PPM software yields savings

Constellation Energy invested in project and portfolio management (PPM) software from HP in part to comply with requirements laid out in the Sarbanes-Oxley legislation, states PC World.

In addition to achieving compliance, the integrated energy company reduced repetitive processes and is saving nearly $1 million annually.

"We were able to implement a standard change management approach and platform across the entire IT landscape, which drove our biggest tangible ROI," says Jeff Johnson, vice-president of infrastructure at Constellation Energy. "We didn't need to test each process for every change and we got huge savings when it came to the cost associated with audits."

According to The Standish Group, it's no wonder only 29% of IT projects are completed successfully, says PC World.

Project management consultants and software providers say they see IT departments making the same project management mistakes over and over: IT groups don't follow standard project management processes. They don't have the right staff working on projects. They don't assess the risks that could imperil their projects or determine ways to mitigate those risks.

Most of the project management mistakes IT departments make boil down to either a lack of adequate planning or breakdowns in communication - either among the project team or between the project team and the project sponsors.

Projility, an IT services provider specialising in project management and enterprise portfolio management solutions, has been selected by the US's National Institutes of Health (NIH) to provide enterprise level consulting services to support and enhance NIH's technology infrastructure. The blanket purchase agreement covers a period of three-and-a-half years (through August 2011), reports PR.com.

Having made a significant investment in enterprise software licensing over the years, NIH sought an IT services provider to help fully leverage its capabilities.

Projility will provide project and programme management, technology planning, application development, system and process engineering, and training services on a variety of enterprise solutions.