Something is really upsetting you and you just can't get your head around it.  You look at the half eaten chicken wrap next to you but you know that isn't it.

You worked for years throughout operations, development, and billing.  You ability to forge alliances in the business and to deliver consistent results with comparatively small budgets landed you the CIO job.  Now that you are here you wonder where "here" is and how to get "there" in this disastrous financial climate.

You start reviewing the metrics on your desk you asked for 3 weeks ago and received this morning.  The project and portfolio management information you thought would be "real-time" apparently took over a hundreds hours to prepare and nearly shut down the whole management staff.  Sigh - 100 hours of effort to produce some simple reports that are already out of date.  That will teach you for asking your directors "what is going on?"

Looking over the numbers the first one grabs your attention.  IT spent over 1,000,000 hours on projects last year. 

Then the voice in your head finally talks to you.  "The #1 thing we can do is to improve project productivity and insure consistency in our delivery."

Sure you had a new global sourcing strategy, an enormous effort to identify people by role (not title), and bleeding edge new technologies to absorb before the economic crisis hit and were asked to justify your budget or face significant cuts.

At the end of the day, it comes down to project management competencies, lifecycle/workflow optimization, enabling tools, and resource capacity planning.  In short you need to focus on the people, the processes, and the Project and Portfolio Management solution that will allow you to eat into the 1,000,000 hours without sacrificing quality.

Next, you shuffle through your paperwork and find the Gartner white paper on PPM providers.  All the usual suspects are here:  Microsoft, Oracle, Planview, Computer Associates, HP, and SAP.  Sadly, nothing under $1M on the list.  You start to wonder if perhaps you are in the wrong business.   You recall the last time the company looked at PPM tools.  Each demo revealed a solution more complex and unusable then the next.  The sales people were touting already bloated products in hopes of driving more upgrades that IT organizations won't use.  No thanks.

Then you remember all the buzz at the last CIO Gartner conference about VCSonline.com and their VPMi Professional.

You check out their web site.  They seem to have plenty of enterprise references, customers, and testimonials.  The functionality seems very simple - especially resource management.  The dashboards that are real time are 100x better then the 100 hour report on your desk. 

You fear you can't afford this one either but then you see the price.  Wow, $10/month for everyone but PMs and executives?  That is less then 1/3 of the other SaaS tools and an order of magnitude cheaper then the Gartner magic quadrant players.

You send an email to the selection committee.  There is a new front-runner in your quest to keep your budgets (and your jobs) intact. 

At a Glance:  How the SaaS VPMi Professional Saves YOU Money:

Cancel and Fast Track  projects quickly Projects at risk or in fact going over their allotted budgets and timelines can be quickly put on hold or cancelled while high business value projects with the best returns can be prioritized and optimized.

Meet goals while lowering staff levels Going through mandatory budget and staff cuts?  VPMi has demonstrated improve efficiency and project accountability with less staff.  Supply and Demand resource reporting shows how many people (by role) you need to meet your demand.  What-if allows you to eliminate functions and people under/not utilized.

Eliminate expensive redundant systems Consolidate and eliminate expensive project, time, help desk, and other tracking systems.

No servers to purchase and setup Eliminates servers, software management, procurement, setup, maintenance, and energy costs.

No software footprint or compatibility/upgrade fees Browser based and delivered via the Internet so no desktop costs for average user.

No dedicated technical support needed on-site Software service is web-based and supported remotely as part of the low user cost.

Works with tools you own and know saves training and startup time and money Integration with Microsoft Project insures quick transition from existing plans to VPMi.

Security is extraordinary and requires no further investment Uses banking standard for secure communications and guaranteed service levels insure users have access to their work.

Eliminate wasteful meetings Eliminate needless meetings with online collaboration and status reporting.

One source of reporting and projects saves teams time and the company money Manage more projects with the same number of people.

Improve customer loyalty through project portal and collaboration for more follow on engagements Enter issues and feedback online 24/7 with email updates to eliminate confusion and project administration.  Customers can also enter change requests and new project requests for improved opportunity capture/delivery.

No capitalized purchase expense No need to capitalize the expense (software as a service).

Save money when auditing projects Projects are easily audited saving time/money in compliance functions like Sarbanes Oxley.

Teams can utilize best practices without spending money building their own processes Utilizes the Project Management Institute best practices for easy recognition of forms and terminology to project teams.

Thanks for reading and let me know if any of you have any feedback on your own SaaS PPM efforts!  I would love to hear your thoughts!

Warm Regards,

Nick Matteucci, Co-Founder www.VCSonline.com
VPMi = Simple + Sensible + Supportable SaaS Project Management

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