Top Five Project Portfolio Management Trends for 2014

Daptiv, a leader in project portfolio management (PPM) software, recently announced its top predictions for project portfolio management (PPM) in 2014. Organizations that thrive in the current economic environment are those that are on top of the latest trends. Daptiv predictions focus on enterprises spearheading the creation of strategic PMOs, influenced by the reliability of benefits forecasting.

Click through for five project portfolio management trends expected for 2014, as identified by Daptiv.

Increased adoption of PPM for integrated portfolio management.

The evolution and rapid uptake of SaaS PPM has increased coordination with ancillary IT management applications. ALM (application lifecycle management), agile and ITSM vendors have been leveraging PPM through alliances, integration and/or acquisitions. This trend began to have an impact in 2011 and Daptiv expects this to continue to play a key role in PPM’s market growth through 2014 as it becomes more closely tied into other key business systems.

More PMO heads will measure effectiveness on business results.

While introducing tools, using methodologies, mapping project management practices, sending project managers to training, and increasing the number of professional PMs in the organization are important metrics for a PMO head to collect and report on, they do not speak to the effectiveness of the PMO from a business perspective. To judge business effectiveness, PMO heads will determine if their work has had a positive, quantifiable effect on the business in terms of troubled project reduction, correlation to achievement of key business results, lower project manager attrition, and faster time to market. In 2014 the practice of measuring the outputs, not the inputs, of project management will gain further traction.

Getting started with PPM benefits realization.

2014 will see a much-needed shift of PMOs from being highly tactical to more strategic. More formalized strategies will align departmental goals with the business objectives of the organization, consequently delivering end-to-end benefit. Gartner estimates that less than 15 percent of enterprises systematically measure the business outcomes of their project initiatives. Most IT and PMO organizations focus their measures on price and performance, not value. This year will move the needle by shifting the language and the focus from on time and on budget to speaking about the resulting business benefits.

Portfolio management encourages project entrepreneurship.

Daptiv sees more companies directing tight budgets toward IT and process improvement via portfolio management to get a handle on enterprise project investments. Project entrepreneurship means project managers must develop an “entrepreneurial” mindset. In 2014, this mindset will enable project and portfolio leaders to take on risks, foster innovation and focus on business value, rather than just looking at the traditional triple constraints of time, budget and quality.

Rolling-wave planning (agile).

Rolling-wave planning is the process of planning a project in phases as it proceeds, rather than completing a detailed plan for the entire project before it begins. Planning is dependent on speculation and the further out the plan, the more quickly the strategy will become obsolete as conditions change. In rolling-wave planning, one will plan over time as the details in the project become clearer. While this methodology has become standard in software development, Daptiv forecasts rolling-wave planning will continue to garner even broader adoption in 2014.