Project Management Software > Service Management Software

Project managers usually tend to focus on the methodology for executing the technical part of the project. However, a good understanding of a practical SOA landscape and its associated challenges can help a technical PM make the SOA adoption on technology projects run even smoother.

The combination of the two companies creates a major player in the $1.3 billion project and portfolio management software market, with more than 500 customers and 150,000 users worldwide.

This will be the first in a series of articles that will look to provide the background of issues involved with managing an agile software development project under a traditionally linear and sequential project procurement process. Software development has been deliberately chosen for the example industry since that’s the domain for which agile is most typically used, but for those using agile in other industry domains, the general issues and proposed solution should work equally well within your industry.

It's easy to get lost in the Cloud if you are unsure who the major players are out there. This overview will examine several Cloud frameworks and identify the who's who of the big-league Cloud riders.

After more than 20 years in the financial services industry, this writer thought he knew exactly what to anticipate moving into his new role as a software vendor project manager. He was wrong...

One of the most established standards organizations (and their pronouncements) is often missing from the IT governance conversation: the International Organization for Standardization. Did you know that the ISO has been very active in the governance and compliance space? Here is an update on the standards that you might find useful.

Despite this global recession, the competitive landscape keeps becoming more urgent and faster paced. You will be expected to keep managing new projects to keep your organization competitive--but will do so with less (and exhausted) resources, tight budgets and more scrutiny for success. How does one meet such challenges and succeed? One of the agile practices tailor made for such an environment is the Lean method.

From the BlackBerry to Twitter, popular consumer products and applications are making their way into project management solutions, helping project leaders and teams stay better connected and on top of details. Here’s our March 2009 roundup of the latest Cool Tools in the project management world.

How can PMs harness the power of the cloud? There are many aspects of cloud computing worth noting from an organizational perspective, but this article will focus on two technologies that can be especially useful to project managers: software as a service and commoditized computing.

When newer firms go into cloud computing, they have a distinct advantage over established organizations. Organizations that have IT history, however, are more likely to have legacy systems to support--making their integration of cloud computing a much greater challenge.

The acquisition of Bluenova acquisition will increase Daptiv's company revenue by about10 percent and position it to capitalize on the fast-growing market for PPM solutions in the Asia Pacific region

Since service management is far more important to our customers than information technology, the acronym should be SMIT--or Service Management through Information Technology--rather than ITSM. There are many methods for structuring the improvement of the service that we provide to our customers, but all of the complexity boils down to a few important considerations.

Decisions on IT Governance are easy when your company has ample resources and infrastructure to implement and support it. As companies get smaller, however, those decisions get much more difficult. Here are some guidelines to help you evaluate and prioritize your needs to build a strategy for getting the maximum benefit while staying within your means.

Partnership will deliver enterprise project management solutions to the European marketplace.

Cloud computing offers cost savings, flexibility and speed of deployment that can be very tempting to all kinds of IT organizations, but don't forget about the risks inherent in turning over control of your data in the age of IT Governance and SOX compliance.

A new agile procurement process--one that can operate in conjunction with and alongside an agile software development methodology--should significantly improve both the procurement of software vendor’s services and and successful delivery of software projects. This article will explore the underlying principles as well as map the reconciliation points required to harmonize agile development and procurement methods.

The acquisition marks an aggressive move by CollabNet into cross-platform, Cloud-based developer services.

Collaboration software provider Daptiv predicts that the role of project management offices will expand into business strategy, social software will be used even more to engage project teams and stakeholders, and PPM systems will play a greater role as a business intelligence source.

Code inspections are an implicit, often unspoken best practice among agile project management teams. This silence has caused some people to question the quality control of the agile PM paradigm. Surprisingly, agile teams have not forgotten to mind the Ps and Qs of quality engineering--and not only continue to perform code inspections, but perform them more often. This results in even greater quality than traditional project management teams.

The value proposition of software as a service is gaining more visibility and traction in the marketplace. What does this transition in the marketplace mean to a project manager (or projects, for that matter)? This article explores the role and opportunities of a project manager for cloud-based technology projects.

Welcome to IT Strategist's annual roundup of IT surveys. Here are the trends you need to know about to wind up 2009 and head into 2010.

Rally Software has extended its Agile ALM platform to meet the needs of global organizations with customization options, full traceability with build and source code, and corporate dashboards to create a single source of record for progress and quality.

Why do PMOs have such a high failure rate? It's time to take a look at the top 10 PMO worst practices--and advice on how to avoid them.

Does your PPM solution help you understand the cost of IT operations or just your projects and portfolios? Technology Business Management is an emerging category of software solutions designed to help CIOs and IT executives manage and communicate the cost, quality and value of IT Services.

Developing a phased approach that brings continuous and measurable improvements is key to implementing an effective SLM capability. SLM isn’t about service level agreements, layers of complex processes and such. SLM is about aligning the services and capabilities IT provides to the organization with its fundamental operational and competitive sustainability needs.

Mindjet is also introducing a cloud-based collaboration service and a new version of its collaborative work management solution.

ITIL appears ready for prime time. So why isn’t it being implemented with great success across the board in IT organizations? This two-part series will set forth some observations and insights on how you can successfully evolve ITIL standards into your organization.

ITIL appears ready for prime time. So why isn't it being implemented with great success across the board in IT organizations? As we continue to look at how you can successfully evolve ITIL standards into your organization, we present the remainder of ITIL’s modules along with implementation recommendations.

The Agile2011 Conference drew more than 1,600 attendees to Salt Lake City, where dozens of companies showcased new technology solutions and training offerings. Here is a recap from the busy exhibition floor.

Software industry executive John Baldwin joins company as CEO to drive next phase of growth for project and portfolio management solutions provider.

New board members will join nine returning members to help guide the organization’s growth in the coming year.

Here’s our December 2010 roundup of the latest technology solutions and services for project leaders, teams and organizations, including an application to leverage SharePoint … Agile offerings for distributed environments and portfolio-level planning … mobile capabilities for PPM … a free project management tool for small teams ... and more.

It's easy to find a million ways that software managers can fail with their teams and their projects. This article prioritizes seven practical leadership tips and techniques that can help build great teams that consistently deliver great projects. And these habits are so simple, you can put them into practice immediately!

By adopting PPM solutions, organizations will be positioned to manage successful cloud initiatives, increase business agility and innovation, and provide visibility and control over their cloud services portfolio, a global survey concludes.

Recent alliances, acquisitions and implementations in the world of project and portfolio management.

Disaster recovery plans focus on getting the day-to-day business running smoothly again, but they often fail to address the equally important need to preserve mission critical initiatives within the project portfolio. Here are five steps for applying crisis management at the project level.

Is a mechanism really needed to provide structure for making key project decisions? Yes. Being in a leadership role, you’ll be pressured by people wanting decisions made for the best interests of the company, the employee or the customer--and they typically conflict. Let’s look at the three categories of influences.

“Cloud” sounds kind of ethereal, doesn’t it? Lofty in some ways, yet soft and comforting like a bed of heaven. With this new system direction, we’re supposed to let our concerns just float away. Not so fast...

As the project manager, you need to help the customer understand why agile could be a suitable approach for them. Here's some help in preparing them for a wild ride.

Some RFPs are bad…really bad. It makes you wonder how clear the purchasing organization is on what they are trying to achieve. Here, we look at the process that an organization goes through in preparing and issuing an Request For Proposal--and identify some best practices.

Customer service, in all its capacities, begins at the staff level. However, it should not be considered a personal responsibility or even one simply defined within specific occupational roles; instead, it needs to be integrated as part of the daily activities of an organization and incorporated into the very being of its operation.

An overwhelming majority of nonprofit organizations report that IT is integrated into many aspects of their operations, but budget pressures pose challenges.

In Part 1 of our review of trends and technologies that will impact the project manager in 2009, I described a period of financial tightness, energy dislocations, lessened globalization, and an increasingly unstable geo-political environment where small and medium-sized business will see growth because of their adaptability. I also anticipate increasing use of web mashups, digital convergence and unified communications, presence/video surveillance-based security, and collaborative technologies in economic activity.