PPM for the custom development and SaaS world

A Different Cut on the PPM Product Suite

I cover lots and lots of PPM (project portfolio management) software products. The other day I chatted with Yaron Sinai, CEO of Elementool, and I got a different view of the PPM space.

Elementool has approached this market a bit differently that other firms. The first clue is their list of applications:

- help desk - bug tracking - time tracking - test cases - files sharing - forums

While many PPM products support a collaboration or workspace technology, I can’t say I’ve seen many offer help desk and bug tracking applications as part of their PPM product line.

The Elementool product line seems a good fit for those IT shops that do a lot of custom code development and maintenance. That means some industries like Financial Services would be a good fit for this solution. Yaron confirmed they have a number of big banks (e.g., Deutsche Bank) as clients. They also have other large IT shops as clients too (e.g., BP, GE, Unilever, Motorola, etc.).

The product line also includes some interesting web-based bug tracking capabilities. Yaron indicated that they will soon offer new bug tracking and other capabilities on smart phones.

If you’re looking at PPM products now, at least take a glance at these tools if only to see what other capabilities might be of value in your software evaluation.