In Washington in May?  Come see us at the Gartner PPM  and IT Governance show

I was thinking the other day about the upcomming HP Discover conference, and I tried to figure out why wanted to attend the conference.   I was sort of surprised when I realized why I really was going.

Ok, so I’m part of our Application Transformation product marketing team and HP Discover is certainly somewhere in the job description.   But, that’s not why I’m really going.

3 reasons why to buy a PPM solution, but also what should be in a  PPM scorecard.  Read more in Myles Suer's blog post from today

Semi-annual HP SW EMEA Customer Forum taking place May 8-10 in London in UK with best-ever list of speakers. This is absolutely a must-attend event - and it's free!.  Read more...

HP Discover will have the best slate of content for HP PPM customers  to attend in years.  

Simple approvals on-the-go without holding up your projects’ progress

Application Portfolio Management and ICD-10 (i.e Healthcare Compliance) webinars.  

Takeaways from HP Discover

Join us for a webcast on October 13 to hear from the HP strategists.   Register now

Is traveling to meet a client or customer an investment or an expense?  

Want a chance to interact with other HP PPM Customers in a relaxed setting?

Millions of customers rely on ENEL to supply their power.  ENEL relies on HP Project and Portfolio Management (PPM) Center

Data liberation has been a hot topic in the PPM space.  Too often, your valuable data would seem to get trapped inside systems which would force you to pay a ransom (think – of the effort) to get at your data.   A few months ago, I shared with you about how with PPM 9.1, we’ve invested in making operational data more and more accessible through the PPM BusinessObjects universe. 

-       HP Live Network –for PPM BusinessObjects-Based Operational Reporting

-       A wealth of information – at your fingertips

-       Visibility and Insight in PPM 9.1 – A reporting strategy for everyone

In those posts, we talked about how we were continuing to build and extend the operational reporting capabilities in PPM.  We believe that you need the ability to access, probe and query the data about your projects and portfolio.  You need to be able to create specific reports and views of your data, so that you can make sound and fact based decisions. 

I’m happy to share with you a bit about the most recent release (through HP Live Network) of the Project Management universe.   Now, we’ve added project management/execution data to the current PPM operational reporting universes (financial, demand, resource, and time).  We’re continuing to work on adding more data to the operational reporting infrastructure – and will use HP Live Network as a delivery tool.  The content pack bundle is available on HPLN and can be downloaded from the following link: PPM Operational Reporting 9.12 CP1 release.

If you’re interested in HP PPM, you can follow us on the HP PPM Blog  or even follow us @HPPPM on Twitter

I hope you heard about our new module in PPM 9.12– Application Portfolio Management (APM).   I recently shared with you about how the APM module can help organizations leverage the discipline of PPM portfolio management and improve their cost, speed and agility.  

Let’s take a deeper dive into the problem and look at what I think a key area that APM can help improve the application portfolio.   I’m not sure if you saw my earlier post about the importance of business alignment/ orientation, a few weeks ago, I made the point that business processes / capabilities are a key element to consider when planning and prioritizing your portfolio.  When we talk about Application Portfolio Management – business processes/capabilities are even more important.  Being able to clearly understand how an application relates to the business activity it supports is vital – especially when you are looking at your portfolio of applications.  

Why?   

Without understanding the relationship between your applications and the associated business capabilities, then you will have a difficult time, perhaps impossible time, trying to identify where you have redundancy in your portfolio.   Sure, some duplication will be obvious, but in an application portfolio of any size, you will want a framework to reference.   In APM, we’re using the American Productivity & Quality Center (APQC) framework as an out of the box business process framework, which then allows the team to map applications to specific business processes. If you are organized in terms of business capabilities (as opposed to processes), then APM is flexible enough to easily shift from the process view to use your organization’s capability framework.

With the application and business relationships information in APM, the analysis and discovery of potential redundancy can be fairly straightforward.  Of course, once you find possible redundancy, additional research to confirm will often be the next step.  But, without a business oriented perspective into the application portfolio, then even the first step of finding possible redundancy can be a huge leap.

If you’re interested in HP PPM, you can follow us on the HP PPM Blog  or even follow us @HPPPM on Twitter

I hope you saw the recent announcement about the release of PPM 9.12,  this update to our industry leading PPM solution has a bunch of enhancements that will make it simpler and easier for end users to do their work.   Too often, tools have forced the end user to conform to one way of working (we may have been there too)… As PPM evolves and improves, we’re making things simpler and easier to use.   I want to share three changes that are present in this version of PPM

1. Table Component.   When a request needs to track a list of things, we’ve had a flexible, dynamic table that allowed a user to add, remove and manage the list.   In the latest version of PPM, the table component has been updated to support spreadsheet like editing, easy adding and removing of columns and rows, sorting, etc.   It’s simpler and more robust all at the same time.   Here you can see how this table makes portfolio planning easier and more intuitive.

2. Editing work plans.  With each task in the work plan, PPM helps you track and manage the details of the task.  (status, start, stop, effort, resource, cost, service, etc).    We’ve kept the details (if you need to maintain them), but the work plan editing process is simpler than ever before.   You are able to simply tab from cell to cell and update the details of the plan, with a minimum of mouse clicks.

3. Time Tracking.  I don’t know of anyone who looks forward to the routine, dull, and unavoidable exercise of reporting time spent on project tasks.  I understand that project managers and the finance team needs the information, but does it have to be so painful?    Nope.   In the latest version of PPM, we’ve worked to simplify and streamline the time reporting steps.   Now, it is simpler and easier for project team members to fill out and submit their time cards.  I wish time tracking could be invisible and magically, automatically just happen (perhaps in the future – we do have some pretty awesome magicians on our team)…for now, we’ve made it simpler and easier for people to document their effort.

As you can see, we’re continuing to make the work of project and portfolio management simpler, easier and more natural. 

If you’re interested in HP PPM, you can follow us on the HP PPM Blog  or even follow us @HPPPM on Twitter

Have you thought about how the legacy costs of your application portfolio prevents you from investing in innovation?  

Or, perhaps how the technical debt of your application portfolio just keeps growing? (and you don't have to worry about a 'debt ceiling') 

I’ve often used the analogy of a cluttered garage as a way to describe what some application portfolio’s may look like…  Ok, perhaps this graphic is a bit extreme, but there is a real problem in the modern enterprise.   I recently read a report by Phil Murphy at Forrester, where he used the word “hoarder” when describing the problem of application retirement (or perhaps ‘non-retirement’ is more accurate).  I think he was spot on.

Imagine, if your application portfolio is just 50% cluttered and unaccounted for – how much of your organization’s scarce resources are potentially wasted on unnecessary, redundant and fragile applications.   I understand that it can be hard, very hard to decommission a legacy application.  There are often well intentioned reasons to keep a legacy application around for a while (easy access to legacy data, infrequent reports, that one stubborn business unit, etc…), but these applications can be both expensive and a source of risk as well. 

With the Application Portfolio Management module in PPM 9.12, you are able to apply the power and discipline of your portfolio management processes to help address this the challenges in your application portfolio.  Here’s how:

Assess:  First, you'll want to understand what is actually in your portfolio, how it relates to the business (ownership, business process/capability) and the cost and value each application.  You also, will want to seek the perspective of stakeholders about the health, quality and value of each application.  With this understanding, you are able to examine the portfolio and look for redundancy, high cost/low value, legacy technology and other situations that cost you precious time and money.  

Modernize  Using the portfolio management capabilities of PPM, you will be able to select the best transformation projects, and then track and manage the project execution in PPM.  As you consolidate applications, re-platform, or modernize the infrastructure, you will free up resources which can be re-invested in the organization on business initiatives, rather than keeping the lights on work.

Maintain  Application portfolio management doesn’t stop when the modernization projects are completed, rather this is where the ongoing value of enterprise portfolio management kicks in.   You need to also look at future business proposals from the lens of your current application portfolio.  Use your information about your current portfolio to avoid projects which would lead to future duplication of an existing capability- rather why not improve the existing capability?

Easier said than done?  Let's be clear.  This is very, very hard work, even harder if your tool is spreadsheets, meetings and email.   With the new Application Portfolio Management module in PPM, much of the pain and difficulty is managed by PPM, giving you the opportunity to lead and transform your application portfolio.  (think of it as not having to deal with a 'debt ceiling'... -- you get the picture)

If you’re interested in HP PPM, you can follow us on the HP PPM Blog  or even follow us @HPPPM on Twitter

Today, I’m very excited to announce the most recent update to HP’s industry leading Project and Portfolio 

Management solution.  As a central element in the HP IT Performance Suite, Project and PortfolioManagement helps organizations capture, manage, prioritize and select projects for future investment.  The approved projects are then tracked and managed, providing clear data about the health and status of all projects in flight.  The portfolio and project execution information from PPM is accessible through PPM dashboard and the HP Executive Scorecard.

This latest version of PPM 9.12 builds upon the PPM 9.1 framework announced in February, focusing on a number of key innovations and enhancements.

At the top of the list is the addition of the new Application Portfolio Management (APM) module to the PPM

 platform,enabling customers to actively manage their application portfolio – rationalizing the size and cost of their portfolio.  In many organizations, 60 to 70 percent of their IT budget is devoted to supporting the existing applications and infrastructure. 

Leveraging Application Portfolio Management processes, they can discover opportunities for modernization and simplification, leading to lower operating costs, increased capacity for innovation and application re-use.  Application Portfolio Management (APM), incorporates key best practices gleaned from years of HP experience performing application rationalizations on behalf of customers.   

As an integrated module of PPM, data from the Application 

Portfolio module flows into the overall portfolio management processes of PPM, enabling prioritization, optimization and what if analysis to determine the ideal investments for the organization.

Also new in PPM 9.12 is a new Business Objects PPM operational reporting universe focused on project management.   We’re delivering this update through  the HP

 Live Network – see this post, for more details about HP Live Network, which will be a key delivery mechanism for both reporting content and future PPM best practices. 

We continue to improve and enhance the PPM user interface to make it simple and intuitive for end users to manage their portfolios and projects.  For example, in portfolio analysis, the table of proposals is now more flexible and dynamic, supporting sorting and end user modifications.   Also, a flexible table component is now available throughout the demand management workflow.

We are all very excited about how the new capabilities of PPM and Application Portfolio Management will help organizations become more efficient and effective in reaching their business goals.

If you’re interested in HP PPM, you can follow us on the HP PPM Blog  or even follow us @HPPPM on Twitter

Update #1 from the HP Agility blogger event.  While I typically stay focused on PPM and the strategic challenges of project and portfolio management, I'm going to go off topic a bit to share something I just saw that was very interesting.

One of the challenges many organizations face is when they have multiple development methodologies (waterfall, agile, etc) all working together.  It can be very hard to gain insight and track the status of how things are progressing.  If you’re focused on agile development methodologies and automating the processes – you really should check out the new update that was just announced in our ALM 11 suite - The next version of the Agile Accelerator and the new "Agile Taskboard", which gives the agile team a very natural work environment that empowers the team. You should check it out.

Here’s a link to the press release , and specifically the Agile Accelerator data sheet where you can see a screenshot of the taskboard.

Also, we’re live at  http://ow.ly/5IaND

If you’re interested in HP PPM, you can follow us on the HP PPM Blog  or even follow us @HPPPM on Twitter

When you draft your proposal you try to describe your vision of ‘goodness’ that will be a direct result of your project being approved –

• a better world, a better place to work,
• happier, more productive employees,
• increased sales, revenue, or profit
• decreased defects and errors -

You typically quantify the benefits and then forecast the overall costs of your project, accounting for the development and operational costs.  In many organizations, it boils down to one or two key financial indicators – ROI, NPV, etc which are then used to compare and prioritize the elements in the portfolio. 

Fine. 

But, where does business processes and / or business capabilities fit in?  If your proposal also includes indicators about which business processes will be impacted by your project, then this added dimension can provide a wealth of information when it comes time to prioritize and approve projects in the portfolio.

• How many proposed projects will impact process ABC this year?   
  Will any of them overlap with each other?
• Are there opportunities for re-use of assets or bundling of projects to streamline the people impact when the projects go live?
• Who is responsible for the process changes that will be required?
• What
• Where

By simply incorporating the business process information in your proposal data, you will have the opportunity to significantly improve your overall understanding of how your limited investment resources are being allocated across the organization.  You will also be able to identify and alleviate potential resource constraints and conflicts before the projects are launched – by simply understanding the business process implications of the proposals.

If you’re interested in HP PPM, you can follow us on the HP PPM Blog  or even follow us @HPPPM on Twitter

You may have noticed yesterday's launch of the Space Shuttle Atlantis.   It was indeed a historic and spectacular conclusion to a 3 decade program of exploration and discovery.   What can we learn from this 30 year program?   Read on to see what I think are a few key lessons for project and program leaders.  

Free webcast and materials on Application Transformation

This is exciting news.   As you may recall, when we announced PPM 9.1 earlier this year, we talked about the new Business Objects reporting universe that is bundled with PPM to support operational reporting.   We also explored how Business Objects supports PPM in detail here.

Now, we’ve launched the mechanism to deliver new PPM business based operational reporting content.  Sometime in the near future, we’ll announce new reporting content through the HP Live Network.    The what?   HP Live Network.

The HP Live Network (HPLN) is a flexible and convenient mechanism to share and distribute updates and content. But, it’s not limited to just BO updates.  HPLN can be used to share other content, configurations both from HP and shared among the registered community.  Think of an app store or marketplace for PPM related content. 

Here’s what to expect at a high level:

• HP Experts, Partners and Customers to share knowledge, best practices and add-on content.
• Access to PPM HPLN is provided at no additional cost through Passport.
• HP PPM Operational Reporting Content Packs will be available on PPM HPLN.

If you’re interested in joining HPLN, here’s how to get connected:

Customers can subscribe at: www.hp.com/go/PPM_HPLN for receiving notifications on PPM updates.

Check it out, it’s a great support tool that we’re confident will make getting updates and new features easier and simpler.

If you’re interested in HP PPM, you can follow us on the HP PPM Blog  or even follow us @HPPPM on Twitter

Are you interested in tracking goals and performance of your projects?   If so, check out this short story describing how HP Executive Scorecard can turbo charge organization and PMO performance.

The other day, I was looking for some interesting facts about customers who were using PPM to help them with project and portfolio management and wanted to share this one that I found really interesting.  

Did you know that many HP PPM customers are actually using PPM to manage their business projects and processes?  (If you believe everything you read, you might think that we only support “IT” projects).. But, many of you know it’s not that black and white.   Indeed, HP PPM is a project and portfolio management solution that supports the strategic portfolio and project management – in the business (and IT as well).   Want to see some examples?

 Check out this excerpt from a TechValidate case study about a Large Enterprise Retail customer :

 Source:  TechValidate  TVID: B5A-9F2-7D1

http://www.techvalidate.com/product-research/hp-project-and-portfolio/case-studies/B5A-9F2-7D1

Or, here’s one other example from TechValidate, this time, from a case study about a Large Enterprise Financial Services Company:

 – Source:  TechValidate TVID: E19-ACE-F23

http://www.techvalidate.com/product-research/hp-project-and-portfolio/case-studies/E19-ACE-F23 

Regardless of your specific domain (R&D, Marketing, or even Information Technology), you have to manage competing business priorities, select strategic projects and manage the execution.  Without a common platform and process to track and manage all the moving parts, it’s easy to become overwhelmed and out of alignment.  Good project and portfolio management is not only a challenge in IT.  Every business faces this challenge and needs to focus on steady improvement.

Do you have a different perspective?  I think the need for PPM is widespread.

If you’re interested in HP PPM, you can follow us on the HP PPM Blog  or even follow us @HPPPM on Twitter

If 1 is good and 2 is better then 100 must be incredibly good, right?  Not really. More is not better and less is often more. Project management could take a lesson from the Simplicity Cycle.

by: Silvia Siqueira:

Getting to Vegas is always exciting even when you have been here many times! It is a fast paced city wherethere is always an overload of things going on: lots of people walking around, tons of shopping, awesome restaurants, many attractions and shows with much fun (not to mention the gaming).  What is your favorite thing to do in Vegas? Las Vegas is different from any other city in USA. This is a place where people spend a lot of money; often without “planning in advance” I am sure this can cause them “some trouble”.

Speaking of planning, as HP holds our huge HP Discover conference this week in Vegas, something else VERY important is happening here this week besides the conference.  In order to help plan our future investment in new HP Project & Portfolio Management (PPM) product capabilities, there are 3 levels of input and one of these inputs come from customers just like you.

This week, we had a 2 day meeting of what we call “Customer Advisory Board (CAB)”;  the CAB is led by the HP Strategy, Planning & Governance team and there is HP representatives from the different HP Organizations as:  Product Mgmt, Product Marketing, R&D, Support, Marketing, Services, etc.  Customers that attend these sessions are nominated by their HP account managers.   The CAB for HP PPM is one of the most energetic CABs at HP with a "full house" of customers.  This week, over 15 companies representing from various industries and sizes: such as BNY Melon, Marriot, Xilinx, John Hancock and Commonwealth Bank of Australia to name a few.  The customers sent representatives from a variety of backgrounds and roles like; EPMO and PMO leaders, solutions strategists, solution managers.

One of the highlights was having  Ronnen Armon, HP’s VP of Strategy discuss  the strategic vision for HP PPM, Executive Scorecard and Financial Planning Analysis.   And,  like most years, the CAB had very active and engaging discussions covering topics like; enterprise portfolio, user interface, mobility and more.   All of this fantastic input is used to help drive innovation and improvements to the HP PPM platform.

Perhaps even more importantly, customers network with one another, sharing HP PPM implementation and process best practices, exchanging ideas they can leverage these ideas in their environment. This is a great partnership between HP and representative customers that translates into strategies and enhancements all customers can leverage to ensure business success with HP PPM. Well, let’s say that besides of the fun Vegas, there is the fun HP PPM planning! If you would like more information about the CAB, please feel free to let us know.

We will have more information for you about the HP Discover Conference…So, what happens in Vegas won’t stay in Vegas! -  We'll share more about this great conference here!

How do you manage the key performance indicators for your portfolio to ensure that you have timely, accurate and actionable information?  

In many organizations, gathering the data and presenting the KPIs is a combination of brute force and art. (not to mention with questionable accuracy.)  

Sound familiar?       Sound frustrating?

There is a better way.

If you don’t have a consistent set of metrics and measures for your projects, then you probably experience more surprises than you like.  It might feel like you’re flying without any instruments (where your low fuel indicator is the silence of when the engines stop).  Instruments are one of the keys that make aviation safe… and sound metrics are a key to project success.

Here's something that Mark Bradley from the Executive Scorecard team recently posted about one of his sessions at this year's HP Discover..... If you can attend, this will be a great session.   Here's Mark's update:... (ps. he's from Chicago)  

The great Cubs broadcaster Harry Caray summed up the spirit of the season when he said, "It's the fans that need spring training. You gotta get 'em interested." Spring training evokes the eternal hope of good things to come with the start of a new season of baseball. It is a time for the teams to exhibit the results of all their efforts applied during the off season. The same holds true for this year’s HP DISCOVER 2011. HP DISCOVER is the showcase technology event where you can learn what it takes to enhance your IT performance journey. Held annually, this event brings together the power of people, process, technology and ideas to solve your most difficult Enterprise IT challenges.

This year is no exception, we have a fresh line up of new software versions, poised to address the demands and grab the interest of the market. This season's HP Solution favored to lead off the excitement and promise to all our customers about what HP can do is a product I've been very fortunate to delve into -- The Executive Scorecard!

The Cross-IT Management Software Solutions track will present the latest version of HP's Executive Scorecard which addresses the difficulty of translating IT performance into value that can be understood and appreciated by the rest of the business. HP provides the Executive Scorecard to help automate the data gathering and translation process to ease the communication of business value, with a clear line of sight from the information you are delivering, into an action someone is going to take to move your organization forward.

This year I have the honor of co-hosting session 6700 with Silvia Prickel, Managing Director at United Airlines. We will talk about how we are able to leverage HP Software technology portfoloio within the curent merger activities of United and Continental airlines to optimize the process.  We’ve been working with the new version of HP Executive Scorecard and its out of the box KPI's and ETL integration with PPM, AM, & FPA as the opportunity continues.  We will also pull in some Service Manager data, then link the KPIs to predetermined merger related goals and to other KPIs to achieve optimal IT performance.  

By pulling information from PPM & AM, we are addressing the question around the most effective and efficient use of IT resources (both people & infrastructure) when it comes to IT performance management. All while reducing the cost of data collection and providing deep analytical insight across the HP Software Portfolio into what the information provides.

More details are listed below: 

After a multitude of team efforts, HP Discover 2011 is about to open in Las Vegas, NV (June 6-10th). If you have not registered for HP Discover 2011, you still have time to register

If you plan on going to HP Discover, please use the scheduler tracker to add these sessions to your own personalized agenda.

Get your Scorecard ready, it's promising to be a great season!

If you’re interested in HP PPM, you can follow us on the HP PPM Blog  or even follow us @HPPPM on Twitter