PPM

PPM – The Road Ahead
In Today’s world, companies try to maximize the efficiency to stay competitive in the market. To stay ahead in competition, organizations need to deliver the quality products and services using the latest technology, skills and automated tools to minimize overhead costs.

In earlier days the software development use to happen in one location and it was easy to manage the releases. In current scenario, the teams are spread across globally and work in different time zones. Adding to this there may be many configuration management tools that may be used across the product. Integrating them and planning for a release is a challenge. The challenges is to covert these pains into pleasure and take the maximum advantage of the time zone and help the customer in providing the quality on time.

The objective is to provide competitive solution for common IT challenges faced in managing and bringing the efficiently. The resolutions adopted to improve customer satisfaction leading to repeated business.
What is PPM?
In simple words it is “Project & Portfolio Management”. It defines the mechanisms of building process in the organization. The process continues to evolve while being applied to complex distributed software services.

The goal is to run the process in an automated way. This can be applied in any kind of industry.

The main objectives of these processes are to have
• Repeatable and dependable process
• Quick and accurate
• Cost-effective
• Implement efficient procedure
• Planning

The above objectives can be achieved by adopting suitable management strategy with automation tools.

To achieve the above, we have used PPM integrated solution. The software demands are captured in demand management module and changes are built and deployed.
Availability of PPM tools
There are many tools available in the market. Few have hit the market Gartner magic quadrant.

• Clarity
• HP PPM
• Change Point
• Planview
• Planisware

The benefits of using these tools are
• Greater visibility
• An automated, repeatable, scalable and standard process achieved.
• Better real time reporting
• Successful implementations served as a benchmark for more applications and business streams to adopt to PPM
• Gives a structured approach, leading to an efficient and effective process
• Reduces the dependency on resources
• Helps to verify correct usability and functionality before release by testing
• Provides full control on the process

Here are some requirements for a person to be in PPM Roles:
Concepts:
• Understanding of SDLC(Software Development Life Cycle)
o Different phases of SDLC
o SCM involvement in SDLC
o Different phases in testing
Technologies:
• Knowledge of PPM tool(Clarity/HP PPM/ Change Point /Planview / Planisware)
• Knowledge on SDLC Process (Waterfall/ V Process/ RUP/ SCRUM)
• Knowledge of Database
• Knowledge of scripting for automation (PERL, Shell, Batch etc.,)
o Courses offered on Shell and PERl in some of the institutes.
• Knowledge of Operating Systems (Windows, Unix)
Soft Skills:
• Co-ordination
• Documentation
• Process orientation
Demand for PPM
As per Indian IT, annual compensation for PPM consultants at 3 to 8 years exp is in the range of
5 to 7 lacs per year
7 to 8 lacs per year
8 to 9.5 lacs per year
9.5 to 11 lacs per year
More than 13 lacs per year

I will be happy to provide any guidance to those aspiring people in becoming PPM Consultants. Feel free to contact me on sreedhar.kvsree@gmail.com