HPE Project & Portfolio Management (PPM) version 9.41 is now available

20 March 2017

Glad to be here! This was a phrase used by a former “Blue Angels” pilot, John Foley – in a Keynote session that I had the opportunity to hear him speak. I was stunned by about the level of planning and preparation required for them to perform demonstrations at such a high level of precision at air shows around the country.

Blue Angels

During his keynote he gave an example of this level of skill and precision.  Diamond 360 maneuver they are just 18 inches away from each other! Keep in mind this is in jets, travelling at incredible speeds, where any mistake could be life threatening.  My key takeaway from his keynote was that teams need to strategize, plan, and build teamwork to reach success.

Like Mr. Foley, I am also ‘glad to be here’.  The first piece of news that I have to share is the release of the latest version of HPE Project & Portfolio Management, version 9.41.  The second piece of news is that I am the new Senior Product Marketing Manager for the HPE Project and Portfolio Management solution. Project & Portfolio Management is one of my strong knowledge areas and something that I am very passionate about.  I am happy to share my insights and knowledge with you with in a series of blogs that I’m working on.  This blog will be the first of many.

Highlights of HPE Project & Portfolio Management v9.41:

Bringing Agility to the Digital Transformation Era

The success of the Blue Angels is that they have a well-defined strategy & plan to define what and how they will deliver, and teamwork to execute the maneuver and take fast actions in unexpected situations.  This is a very important formula for any team who is trying to reach a high level of success.

Enterprises that are embarking in the Digital Transformation world are dealing with multiple tolls and frameworks to deliver applications and services in unexpected situations. These siloed environments make it difficult to have a clear strategy and plan, or even visibility to take fast actions.

Gartner’s report on Building the Digital Platform: Insights From the 2016 Gartner CIO Agenda had some excellent insights into successful Digital Transformation:

“Though not every company and government agency is becoming a platform business in terms of industry dynamics, new digital opportunities and threats mean that all enterprises need to understand and exploit platform effects throughout their businesses to remain viable. For CIOs, “platformizing” their approach to delivery, talent and leadership presents an enormous opportunity to orchestrate these layers of the business, create value for their enterprise and become a key digital leader.”

To help you close the gaps between various distributed projects, programs and frameworks we are introducing the following integrations:

  • An out of the box connector for PPM & Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Octane, JIRA, Rally and VersionOne

The PPM Connector allows you to integrate data from Agile teams into your project and programs providing full visibility to executives about how an application is being delivered. All of these integrations will bring data for real-time actions to benefit the business. The integration includes additional pre-configured portlets to help you get started.

As you might have multiple Agile teams, you may want to implement SAFE (Scale Agile Framework) framework. The connector support frameworks like SAFE.

SAFE Framework

HPE PPM out-of-box connectors for Agile soluitons

SAFe 4.0 for Lean Software and Systems Engineering

SAFE Scale Agile Framework brings consolidated view of the application development of hybrid teams (Agile, Waterfall)

 

  • Fresh and New Integrations with Microsoft Project

HPE offers a robust WBS (Work breakdown structure), but for those who prefer to use Microsoft Project as the WBS tool, we have refreshed our PPM-MSP integration. Now PPM can read MSP files directly without the need for the plug-in. What was already easy, is now faster as well. The objective is to bring all projects and program information together.

  • Managing Budget with Different Strategies

Strategy is one of the pillars that the Blue Angles rely on to achieve success. Agile does not remove the word “Strategy”.

For strategy, we are continuously investing in Program & Portfolio Management. PPM 9.41 introduces top-down budgeting for work which is in contrast to the default bottom-up budgeting.  This gives program managers flexibility in budget management. Now you can control budget at the program level and distribute the budget among program content

Two Budget Strategies (options) available in PPM 9.41

Program Management & Top down budget management

Additional product enhancements

We always strive to deliver enhancements and requests made from you our customer during each new release.  Here are the new product enhancements:

  • Universal way to handle project risks, issues, and scope changes
  • Enhance program progress to be calculated from project progress
  • Staffing profile and work plan synchronization
  • Lock timesheets
  • Approve timesheet lines in Approve Time Page
  • Dashboard page filters

We are now adding support for the following environments:

  • Microsoft Windows 10
  • Mac OS 10
  • Microsoft Windows Server 2016
  • iPad4 with iOS 10
  • Chrome 56
  • Firefox 45.7 ESR
  • Safari 10
  • Microsoft Office 2016

In summary: “Strategy, Plan & Teamwork” is equal to “Success for the Digital Transformation” era.

Handy links to learn more about PPM 9.41 below:

PPM Help Center

Release notes

Let me know what version of HPE PPM that are you current using and what you like the most about the new v9.41 in the comments below.

I am glad to be your new Product Marketing and look forward to hear from you.  Feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn.

For more information on project & portfolio management please visit our website.

 

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