Ambition PMO Focus Group Sandra Arps, Agile PMO & Agile Transformation Consultant provides a step by step guide for evaluating and implementing a new Project & Portfolio Management Tool.

1. How to select and
implement a Project &
Portfolio Management tool
SANDRA @PMOGURU.COM

2. Agenda
Why a Project and Portfolio Management (PPM) Tool
Understand areas a PPM tool can help
Understand your tool – data
How to evaluate and select a tool
Scenario Planning example
Vendors
How to implement
Tool Challenges
Licensing consideration
What makes a tool implementation successful

3. SANDRA’S PERSONAL VIEW

4. About me
Why do I think I can comment on this topic?

5. ‘WHICH TOOL SHOULD I BUY?’

6. ‘It depends….’

7. Why a PPM (Project and Portfolio
Management Tool)?

8. Understand the areas a tool can operate
• Pipeline Management (capturing new ideas, new incoming work, new initiatives)
• Prioritisation of work (categorisation based on risk, complexity, strategic alignment,
technology)
• Resource Management (which role is available, who is available when and with which skills)
• When do we need to hire additional resources?
• Project Management (Risks, Issues, Decisions, Financials, Dependencies)
• Portfolio Management ($, Risk profile, Benefits)
TIP
Don’t just look at
Project
Management you
might need some
of the other areas
later on

9. Understand your tool - Data
Your data comes from:
• PMO creates basic ‘project shell’ within tool
• PMO captures high level information to
categorise project (prioritisation happen)
• PMO will start to move project through project
lifecycle (funding approved, status changes)
• Resource Manager will be notified and will
allocate team members and PM
• PM will start setting up project (budget, risks,
background, benefits)
• Team members will use timesheet function
• PMO runs reports and portfolio and provides
recommendations on performance improvements
• PMO can now assist with scheduling new
projects based on priority and resource
availability
•Resource Managers performs demand and supply
analysis – who is available when
• PM will manage and execute project (risks,
schedule, scope, time, decisions….)
• Time entered in timesheet will be converted to
cost
TIP
Capture your n2n
process ‘as it is’
and ‘how it should
be’ before
engaging vendor

10. Important – Your Data
• You challenge will be to get ‘clean’ data in the tool, in order to get the real benefit (rubbish in –
rubbish out)
• Define data standards
• When starting out have guidelines, glossaries, definitions
• For example: do team members work 8hrs per day or 7.5hrs?
• Is a PM always 100% allocated to projects? What about company meetings and admin time?
• If somebody enters 10hrs per day in a timesheet – will there be overtime paid?

11. Tips on how to evaluate and select a tool
1. Is there a methodology your company prefers
Agile – Kanban Board style, story card estimation
PMBOK / Traditional – Schedule with WBS structure
2. Is your company mainly using contractors? If yes, quick onboarding and the use of an
‘industry standard tool’ might be good option
3. Choose at least 3 different vendors to get an idea of what tools can do

12. Example
List of areas

13. Tips on how to evaluate and select a tool
4. Get a list with your overall requirements first (see slide before)
5. Use scenario planning for areas which are important for you – don’t use functions
6. Have your scenarios ready before you invite vendors

14. Example Evaluation Criteria: Project Risk Management
• Example Feature:
• The PPM tool need to be able to perform Project Risk Management
• Better Example Scenario:
• When creating a new project from a template (can I have templates?), most common risks should have
been added by default. The PM can set a contingency (% off overall budget) to each risk. The PM can
select or flag risks for different reporting either Status report or SteerCo report. Risks can be printed.
Risks can be easily exported into Excel. Single risks can be converted into issues. The ‘look and feel’ and
the layout of issues will be the same as the risk layout. Once a risk is converted to an issue the
contingency will be added to the project financials and a notification to the sponsor will be generated.

15. Sandra’s “ Must Haves”
• Well documented API to integrate to other systems (like Finance system)
• Portfolio Management (rolling up project data)
• Resource Management (supply & demand, utilisation)
• Financials (NPV, by financial year, by project lifetime, cost and sell rates per resouce, )
• Out of the box Reports / how easy is it to customise reports? Can you print them?
• Test of import of large MS project schedule

16. Vendor Management
1. Treat them nicely, they will appreciate it and you will get more benefits
2. Work out a win-win situation for both of you e.g. successful implementation – reference
customer
3. Understand vendor structure: Sales team, presales, consulting team
1. You will not pay for presales
2. You will pay top $ for consulting
3. Maximise as much presales time as you can!!!
4. Ask them for an example implementation and deployment plan, sometimes you will get this
at ‘no cost’
5. Ask them if they have an example ROI calculation, which could help you with your business
case

17. Evaluate Software
Once you have selected a vendor, ask for a Sandbox environment where you can spend some
time familiarizing yourself with the tool
• Set at least one two full days aside to test
• end to end scenario: from an idea to closing a project to benefit realisation
• ask a PM and a Team leader to join
• log into the tool using different roles to see security settings
• run your reports and queries, print
• import some of your existing projects (schedule, risk list…)
• export project data
Document your findings. You will asked later on, why you selected this vendor and not ‘the
other’
TIP
Evaluate the tool
with your data!

18. Vendor
Once you have selected a vendor,
you signed the contract,
you will pay for everything!

19. How to implement (Sandra’s approach)
Phase approach (‘value’ for ‘effort’)
1. Setup project inventory
2. Use Timesheet functionality first – provides organisation with view of costs
Project shell, simple project states – initiate, plan, execution, close, warranty
3. Start using Pipeline Management – prioritisation of new work
4. Start Portfolio Reporting
5. Basic Project Management for status reporting
6. Resource Management for supply & demand
7. Continue with Project Management

20. Tool challenges
• Out of the box Reports
• Customising / Configuring will be expensive (e.g. even putting your logo on)
• Can this be done in-house?
• You want a demo on how to do this
• Print functionality is not always embedded or doesn't’t work as desired
• Export into common tools often not that easy
• You want to demo to: export lists like change requests, risks, issues, decisions, financials, schedule
• Import often not available or clunky
• Risk lists, schedules
TIP
Test this in your
evaluation!

21. Mentoring & Training
When developing a business case for a tool, make sure to include funds for training.
Training will be required for:
◦ Administrator – who will configure tool, security, layouts,
◦ How to customise Report Training
◦ PMO / Portfolio Management Training
◦ PM Training
◦ Resource Manager Training
◦ Timesheet Training
After the implementation, you want a consultant be available for 2-3 days a week in the first 4
weeks (teams of 20-30 people) more time required if team is larger

22. Licensing Structure
• On Premise or Software as a Service?
• Pay per year or per month or per usage?
• Which licenses are required?
• Team member
• Portfolio Manager
• Project Manager
• Admin
• Support
• How often can someone call?
• Ho often do they release software?
• Try to ring support – how long does it take until someone takes your call?
• Is the support in the same country or oversees?
• Where is the data stored? Within Australia?
• Min of licenses required
• When are discount available?
• Can licenses be ramped up and down within month?

23. Why tools fail
• Tool doesn't integrate into your systems
• Too many features and it is too complex
• Very hard to customise, it doesn’t fit your companies process
• Post implementation – tool is installed but nobody uses it
• Tool is being used in so many different ways by so many different people – data is no longer
usable and meaningful for the future
• No funds set aside for ‘change management process’, ongoing training needs to be in place to
support tool usage (e.g. onboarding of new team members)

24. Timelines
Depends on tool complexity, the areas to implement and project size, members and physical
location:
You would need to consider impact on timeline
• defining your current process – do you know what it is?
• configuration of tool
• tool training by role (portfolio manager vs resource manager vs team member vs PM)
• report development (PMs, Resource Manager, Exec)
• process adjustments
• possible project management training on financials, risk management, dependencies…
• consider this as change management activity (and impact on their ‘daily’ work)

25. What makes tools successful
• Communicate “what's in it for me”
• Endorsement and support from your Business Executives
• Change management strategy in place
• Training and mentoring and on-going support

26. Which tools are out there?
• There are currently more than 100 software providers on the market, offering tools in the PPM
space.
• They are targeted at different industries, different types of projects, different methodologies.
Each of them has their different strengths and weaknesses.
• Website with common PPM tools:
http://www.prioritysystem.com/tools.html#tools

27. Summary
• Organisations can benefit from PPM tools in order to improve possesses and manage portfolio
investments
• Nearly all tools can do simple data queries
• To get a good fit, you would need to do a tool evaluation with scenarios planning
• Support from Executives is essential to get everybody using the tool
• Implementing a tool is a change management activity – champions, working groups, pilots,
training need to be included
• Have a good vendor relationship (e.g. win-win)

28. THANKS
Q & A

30. 30
Capability for Pipeline Management and Prioritization
Standardized Work Templates; Hybrid Project Template (Duration and Effort Based)

31. 31
Capabilityto view resource interdependencies among projects.
Resource Work Packages by Project – Work Contour Layout

32. 32
Capabilityto manage RBS; includingresources, roles and skills.
Competency Structure

33. 33
Capability for Pipeline Management and Prioritization
Investment Map: Final Proposal Ranking Determination

34. 34
Capability for Pipeline Management and Prioritization
What-If Scenario: Pipeline project delay scenario

35. 35
Capability for Pipeline Management and PrioritizationPipeline Resource Consumption Projections vs. Capacity Targets

36. 36
Capability for Pipeline Management and Prioritization
Work Pipeline Resource Demand by Projects