Imagine that! More innovation in PPM

When Ideation Meets Project Management

Innovation in the PSA/PPM space was missing for much of this decade. Professional Services Automation software and Project Portfolio Management software had fallen into a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) status for a while.

That’s definitely changed lately.

The use of PPM software to develop new products is a hot idea for this space. The software you use to manage projects can now be used to manage R&D efforts and solicit input for new product development.

This last year, I was briefed by both CA and Planview as to their respective NPD (new product development) capabilities. Last week, Planview upped the ante by announcing new functionality to enable the capture of customer input, employee input, etc. in the creation of new products or extensions to existing products.

I’ve seen firms use this type of capability before. Dell has a solution (built on Salesforce.com technology) to capture customer ideas re: their products. Planview’s approach is a bit different in that the solution integrates with their project management tools. I like the integration because just capturing ideas isn’t enough. You need to get new ideas and flow them into the development cycles/plans.