Information technology (IT) management and chief information officers (CIO) share a common goal to maximize the value of their IT investments. Achieving this requires a strong foothold on the multiple projects taking place at any given time. Identifying risk, resource utilization, and earned value with a portfolio of IT projects necessitates the implementation and adoption of standards processes to track and respond to any "red flags" that may appear. This is accomplished by establishing IT governance, where a structure of relationships and processes will direct and control an organization in order to achieve its goals to add value and to balance risk. Moreover, the standards and processes put in place can assist organizations with compliance issues surrounding the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) and other governance standards (Organizational Project Management Maturity Model [OPM3], Capability Maturity Model Integration [CMMI], Information Technology Infrastructure Library [ITIL], etc.).
In light of the increasing interest in IT governance, numerous project portfolio management (PPM) vendors have directed their focus on addressing the pain points expressed by internal IT departments. With the inherent functionalities of portfolio analysis, budget/cost controls, risk analysis, and audit trails found in PPM software, many PPM vendors have recognized the value they provide to the challenge of putting in place an IT governance framework.
PPM's Place within IT Governance
A number of today's PPM vendors originally were established in response to the lack of available tools addressing the needs of internal IT departments. With the onset of professional services automation (PSA), these tools eventually extended their functionality to address professional services organizations. As the PSA industry matured, major enterprise resource planning (ERP) players entered the billable services space. In turn, a number of best-of-breed vendors, weaker in the area of financials, repositioned their offering by focusing their efforts on functionality for internal IT departments in resource planning and portfolio management. Thus, a number of vendors have adopted the IT governance mantra to differentiate their best-of breed functionality from the integrated PPM solutions offered by the ERP industry.
Vendors such as Computer Associate's Niku, ProSight, Pacific Edge, Augeo Software, PlanView, and Mercury Interactive, among others, recognize the value of positioning themselves as niche vendors in IT governance. In response to the strong billing and project accounting functionality offered by ERP and accounting vendors, these best-of-breed PPM vendors have focused their marketing efforts on IT governance to strengthen their offering.
In light of the increasing interest in IT governance, numerous project portfolio management (PPM) vendors have directed their focus on addressing the pain points expressed by internal IT departments. With the inherent functionalities of portfolio analysis, budget/cost controls, risk analysis, and audit trails found in PPM software, many PPM vendors have recognized the value they provide to the challenge of putting in place an IT governance framework.
PPM's Place within IT Governance
A number of today's PPM vendors originally were established in response to the lack of available tools addressing the needs of internal IT departments. With the onset of professional services automation (PSA), these tools eventually extended their functionality to address professional services organizations. As the PSA industry matured, major enterprise resource planning (ERP) players entered the billable services space. In turn, a number of best-of-breed vendors, weaker in the area of financials, repositioned their offering by focusing their efforts on functionality for internal IT departments in resource planning and portfolio management. Thus, a number of vendors have adopted the IT governance mantra to differentiate their best-of breed functionality from the integrated PPM solutions offered by the ERP industry.
Vendors such as Computer Associate's Niku, ProSight, Pacific Edge, Augeo Software, PlanView, and Mercury Interactive, among others, recognize the value of positioning themselves as niche vendors in IT governance. In response to the strong billing and project accounting functionality offered by ERP and accounting vendors, these best-of-breed PPM vendors have focused their marketing efforts on IT governance to strengthen their offering.
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