Category: Articles

What they don’t teach you in books about project management – Part two

In part one of this two part series, I covered two of what I consider to be four key skills that are critical to project management success. So far we’ve looked at resource conflict resolution and negotiation. In this second instalment, we will look at problem resolution and the ability to push changes through on … Continue reading

What they don’t teach you in books about project management – Part one

In some ways, project management is a black and white profession. There are standard activities you should do, must do and can do to help better ensure project success. You must communicate well and often, you should always produce timely status reports, you can always hold weekly team meetings to stay up to date on … Continue reading

More data fields in PPO

Have you seen our newest enhancement? Of course, you have, it’s hard to miss! Our latest enhancement has added an additional 20 project data fields and an average of 15 more fields across other entities. Why is this good news? For those of you that don’t know what the fuss is about, data fields are … Continue reading

Developing the project

All projects originate from somewhere: a need, a want, a directive, a problem, a catastrophic failure that needs correcting, and so on. Often, when problems arise in an organisation, they are quickly attacked by well-meaning individuals who want to solve the issue quickly. Whilst that may work for small issues, when the need or problem … Continue reading

Bytes Document Solutions implements Project Portfolio Office for increased project visibility and tracking

Bytes Document Solutions, a division of Bytes Technology Group has rolled out Project Portfolio Office, (PPO) an online project portfolio management (PPM) and collaboration application, to improve project visibility and tracking. Bytes Document Solutions is Africa’s leading document management technology and solutions company, offering a comprehensive range of products and services through three independent business … Continue reading

Project Portfolio Office’s project portfolio management software rolled out at MMI Holdings, delivering increased transparency and enhanced delivery

Project Portfolio Office (PPO), an online project portfolio management (PPM) and collaboration application, has been successfully implemented within the Group Finance division of MMI Holdings, a JSE-listed financial services group. Following the successful rollout of the tool within MMI’s Human Resources (HR) division, Group Finance will be using it to improve project transparency and delivery. … Continue reading

Has the project been a success? By Caroline Lowings

Quite often when a project finally ends, no one has the time or inclination to even ask, "Has it been a success?" But actually, when a project closes out, a rare opportunity is presented to evaluate what worked and what didn't, and more importantly to capture lessons learnt. It really surprises me that many organisations … Continue reading

PPO practices continuous deployment

Previously at Project Portfolio Office (PPO), we followed a "tick-tock" approach for new releases. That is, we would have a customer facing release (the "tick") followed by a technical release (the "tock"). The customer facing releases were typically enhancement requests from our customers or internally generated enhancements that our users would "see", while the technical … Continue reading

When should projects be added to PPO? (Part II)

As discussed in our first blog post (Part I) on this topic, we’re often asked when the best time is to add projects to PPO. The fact of the matter is that there is no “cut and dried” answer to this question, as it mostly depends on the origin of the project; something that is … Continue reading

PPO sponsors the launch of CoLAB’s Short Learning Program (SLP) in Project Management

Project Portfolio Office (PPO) was a proud sponsor at the recent CoLAB course graduation ceremony. One of the longest standing PPO partners, CoLAB Learning Academy, announced that a new group of graduates have completed its flagship course, the Short Learning Program (SLP) in Project Management. The course is a North West University accredited, advanced, outcomes … Continue reading