Project Portfolio Management (PPM) Needs Visionaries
Digital transformation — the shift from analog information and manual processes to agile, data-driven business processes for efficiency and innovation — has revolutionized businesses in nearly every industry. There’s no question that digital technology transforms most aspects of businesses today, reducing and streamlining human intervention as well as automating repeatable processes. However, digital transformation is as much about the evolution of how people work as it is about the technologies that they use.
For many companies, Project Portfolio Management (PPM) is deeply impacted by their digital transformation journey on both fronts. Project portfolio management software helps companies prioritize and manage a list of projects in order to achieve segmented business objectives. What categorically defines PPM as a technology doesn’t fully address the broader challenges facing companies. With traditional PPM, business leaders are still left asking how they can give their people everything they need to be more productive in one location where strategy, resources, and work align. They’re also still left asking how they empower their people to do their best work faster.
Put simply, traditional PPM only addresses part of the problem in a world that increasingly demands more — more productivity, more visibility, more collaboration, more data, more accountability, and more results. That’s why Workfront thinks that if there is one clear take away from the May 2019 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Project and Portfolio Management, written by Daniel Stang, Mbula Schoen, and Anthony Henderson, it’s that PPM is evolving. In fact, Workfront believes that it must evolve, and it needs Visionaries to chart a course to a place where organizations have a clear view into the breadth, complexity, and lifecycle of modern work. According to the report, “As PPM evolves in its best practices to support scaled digital business, so too will the PPM vendors and technologies available in the market.”
Enter modern work management. In order for organizations to reach the full potential of their digital transformation journey, they need complete visibility into work. With this visibility, people make smarter decisions, focus on high-value work, increase output, streamline their operations, and secure a record of all activity of work, accessible to everyone on the team, at any time of day, no matter where in the world they are working.
Whereas traditional PPM is focused on projects, modern work management combines the strengths project management software, intelligent work automation, and in-context collaboration to empower people to do the right work in the most effective way possible. Anyone who has ever managed a project can appreciate the benefit of being able to see, measure, and analyze critical factors such as resources, outcomes, and priorities while also keeping everyone on the same page. Any organization that sets out to transform their enterprise—optimizing, connecting, and adapting the way they work to accelerate their success—can understand the value of a single source of truth where strategy, resources, and work align.
With modern work management, digital technology and the way people work are both fully optimized.
According to Gartner, Workfront is positioned highest for its ability to execute in the Visionaries Quadrant. With Workfront and modern work management, Workfront believes the vision for PPM just got a lot brighter.
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