And it\u2019s no wonder. If juggling priorities, resources, dependencies, deadlines, and more for one project is hard, then doing it for 10 projects at the same time is obviously going to be at least 10 times harder.<\/p>\n
Especially if you can\u2019t easily visualize overlapping deadlines and requirements across projects.<\/p>\n
Portfolio management software solves that issue.<\/p>\n
This article will explain what project portfolio management software is, some of the benefits gained from using it, and show you how you can manage a portfolio of projects using monday.com.<\/p>\n
Get started with monday.com<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n Portfolio management software enables you to see all of your projects in one place. It allows you to quickly keep tabs on how each project is doing and flag areas for concern. Perhaps more importantly, it also allows you to manage the interdependencies between projects.<\/p>\n Want to know how a delay in one project will affect others? Or thinking about pulling a key resource off a project to put them on a higher priority one?<\/p>\n Portfolio management software lets you see how these changes will impact all your projects across the board so that you can make the best decisions for your business.<\/p>\n When juggling multiple projects, you\u2019ll need to balance out several elements:<\/p>\n It\u2019s easy to feel overwhelmed by these different competing elements fighting for priority, so using a software platform to manage your projects is a good idea.<\/p>\n You need to rise above the daily noise and take a bird\u2019s eye view of what\u2019s best for the business as a whole.<\/p>\n Project portfolio management software (PPM software) can zoom out from the detail and give you an overview of the bigger picture.<\/p>\n You can summarize project timelines, use real-time KPIs, set reminders, and have other critical information close at hand to keep in control.<\/p>\n Think of it as a \u2018mission control\u2019 for your work \u2015 without the need for any astronaut training or a physics degree.<\/p>\n Project prioritization and resource management were highlighted as 2 of the most challenging aspects of PPM management in the 2020<\/a> State of Project Management report from Wellingtone.<\/p>\n In the 2020 PMI Signposts Report, poorly managed dependencies \u2014 22%<\/a> \u2014 and limited\/taxed resources \u2014 21%<\/a> \u2014 were attributed as a primary cause for project failure.<\/p>\n But, the State of Agile survey from 2020 showed that 40%<\/a> of respondents are still, in part, using spreadsheets as a project management tool.<\/p>\n It\u2019s difficult \u2014 or at the very least burdensome \u2014 to manage project dependencies and people using spreadsheet technology.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n PPM software, instead, provides easier ways of managing these critical elements.<\/p>\n Project software lets you manage project dependencies using various methodologies, like Gantt Charts, Kanban, and Workload views. PPM software lets you manage these across multiple projects.<\/strong><\/p>\n You can use PPM software to understand your team\u2019s work distribution across everything they\u2019re tackling \u2014 across multiple projects and <\/em>their regular \u2018day jobs\u2019 if they also do non-project work.<\/p>\n It lets you see who is overloaded or under-utilized, so you can juggle people and timelines as needed.<\/p>\n You won\u2019t need to call a meeting to see what everyone is up to or ask a bunch of different PMs and functional managers about whether a staff member has any free time for new work.<\/p>\n You can also see at-a-glance progress on work using helpful graphical views \u2015 even displaying them on a digital dashboard.<\/p>\n These are just a few areas where PPM software can help you manage a portfolio of projects better.<\/p>\n Let\u2019s take a closer look at some other PPM software features that help you oversee a busy portfolio.<\/p>\n This section considers some of the features we feel are essential in great portfolio management software.<\/p>\n One feature that helps PMOs keep multiple projects on track is the Gantt<\/a> chart. A Gantt chart displays work and timescales visually as a horizontal bar chart.<\/p>\n Gantt charts have been around since the 1900s, and started as hand-drawn diagrams to portray work schedules. But, today, Gantt charts are software-based and can change and adapt quickly when priorities shift.<\/p>\n Some of the key elements represented on the Gantt chart are:<\/p>\n Many project managers find Gantt charts to be an indispensable tool for managing work. You can also use them to manage a whole portfolio of projects.<\/p>\n Gantt charts<\/a> are extra useful when your portfolio of projects contains multiple complex projects with overlapping deadlines.<\/p>\n For projects with interdependencies \u2015 where one project requires completion before another can start \u2015 Gantt charts help you time things right.<\/p>\n If you tracked your project portfolio’s dependencies using a Gantt chart, here’s what it could look like on monday.com.<\/p>\n When you\u2019re responsible for managing resources across projects, it can be a daunting job balancing staff workload.<\/p>\n As we mentioned above, limited\/taxed resources are claimed as the primary cause of project failure 21% of the time. But, the Wellingtone 2020 State of Project management report claims that only 23%<\/a> use formal resource management software solutions.<\/p>\n Additionally, 54%<\/a> did not have access to real-time KPIs for their resources either. How can you manage resources across a portfolio of projects if you don\u2019t understand their distribution in real-time?<\/p>\nIf you used monday.com to manage your PMO<\/a> resources, you can see precisely how much work each of your team has on their plate. We call it the workload view.<\/span><\/a>\n The workload view is a graphical representation of whether your team members are underutilized, overutilized, or have the right amount of work allocated to them.<\/p>\n It uses colored circles to show work levels, and you can easily redistribute work between staff by clicking into their circle to view a breakdown of the projects they are working on.<\/p>\n For greater day-to-day control over your resources, you can also view team workload in real-time by adding the monday.com workload widget to a digital dashboard.<\/p>\n Delivering a project on budget is one of the key criteria for judging success. For PMOs managing multiple projects, keeping track of costs across all projects is an important undertaking that requires close attention to detail.<\/p>\n Most projects begin with a set budget \u2014 an estimation of the financial resources required to deliver the primary goals. Then, as work progresses, PMOs need to maintain running totals of expenditure to prevent overspend.<\/p>\n Effective budget management, though, is an area still in need of work for the PMO. The 2020 PMI survey found that only 59%<\/a> of projects are completed within budget.<\/p>\n HR costs are likely to be a significant part of your overall budgets, so it makes sense to keep track of this cost across your entire project portfolio.<\/p>\n One of the helpful tools that will allow you to monitor HR costs on monday.com is the time-tracking<\/a> feature. You can add a time-tracking column to any work board, and your team can use a purpose-built widget<\/a> to record hours worked.<\/p>\n Once you have the time data recorded, you can further calculate costs using a formula column. Tracking these costs against the original estimation will help you quickly see if your projects are keeping within budget.<\/p>\n Get started<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n It would be nice if all of the projects in your portfolio required the same initial organization and setup. This way, the portfolio management software you use to manage your workload would just need a bit of cut, copy, and paste every time you added a new project in.<\/p>\n Unfortunately, life isn\u2019t always like that, and you end up managing a range of projects that are frustratingly diverse.<\/p>\n The portfolio management software you choose to keep track of your duties should be flexible enough to cope with all eventualities.<\/p>\n Alongside flexibility, you should look out for:<\/p>\n monday.com is infinitely customizable, has dozens of integrations<\/a>, automation options, and fosters collaboration.<\/p>\n We know we\u2019re biased, but we think it\u2019s pretty special.<\/p>\n Ease of use and functionality should be near the top of your wish list when choosing software for portfolio management. So look for a package that is feature-rich, intuitive, and requires minimal training to bring team members up to speed.<\/p>\n Functionality and ease of use remain 2 of the most<\/a> important factors required from project management applications, according to research from Capterra.<\/p>\n (Image Source<\/a>)<\/p>\n Favor software that doesn\u2019t require staff to attend training seminars or place a drain on IT resources when users encounter a problem.<\/p>\n monday.com is not a to-do list. It\u2019s a feature-rich Work OS flexible enough to handle all situations. But \u2014 despite its capabilities \u2014 monday.com is easy to learn and feels natural to use.<\/p>\n Design your workflow the way you want, and use the hundreds of templates<\/a> to get your team up and running quickly.<\/p>\n monday.com ticks all the right boxes for great portfolio management software.<\/p>\n Visually appealing and intuitive to use, you can create your project portfolio management workflow as you envision it.<\/p>\n With monday.com, you can:<\/p>\n If you use monday.com to manage individual project workflow and activities, it\u2019s easy to use it as a project portfolio management solution.<\/p>\n First, set out all the individual duties for your project in a format that makes it easy for your team to follow and execute, then set up a high-level<\/a> board as mission control for your work.<\/p>\n As tasks get checked off on the lower-level boards, your progress indicators can automatically update the high-level one using a link column<\/a>.<\/p>\n If you want to display something from your mission control into a low-level board \u2014 or in your boss\u2019s even-higher-level one \u2014 you can do that too with the mirror column<\/a>.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s how a portfolio management workspace can look using monday.com.<\/p>\n A survey from the IPMA in 2019 reported 2 disturbing statistics for project managers.<\/p>\n Statistics that are likely impacted on some level by the number of projects a business has to handle at any given time.<\/p>\n Gain greater control over your project portfolio by using a PPM software platform.<\/p>\n You can start right now using monday.com to manage all of your tasks and projects. Why not start with our special project tracker<\/a> template?<\/p>\nWhat is portfolio management software?<\/h2>\n
\n
Why should I use project portfolio management software?<\/h2>\n
![\"Screenshot](\"https:\/\/www.monday.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Progress-of-work..png\" "\\"Progress")
<\/p>\nA closer look at some essential features found in portfolio management software<\/h2>\n
Gantt charts<\/h3>\n
\n
![\"Screenshot](\"https:\/\/www.monday.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Gantt-Board-for-project-portfolio-management..png\" "\\"Gantt")
<\/p>\nResource management<\/h3>\n
![\"Screenshot](\"https:\/\/www.monday.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Team-task-distribution.png\" "\\"Team")
<\/p>\nBudget management<\/h3>\n
![\"Screenshot](\"https:\/\/www.monday.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Time-tracking-for-project-management..png\" "\\"Time-tracking"){kind=tracking}
<\/p>\nCustomization<\/h3>\n
\n
![\"Screenshot](\"https:\/\/www.monday.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Customization-is-essential-for-portfolio-management-software..png\" "\\"Customization")
<\/p>\nEasy to use<\/h3>\n
![\"Bar](\"https:\/\/www.monday.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Important-factors-in-PM-software..png\" "\\"Important")
<\/p>\nWhy monday.com is the perfect solution for portfolio management<\/h2>\n
\n
![\"Screenshot](\"https:\/\/www.monday.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/High-level-project-management-board..png\" "\\"High-level")
<\/p>\nPortfolio management software makes staying on top of your workload easy<\/h2>\n
\n