Gartner 项目组合管理软件的魔方图
Magic Quadrant for Project Portfolio Management,
Matt Light
Document Type: Research Note
Note Number: M-20-2777
Applications for project portfolio and resource management can boost
team performance, and enable IT management and others to access
real-time data via dashboards for prioritization and rapid decision making.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
What You Need to Know
Heightened interest in integrated project portfolio management solutions
has sustained this market through hard times. By broadening its view of
project management to an organizational governance context, IT
management can increasingly address portfolios of projects, priorities,
resources and more.
Analysis
Strategic Planning Assumptions
By 2006, more than 50 percent of all project portfolio management
functions will be packaged as flexibly configurable, modular Web
services ( probability).
By 2006, at least 50 percent of IS organizations will have adopted a mix
of project portfolio management application services for managing team
collaboration, allocating resources, and tracking utilization and costs (
probability).
Enterprises will continue to reduce the number of tools needed to manage
IT and other project portfolios, in part to provide quicker visibility via
direct rollup and analysis of portfolio data. Enterprises delivering projects
large and small have long blended tools and manual solutions to allocate
resources, schedule activities and milestones, track progress, share
project-related documents, control project risks and otherwise manage
their project portfolios (see "Ways to Speed Up Projects in the Real-Time
Enterprise"). We believe that, during the next five years, project portfolio
management (PPM) functions will be increasingly consolidated in
flexible and configurable "smart suites" of PPM Web services.
A smart enterprise suite can extend platforms to create specialized
applications that integrate analytical, business and content management
application functionalities, which is precisely what's happening with PPM
packages (see >"The Future of the Smart Enterprise Suite"). This trend
has been slowly gaining momentum, inhibited by market conditions and
the resulting constraints on R&D. Furthermore, pricing pressures have
mounted because of the tough PPM market (as well as competition from
the Microsoft Project product line), while growth rates for most vendors
have decreased or stopped altogether.
As noted last year (see "2002 Project/Resource Management Magic
Quadrant), application vendors from other areas have also been entering
the market and contributing to growth in this space. Since 3Q02, the
vendors of the more-integrated PPM solutions have struggled, and the
competition is heating up (see Figure 1 and Note 1).
Figure 1
The PPM Magic Quadrant
Source: Gartner Research (July 2003)
Note 1
Evaluation Criteria
Ability to Execute
Vendor viability
Management team
Track record in delivery and support
Functional depth
Support capability
Sales and marketing
Completeness of Vision
Vision of technology and the market
Resourcing (including external)
Consulting/service commitment
Package breadth
Platform, database and ERP support
Team collaboration features
IS organization requirements
Vendors' vision foci differ. Some, such as the enterprise resource
planning (ERP) providers, initially focused on project cost accounting,
then added planning, resourcing and other PPM features. Others
(Primavera Systems, for example) focused first on the latter set of
functions, enabling project cost management and exporting cost
accounting data to an ERP back end, and later added ways to collect
nonproject costs, such as work requests. Although approaching PPM
requirements with different strengths, these applications can provide
reliable IT project and service status data, which was formerly available
only in fragments (for example, in such static documents as time reports
or resource plans in Excel).
In assembling a complete solution, PPM packages often provide
integration to address gaps or weaknesses in functionality. Another
example of integration is the common dependence on Microsoft Project,
while focusing on portfolio analysis, tracking, resourcing, costing,
collaboration or other features and offering project planning (such as
Gantt charts) for those situations when more-detailed scheduling (in
Microsoft Project or alternative schedulers) is not required (see Figure 2).
Figure 2
PPM: Evolution of an Application Suite
Source: Gartner Research (July 2003)
During the past year, developments in the PPM market have included the
growing importance of portfolio features — hence, our reference to it as
project portfolio management, rather than project/resource management
(although resource profiling, leveling and so forth remain significant).
IBM has been a growing presence in this market, as well as at its fringes;
it acquired Rational Software last year, as well as
PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) Consulting, including its Summit
Ascendant product line, which features tools, IT process support and
project management methodology.
More directly in the PPM space, IBM has invested in Systemcorp and has
assisted in the development of Systemcorp's Enterprise PM Office, which
shows an accurate view of market requirements, with an effective breadth
of functionality that includes full scheduling, resourcing, and time and
expense reporting. Service request management and defect-tracking
features further support the needs of IS organizations. Scope management
features enable users to integrate project requirements to plan and
automate project document management, including version control and
the ability to link documents to any level of a work breakdown structure.
Built in a Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition (J2EE) framework, PM
Office's portal approach enables simpler user configurations than
previous releases and also features a native Enterprise Dashboard, with
hundreds of C-level stored procedures, including many for portfolio
reporting. Previously focused on IBM's DB2 database platform, PM
Office now directly supports the Oracle database as well.
An emerging group of "portfolio analysis" vendors has begun offering
solutions for analyzing IT investments and assets, some (such as Pacific
Edge Software) as part of PPM product lines (see "The Gartner Portfolio
Management Tool for IT Investment"). Other offerings, although short of
being PPM products (see Note 2), are moving to offer planning,
resourcing and other features that approach the PPM market. Among
these emerging tools is Artemis International Solutions' PortfolioDirector
(see "Artemis PortfolioDirector for Managing IT Investments"), which
has been a bright spot for Artemis in recent years as the company has
struggled to put its financial challenges behind it.
Note 2
PPM Processes for Application Support
A PPM application addresses most of the nine processes defined by the
Project Management Institute's Project Management Book of Knowledge:
project scope management, time management (that is, planning or
scheduling), cost management, resource management, quality
management, project communications management, project risk
management and project procurement management. The ninth area
enables the integration of these processes, such as for pipeline or other
analytics. (See "Project Portfolio Management (PPM) Applications:
Perspective.")
With a profitable quarter to end 2002 (based largely on PortfolioDirector
momentum and cost cutting), Artemis continues to correct its cost
structure after acquiring the bulk of its joint ventures worldwide. With
continued strength in product revenue in Europe, any Artemis comeback
is likely to begin there.
Another important portfolio analysis tool is ProSight, an innovative
solution that entered the American market a few years ago. Using a
partnering strategy that involved such vendors as Changepoint, Evolve,
PeopleSoft and PlanView, the ProSight tool enabled vendors to extend
their offerings. These partners have typically developed competing
solutions. ProSight has deepened its tool, adding "playbooks" of
dashboards, scorecards, pick lists and forms to target such procedures as
IT service-level management, system retirement, project prioritization
and IT inventory analysis.
Other notable portfolio analysis tools come from Portfolio DecisionWare
(an AXS-One/Tivity partner) and United Management Technologies,
which has developed StratFrames. Both also offer consulting services as a
major part of their businesses. In addition, ProSight has strategically
partnered with Fujitsu Consulting for consulting services in the portfolio
management space. Lawson Software and Changepoint have similar
strategic partnerships with Deloitte & Touche, and PeopleSoft has
partnered with Cap Gemini Ernst & Young (CGE&Y).
Since 2Q01, Evolve has increasingly marketed outside its initial
professional services administration (PSA) niche. In addition to product
development, the vendor has targeted IS organizations, especially with its
Evolve 6 Portfolio Management version, which was released in late 2002.
In March, Evolve introduced its work request management solution,
which is similar to that offered by PlanView and Changepoint. These
capabilities were among the features that caused Primavera to acquire the
chronically unprofitable Evolve for $13 million in March 2003 (see
"Primavera to Acquire Evolve, Expand Project Management Line").
In the IT and application management space, Kintana — slated for
acquisition this quarter by Mercury Interactive — has rounded out its
product line during the last 12 to 18 months, with demand, portfolio,
project, program and time management tools grouped under the banner of
"IT Governance." At the same time, Rational's Project Console dashboard
has gained traction in Rational's user base, although it falls short of being
a PPM product.
Along the same lines, PlanView has introduced a set of organizational
governance processes called "Prisms," which it has built into its
PlanView Portfolio Management solution, which was launched at
Gartner's Spring Symposium in March. The 11 Prisms are divided into
three categories: investments, projects and service. They include a
configurable, prepopulated database of attributes and stage gates for
different initiatives (such as models for a business investment planning
effort, a major development project or a production system support
service).
Similarly, Changepoint has pursued a vision blending IT portfolio
management with resource and project planning and tracking, resulting in
a partnership with Deloitte & Touche marketing a "CIO Portal." Now in
, the Changepoint product has been rebuilt on .NET, with added
Oracle database support, and it has been converted to Unicode for ease of
translation (a Spanish language version has also been added). This, along
with ongoing enhancement of its request management/help desk-style
features, has increased the proportion of Changepoint's internal corporate
IT customers and prospects to more than 50 percent, while its
professional service target market has slowed purchases.
Microsoft remains a strong presence in the marketplace with its Microsoft
Project product line, which features MSP Standard, Professional, Server
and Web Access (see "Got a Plan? Microsoft Project 2002 Preview") and
provides an effective PPM solution in the Windows and SQL Server
environments. Revenue growth for this product line has enabled
additional R&D, which has yielded a Microsoft Project 2003 release that
is due in the fall, enhancing synergies with other Microsoft technologies,
including Windows Sharepoint Services, Office and Outlook. Continued
work with Microsoft Solution Partners to address implementation issues
provides valuable experience in addressing enterprise needs.
ERP II vendors continue to target the space, both defensively (to prevent
PPM "midoffice" vendors from expanding their enterprise footprints) and
offensively, with PPM products or features packaged with parts of their
application platforms to address PPM market requirements. Although
initially offered to extend their implementations' project accounting and
reporting functionality, some have done significant acquisitions and
development.
Lawson's offering — enhancing its 2001 acquisition of the XML-based
Account4 PSA technology — now features portfolio analysis, with
consulting support from Answerthink. Its Service Automation PPM
product directly supports SOP 98-1 reporting of application development
costs with guidelines for expensing vs. capitalization. Version 's Smart
Notification monitors data from Lawson or external systems, including
the Web, to provide alerts (such as for schedule overruns) via a variety of
devices.
Oracle's new PPM solution, which was introduced in June 2003, extends
its established Oracle Projects module (formerly focused on project
costing and billing, with some recent resourcing features) with three new
products: Project Management, for building work plans, controlling
project issues and changes and tracking progress; Project Collaboration,
with a project "workspace" for managing and enabling real-time issue
resolution; and Project Intelligence, for analyzing project data.
PeopleSoft also has an established project accounting module, which has
been extended in recent years with resource management and T&E in its
Enterprise Service Automation (ESA) offering. This also features a
Contracts module and a Services Procurement module, which PeopleSoft
hopes to leverage if greater demand for IT services accompanies an
economic recovery. With consulting partner CGE&Y, it also offers CIO
OneSource, a combined PPM product/service for IT.
SAP is approaching the market with new offerings that may challenge the
competition next year: xRPM, a "cross app" for resource and program
management that is positioned as a product targeting internal R&D or IS
organizations, and SAP Professional Services, a customer relationship
management (CRM) solution. Similarly, Denmark-based Maconomy
offers vertically differentiated solutions with product templates that target
marketing/advertising agencies, audit/tax consulting and research
organizations, although they do not target internal IT. Epicor Software
does not specifically target IT either, although its Epicor for Service
Enterprises software is adaptable, and it has retooled its product line for
Web services delivery via its Internet Component Architecture.
Another deal of note was Scitor's spin-off last August of its tool business
as Sciforma. Its established PS Suite extends advanced planning, tracking
and multiproject resource leveling via its Project Communicator (which
includes Inform, Objects and Admin modules). Sciforma's new PS Next
will go further with workforce skill and capacity management and the
ability to track hours against budgets, along with state-of-the-art project
planning and scheduling. We expect PS Next's new J2EE framework
pricing to drive PPM pricing of flexible, configurable Web services.
With another round of investment ($ million in February) and a
return to profitability, a stabilized Niku may be poised to take advantage
of potential economic rebounds in 2004. On the product front, Niku
shipped in 2Q03, featuring portlets and streamlined navigation of its five
main modules — Niku Projects, Portfolio Manager, Resource Planner,
Financial Manager and Niku Workbench — effectively getting the
product in shape. Among its new and upgraded Niku 6 customers are
several implementations of more than 2,000 users (including team
members reporting time/status).
Business Engine's release deepens its budget management, embeds
Microsoft Project, adds more online analytical processing (OLAP) cubes
for financial management and provides new features for external
contractor management. The company has had key implementations at
Deutsche Bank, Merrill-Lynch and Delphi Automotive, and each
deployment exceeds 5,000 users. Tenrox also embeds Microsoft Project
for synchronization without import-export, has a strong focus on T&E
and billing, and features an effective workflow tool reminiscent of
process-modeling tools offered by ERP vendors.
There is a significant PPM niche market for enterprises leveraging the
IBM/Lotus Domino platform for PPM purposes. Automation Centre
offers TrackerSuite, featuring resource management, time-tracking
Domino-based project collaboration, document management and
workflow. Customers include DuPont and American Electric Power.
Automation Centre also offers a Microsoft-based product. Similarly,
Eden Communications leverages Domino with its ProjecTrak family of
products. It targets IS with a bug tracker, help desk, asset management
and software designer module, among others. Genius Project from the
European (Swiss-based) company Genius Inside features risk and
simulation modules.
Key Issues
What project management tools, processes and techniques are required
for delivering high-quality, on-time and on-budget applications?
How will ERP II vendors and markets evolve?
How will enterprises improve the operational efficiency of their
e-workplace infrastructures during the next five years?
How should project/process management groups for an application
development organization be set up, and with what support tools?
What tools and technologies will enable enterprises to operate in real time?
Acronym Key
CGE&Y Cap Gemini Ernst & Young
CRM customer relationship management
EPM Enterprise Project Management
ERP enterprise resource planning
ESA Enterprise Service Automation
J2EE Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition
OLAP online analytical processing
PPM project portfolio management
PSA professional services administration
PwC PricewaterhouseCoopers
Return to Top
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
© 2003 Gartner, Inc. and/or its Affiliates. All Rights Reserved.
Reproduction of this publication in any form without prior written
permission is forbidden. The information contained herein has been
obtained from sources believed to be reliable. Gartner disclaims all
warranties as to the accuracy, completeness or adequacy of such
information. Gartner shall have no liability for errors, omissions or
inadequacies in the information contained herein or for interpretations
thereof. The reader assumes sole responsibility for the selection of these
materials to achieve its intended results. The opinions expressed herein
are subject to change without notice.
