The State of PPM & IT Governance 2015

Andy Jordan is President of Roffensian Consulting S.A., a Roatan, Honduras-based management consulting firm with a comprehensive project management practice. Andy always appreciates feedback and discussion on the issues raised in his articles and can be reached at [email protected]. Andy's new book Risk Management for Project Driven Organizations is now available.

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Last week, the Gartner PPM & IT Governance Summit in Grapevine, Texas once again raised awareness of a number of different issues and trends important to project managers. I can’t possibly address all of them here, but I do want to put a bit of a spotlight on some of the things that struck me as most important.

Robert Handler’s presentation on “Delivering PPM Benefits--Delivering on Metrics That Matter” got my attention because of the growth of PPM in recent years. We are past the initial growth phase and are now at the point where organizations are being asked to improve the effectiveness of PPM; they’re being challenged to make PPM as good as it can be. So what does that mean? Where are executives focusing when they talk about “good”? Handler’s presented research that showed overwhelmingly that growth is the element that matters most, followed by cost management, profit improvement and IT-related issues.

This shouldn’t come as much of a surprise to anyone, but for many IT professionals it does--executives (to quote Handler) “view IT as an enabler” to achieve the business goals that are their central focus. This is foundational to any PPM success. It has to deliver business benefits, and it has to enable growth and those other priorities--otherwise it is not serving the needs of the business. …

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