PM-Partners Partners with Planview to Help Large Enterprises Conquer Complexity in Project Planning and Execution

Sydney, Australia -- August 8, 2011

-- Leading Australian project services firm, PM-Partners group, today announced that it has partnered with US-based Planview to offer a offer a comprehensive best-of-breed enterprise portfolio management (EPM) solution to large enterprise organisations in Australia.

"Large enterprises are typically their own worst enemies when it comes to successfully planning and executing projects," said Pete Swan, Director for PM-Partners group. "Between 30% and 55% of enterprise projects continue to fail largely because of unnecessary business complexity and the fragmentation of business systems and processes."

Common project-related issues included wasted resources, escalating costs, a lack of visibility and strategic alignment, conflicting priorities and redundant projects.

Enterprise Portfolio Management (EPM) helps orchestrate an organisation's people, process and technology resources to select and deliver projects more effectively. Its benefits include strategy to outcome visibility, effective resource management, business intelligence and decision support, and project collaboration, reporting and control.

While an EPM technology solution may promise a quick fix, deriving benefits require changes in people and processes as well as technology, said Swan. "Hundreds of thousands of dollars are lost in poor or technically focussed EPM deployments and inappropriate systems. They are basically automating chaos."

At the very least, organisations need to establish a project management office (PMO). PM-Partners group has 15 years PMO experience with large enterprises and the firm's approach to successful EPM deployment also includes:

* Staff training, mentoring and support;

* Process definition, documentation and rollout;

* Best-of-breed EPM technology; and

* Organisational change management.

The Planview EPM technology solution combines integrated portfolio management with real-time analytics and reporting and automated process management. Working together, these capabilities give organisations improved visibility, fewer redundancies, increased efficiency and the ability to focus limited resources on the highest-value work.

"We are pleased that PM-Partners has chosen the Planview solution to augment their demonstrated capabilities in project management consulting, implementation services, change management, and education and certification," said Jeff Durbin, Executive Vice President of Global Operations for Planview.

PM-Partners group previously maintained a vendor-agnostic position and will continue to support clients that choose their own EPM technology solutions. However, the project services firm was increasingly being asked to recommend, implement and support EPM solutions and made a strategic decision to specialise.

PM-Partners group evaluated 180 EPM suppliers before choosing Planview, only short-listing vendors that offered solutions as both Software as a Service (SaaS) and on-premises deployments.

"Large enterprise is a complex beast. It needs an EPM technology solution with comprehensive best-of-breed functionality and advanced business process integration and technology integration capabilities," said Swan. "At the same time, enterprises want to quickly and cost-effectively get started with the option to grow the EPM deployment and integrate it with other systems once it is proven."

Another important requirement was comprehensive project portfolio management and business intelligence support including executive dashboards.

"Resource management is one of the biggest problems in organisations today," said Swan. "But to make best use of your resources, you first need to prioritise and select the right projects to run. That means giving executives the visibility and intelligence with which to make top down decisions. Choosing the right system is a minefield and to make matters worse system implementation seems to be regularly challenged or unnecessarily expensive. We can now help our clients with system selection and if required take them right through to operation, running the system for them for a while if they wish under a managed services agreement -- reducing the risk completely."

About PM-Partners group

PM-Partners group has helped Australian organisations achieve better business outcomes for 15 years. PM-Partners group are Australia's most highly certified project management specialist, and each year assist in the delivery of projects valued at over $500 million. PM-Partners group talented team of over 100 experienced consultants, project managers and facilitators work with organisations throughout Australia, Asia, Europe, and the USA, managing over 300 client engagements and projects in various industry sectors each year.

For more information about PM-Partners group, please visit www.pm-partners.com.au.