What PPM Software Can’t Do

Project portfolio management (PPM) software can solve problems for organizations struggling to maintain a unified view of their active and scheduled projects.

PPM software can provide visibility and a single source of truth that drives alignment across different teams and stakeholders. It can also promote data-driven decision-making, facilitate a logical intake process, help objectively prioritize projects, and lock down project terms. Indeed, PPM software often makes sense for organizations with more than 10 active projects.

Where some organizations run into trouble, however, is by expecting PPM software to solve their challenges without understanding that it’s only as good as the people and plan behind it.

Here are three ways PPM software can let you down—and what you can do about it.

It’s Only as Good as the Data You Feed It

PPM software’s ability to generate meaningful reports and insights depends on the quality and consistency of the data within. There are a couple of related potential limitations.

First, it’s imperative that data is entered using consistent standards and interpretations to avoid errors that lead to faulty insights. This means your organization must rely on strong data governance that defines owners, timing, nomenclature, and data standards. It is essential to convey what good looks like and to develop training materials. Success also means ongoing work to ensure high levels of engagement, so the administrative effort required to ensure the tool is working as intended is high.

Second, PPM software houses mostly lagging information. It’s important to remember and to communicate to stakeholders that PPM data is not real-time and therefore is not ideally suited for time-critical decision-making.

These are among the reasons that organizations shouldn’t over-engineer their PPM systems. Don’t add features until you understand the value and the manual lift required to ensure the software delivers essential information.

It Can Be an Unnecessary Resource-Drain

Many PPM software products are feature-rich, and the demos can include dashboards glittering with the sort of insight and detail that executives love. As organizations prepare to adopt PPM software, there’s a common temptation to use every module and data field available.

Resist the urge to over-architect. It’s crucial to remember that those fields will rely on human input going forward. And not every potential dashboard panel is worth the engagement required to support it. Instead, figure out precisely what your organization needs from PPM software and configure your platform based on those goals.

Cross-System Integration is More Aspiration Than Reality

Some of the most compelling insights from PPM software come when project data is Integrated with information from other platforms such as those used by finance or HR. In a perfect world, these systems would communicate well with one another and share data freely. In reality, that seldom happens. It’s far more common for an administrator to have to pull data manually from those systems before entering it into the PPM software.

Again, there’s substantial potential benefit, but accessing it requires more human effort than many organizations understand or anticipate.

PPM software can enable your organization to manage its project portfolio with greater clarity, prioritization, and strategic insight. IPM has used it with many of our clients to gain efficiency vs. manual processes, improve global visibility, and enhance executive alignment for decision-making. But delivering on that promise requires active governance, a smart system tailored to your environment, and perhaps more ongoing human effort than you expect.