Project portfolio management (PPM) is a crucial process in managing and aligning an organisation's project portfolio with its strategic goals. PPM tools have a range of features that make project management more efficient, effective, and successful.  

It’s important to note that the features we’re mentioning below go beyond the typical features you would expect in a project management tool such as task management, Gantt, Kanban’s etc. This list below is a sort of ‘Project Management Plus’ – all the features of a project management software, plus more, making it better suited for project portfolio management.  

Resource Management

Resource management is a crucial aspect of PPM, and a good PPM tool will have robust resource management features. Resource management allows project managers to allocate resources effectively and optimise resource utilisation. A great tool like Fluid allows you to allocate resources and capacity plan efficiently, understanding the availability, capacity gaps and budgetary implications.  

Budget Planning and Financial Management

Budget planning is key for all project management and definitely something that you PPM software should support you with. Features such as budget planning and tracking are essential for successful project management and should allow project managers to create budgets, track expenses, and monitor the progress of the project against the budget. Tracking project benefits and ongoing costs and having a clear update on your Capex and Opex is vital. Not to toot our own horn but Fluid’s financial capabilities are advanced, perfect for businesses of any size.  

Real-Time Project Tracking and Monitoring

PPM tools provide project managers with the ability to track and monitor project progress, but having your PPM software give you real-time data is vital. This feature enables project managers to identify issues and take corrective action quickly, ensuring that the project stays on track and allowing you to make business decisions more quickly. Fluid provides real-time data, ensuring project managers only have the most up-to-date information to base their decisions on.  

Reporting and Analytics

Understanding the performance and progress of project portfolios is valuable and made possible through reporting and analytics features. Project managers can use these features to make informed decisions and adjust project plans as necessary. When you’ve got a vast project portfolio, reporting and analytics makes it easier to understand the project landscape better. With features like project dashboards, KPI tracking, and analytics, Fluid helps businesses to track project progress, measure performance against key metrics, and make informed decisions to optimise their project portfolio's performance.  

Risk Management

Risk management features allow project managers to identify, assess, and manage risks, ensuring that the project is delivered on time and within budget. A great PPM tool should have strong risk management features that can truly help mitigate risks ahead of time. Fluid provides a number of reporting methods to help project managers identify risks ahead of time, including RAG statuses helping at a glance.  

Collaboration and Communication

Effective communication and collaboration are key to project success! Your chosen PPM software needs to facilitate collaboration and communication between team members for productive working. Features such as task assignments, messaging, and document sharing enable team members to work together seamlessly. Going one step further, Fluid allows document sharing and chats directly on the project itself, ensuring all communications are in one convenient place, and nothing gets lost in the sea of emails! Fluid’s ‘meetings’ feature makes clear communication easier, whilst minimising the admin by automatically circulating meeting minutes, actions and even chasing up on the actions!  

Program Management

PPM tools that support program management are essential. These tools enable project managers to manage multiple projects simultaneously, ensuring that all projects are aligned with the organisation's strategic goals. Even if your organisation isn’t quite bursting at the seams yet, make sure the PPM software you choose is scalable with your organisation and won’t fall short as your business thrives. Fluid is carefully designed to scale with organisations as project management needs grow, robust and able to handle large, complex projects.  

Customisability

A good PPM tool should be customisable to fit the specific needs of an organisation. Customisability allows organisations to tailor the tool to their unique processes, ensuring that the tool is efficient and effective. A great PPM tool like Fluid understands the needs of each organisation differ, even with things as small as the vocabulary used. That’s why Fluid allows organisations to name various tags and titles to suit them. Fluid allows project managers to create custom project templates, workflows and boards to ensure it’s exactly as you need it, ideal for PMO standardisation.

Project Intake  

Project intake is a great feature for a PPM software to have because it enables businesses to effectively manage the demand for new projects. This feature helps businesses to evaluate new project requests and determine if they align with the organisation's strategic goals and objectives. Fluid’s Project Pipeline enables you to optimise your project pipeline process with configurable work requests, whilst keeping everyone updated on the progress.  

Why are these features important?

These features are important because they provide project managers with the tools, they need to manage projects effectively. The key features of PPM software enable project managers to allocate resources effectively, track progress in real-time, identify and manage risks, and collaborate with team members. Without these features, project managers would struggle to manage projects effectively, and projects would be more likely to fail.  

It's important to understand what good and even great features look like so that organisations can make informed decisions when choosing their PPM software and are choosing software that’s most appropriate for them. It’s just as important to understand exactly what software it is you need too.  

Fluid encompasses all of the key features we’ve mentioned to an advanced level to help manage PPM effectively and efficiently. As an intuitive solution, Fluid is easy to use (therefore easy to adopt!) and scalable with your business. Fluid is an all-in-one solution, great at minimising admin work and general faff, housing everything you need to effectively manage project portfolios, in one place.  

Book a demo with us to learn how we can help your organisation.