How project and portfolio management are transforming cloud implementation

The recently published PPM Cloud Accelerator Report 2011 report, which was researched and written by Senior Analyst Laurent Lachal of Ovum for CA Technologies, found that project and portfolio management (PPM) is playing and increasingly influential role in driving forward cloud transformations.

“The report provides an independent confirmation that a PPM solution is fundamental to delivering successful cloud transformation programmes, and it shows that non-PPM users will increasingly look to adopt these solutions in the future to support their own transformation activities”, says Nadeem Malik – Director of PPM at CA Technologies.

He adds that these kinds of projects require some careful planning, execution and control, and thinks this is the key reason why PPM has “a fundamental role to play, not only through managing the programmes, projects, requirements and resources, but by mostly facilitating the planning and decision-making processes that determine an optimal future IT services portfolio and by identifying which transformation initiatives will deliver the most business value.”

Lachal says that PPM solutions are helping IT to mix and match internal and external IT resources. This aids an organisation to work out which resources are worth investing time and money in, while making it possible to consider the best way for optimising the portfolio mix. He argues that IT as a role rather than just as a person needs to manage them both. In his view IT is now becoming more of a service provider with a portfolio of services than just a department within an organisation that’s there for implementing and maintaining systems.

The key is to make sure that you manage the right services to move them forward to follow the requirements of the business

“So the key is to make sure that you manage the right services to move them forward to follow the requirements of the business, and PPM allows you to have this insight”, he argues. As Malik suggests, it can help an organisation analyse what the organisation needs today and in the future, and it can ensure that the appropriate resources are allocated to the right part of the business.

Given that organisations are quite often struggling to maintain their portfolio of critical systems, or are involved with implementing, managing and maintaining several projects at once, PPM can lend a hand in devising a more concentrated and targeted approach too. There may be certain projects that are just adding complexity without delivering any benefits to the organisation and its stakeholders. Malik therefore believes that we are on the cusp of a new technology-driven paradigm shift, which the cloud can play a role in developing as one of the vanguards of IT.

Bryan Foss, visiting professor at Bristol Business School and a Fellow of the British Computer Society, thinks that the cloud won’t add to any complexity that currently exists. “The potential use of PPM is driven by the need to develop a more joined-up view of the business and its support systems to optimise its effectiveness.”

Yet Lachal argues that managing and adding new resources to the mix adds complexity to the whole process. “You might reduce complexity in terms of technology, but we are talking about complexity in terms of service delivery – how to figure out which service to optimise and where to deliver it”.

He says that most discussions about the public cloud are about technical rather than management complexities. Foss adds that “board members expect their strategies to be implemented in a consistent manner through their organisation to achieve alignment in a way that delivers results.”