Digitalization and Collaboration
The market for project and portfolio management (PPM), software is constantly changing. It’s becoming so rapid that it’s difficult for practitioners to keep up-to-date with the latest offerings.
This is an edited version a white paper that I co-authored with colleagues for the PMI EMEA Summit. This article will discuss emerging software in the PPM market and how it should be selected and implemented in accordance with a digital strategy. This holistic view will increase success rates and get more support from end users.
Let’s first look at the many tools available to PPM practitioners.
Stick or Twist? Finding a Tool
Gartner reports that “big change is driving PPM leaders to reconsider their approaches to IT PPM,”
They also found that many of the traditional PPM vendors on-premises are now offering fixed-price, fixed-scope cloud-hosted applications with relative success. The market is confusing. You can either stick with what you know, but move to the cloud or switch to a digital offering.
Project management professionals are always looking for lean and agile tools to support their daily work. They often look beyond the tools offered by their organizations.
Organisations also require greater project collaboration to manage more complex projects and better portfolio analytics to manage portfolio risk. However, they cannot find a single tool that will satisfy all of their needs.
Gartner analysts concluded that the PMO software market is still in its infancy and that they feel uncomfortable showing the right way. This pushes organisations to use only one project management tool. They recommend that practitioners use tools on a project by project basis and avoid standardization.

But we need standard tools
This message is not in line with the reality that you will be working in a project environment. You will need a set standard tools to complete a job.
We observed a consistent request from project managers: they are constantly looking for alternative tools and asking for information about project management tools that are agile, open-source, web-based, cloud, or cloud.
We aren’t sure if this is the reason for our desire to explore and adopt new technology.
Researching the Potential Uses of PPM Tools
Aiming to offer project managers direction and information on how to approach emerging project management tools and to explain what they can do with and expect from each of these tools, Maria Cristina Barbero and Niccolo Siani started a research project under a partnership between The University of Rome “La Sapienza” and the largest Italian IT services firm, Engineering Ingeneria Informatica Spa, which acted through its 100% controlled management-consulting firm, Nexen Business Consultants Spa.
It is easy to find technical information online for each project management tool. They are often compared on the basis of technical aspects and contextual aspects.
Comparing Tools to A Case Study
Instead of following that approach, the research focused instead on proving the functionality and usability of tools through the use a real 7-page case that required the use the most relevant project management functionalities and team collaboration. It covered the identification of requirements, interconnecting tasks and resources, planned values, actual value, baselines, performance measures as well as forecast techniques.
The research team compiled a list of approximately 90 emerging collaborative and project management tools from an online search. They were able try the following.