Controlling a particular project is hard enough for a Project Supervisor but when a Project Supervisor is in charge for controlling several projects, it can turn out to be a terrifying job.
Organisations and businesses that are running multiple projects need to understand and evaluate the progress of each individual development task and its impact on the overall progress in the main project. For this, project managers need to be able to compile reports of individual development and present an overall picture to management. This will allow businesses and organisations to decide which group of business plan provide the greatest return on investment, ensure those projects are allocated the best fit available resources and more importantly those plans are delivered on time and on budget.
Software Packages for Project Portfolio Management (PPM)
Much project portfolio management software is available and proves very helpful. It has made things quite easier for the project manager. A bottom up approach is used by few of the project portfolio management software packages. The data is saved in the database of individual projects. This is collected and is brought in use to highlight the progress made of every single individual project. It makes it effortless for management to come to a decision. Management can notice the progress made and question for the reasons for any project not meeting its given agenda in the form of a single chart.
There are a number of packages of project portfolio management software that aim at simplifying the tasks. It makes the life or a project manager easier. A common approach for most of these software is the bottom up approach. In this approach, each project has its own database in which data related to its different subtasks is fed. The regularly updated data helps knowing the progress and direction of the project and hence, makes decision-making easy. The charts drawn assuming the data can give a clear overview of the progress of the project, and if there is any difficulty to meet the target.
The Project portfolio management resembles a financial portfolio management. Like in a financial portfolio, here you make an inventory for all projects in progress. The inventory has standards for project name, time duration, cost, objective and importance. The projects are then accordingly prioritised into low, medium and high. A status is given to each project to let the manager know the progress according to time schedule.
It gives a bigger picture of the project and is therefore, very important for effective decision making for the companies and organizations. It tells about all the problems that can arise or internal and internal factors that can cause a change in progress of the project.
Major complaint coming from the project manager's side is of having limited resources. Project managers are eager to complete their project during the allocated time span and cost. They also have a wish to work on bigger projects, which is having the management's all attention. The appropriate project portfolio management software can be helpful for the project manager to achieve both these goals. The right project portfolio can not be bought until the project manager gets successful in convincing the management by explaining all its positive impacts on the business.
Therefore, it is very important to convince your managers and supervisor to buy project portfolio management software. You need to make the people including your managers and supervisors aware of its benefits and its dire need for the success of projects undertaken buy the company.
Before approving the software package for the purchase, management should be familiar with all of the project manager's needs. After having an analysis, project manager has a right to select that which package suits the requirement.