagnostics provide a comprehensive view of your portfolio management strengths and weaknesses, including Project Portfolio Management, Project Management, Customer Management, and Resource Utilization. Use Info-Tech’s Diagnostics Program for a comprehensive assessment of your PMO’s current state From Info-Tech’s PPM Current State Scorecard This step is highly recommended but not required. Call 1-888-670-8889 to inquire about or request the PPM Diagnostics.

12. Info-Tech Research Group12Info-Tech Research Group12 Info-Tech Research Group Helps IT Professionals To: Sign up for free trial membership to get practical solutions for your IT challenges www.infotech.com Quickly get up to speed with new technologies Make the right technology purchasing decisions – fast Deliver critical IT projects, on time and within budget Manage business expectations Justify IT spending and prove the value of IT Train IT staff and effectively manage an IT department “Info-Tech helps me to be proactive instead of reactive – a cardinal rule in a stable and leading edge IT environment. - ARCS Commercial Mortgage Co., LP Toll Free: 1-888-670-8889