项目组合管理软件的魔方图分析.doc

Gartner项目组合管理软件旳魔方图2023

Magic Quadrant for Project Portfolio Management, 2023
11 July 2023
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.

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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 2023, more than 50 percent of all project portfolio management functions will be packaged as flexibly configurable, modular Web services (0.6 probability).
By 2023, 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 (0.7 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 "2023 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 2023)

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 2023)

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 2023 (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 2023. 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 2023 (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 7.3 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 v.8, 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 2023 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 2023 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 2023 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 5.1'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 2023, 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 Ad