Do the Right Thing with PPM
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Instant Visibility
PPM also offers another benefit: instant visibility into the end result of a completed project. This visibility is an important aid in calculating the return on investment (ROI) of an IT project. Ironically, this calculation can be more difficult to make when a project succeeds than when it fails. It is fairly easy to place a cost on a project that goes poorly. For example, if the benefits of an IT project are delayed, it is fairly easy for the CIO to calculate the project’s penalty. By contrast, a successful project can be relatively easy to conceptualize, but difficult to quantify.
This is where PPM can also help. Once the CIO has a solid project management methodology, projects will be completed on time and become defect-free. As a result, the project team can be disbanded quickly, which also means the CIO’s post-launch support costs drop sharply. Over time, the cost of projects and the overall burden to the business during the project’s lifecycle are both reduced significantly. The business’s level of satisfaction with the CIO’s performance is increased just as significantly, too.
Lane F. Cooper is an editor and analyst covering the impact of technology on business operations.
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Getting Started with PPM
PPM implementations typically begin with a comprehensive effort to take stock of all projects in a detailed manner. The IT team needs to capture various levels of information in a way that can be analyzed and compared. PPM experts say this information should include:
- The business objectives that will be advanced by the project
- The key technical elements of the project
- The key human resources allocated to the project
- A detailed breakdown of all the costs associated with the project
- Due dates for completion
- Key milestones on the way to Completion
- Each project’s priority, based on its impact on business objectives
Finally, it is important to understand that PPM is an ongoing process, not just a series of periodic events. |
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CA Clarity PPM: Delivering a Single Version of Truth
The PPM category is taking off, with some analysts projecting that the market will cross the billion-dollar mark in annual spending before the end of the decade. CA is right on top, providing customers with a best-in-breed solution, says Carl Landers, VP of Product Marketing at CA.
The solution called CA Clarity™ Project and Portfolio Manager — provides a single system of record with real-time views into an organization’s comprehensive IT portfolio. This includes the broad array of services, projects, assets, and associated resources and costs. Through executive dashboards, CA Clarity PPM gives executives access to real-time information to make fact-based investment decisions while ensuring better alignment with business objectives.
It also addresses a blind spot that has existed in the way IT organizations manage their operations. For quite some time, solutions have existed to manage aspects of IT operations — like security monitoring, support calls into the service desk and asset tracking of specific hardware and software. It has been difficult, however, to aggregate this information with budget and resource commitments to get a clear idea of the big picture. Senior managers see their projects as if they were sitting too close to an old-fashioned television screen: It’s all dots, and they can’t discern what’s on the screen.
“For CIOs, what we’re really capturing and managing with CA Clarity PPM is the complete picture of all IT commitments,” agrees Landers. This is because CA Clarity can gather information from all of the disparate solutions around an enterprise and combine it with financial and resource information. The result is a detailed, comprehensive view of the information that technology and business unit leaders need to make good IT decisions. —L.F.C. |
