Changing the (Project) World Through Technology

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.

  Business Analysis   PMO   Portfolio Management   Strategy   ProjectsAtWork  

You don’t need me to tell you that technology has changed a lot of things in the last few years. From a project management standpoint, the tools we have available to us have gone from somewhat cumbersome desktop tools to fully integrated enterprise suites. Updates made directly by our teams are now reflected in real time and trigger automated workflows that ensure work moves efficiently and accurately through the project.

At the same time, the management oversight and reporting capabilities of those tools have greatly reduced the amount of time spent generating status reports and presenting updates. This is all positive, and generally speaking it is happening across all organizations—the drive for greater effectiveness and efficiency is leading to widespread adoption.

However, it’s not all good news. Most organizations I work with are focusing their tool expansion and use on improving existing processes and practices; they aren’t undertaking new work because of the opportunities presented by those tools. In other words, they’re doing the things they’ve always done in a more efficient and effective way, but they aren’t taking the opportunity to fundamentally change project execution because of the opportunities modern project portfolio management (PPM) solutions present.

The technology-embracing PMO
Before we look at some of …

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