l What are the pain areas for top executives and how these issues are addressed by the Project Management mantra?
Businesses today face following challenges: Too many project failures (and restarts) that further endanger healthy projects with shared resources and deliverables; Too many marginal projects competing for a limited number of skilled resources; Executives unable to make timely, accurate decisions regarding strategic initiatives through lack of supporting data; A growing mismatch between stakeholder expectations and project results. Organizational down sizing is forcing the need to improve productivity. Time to market pressures increase the need to deliver projects on time and within budget. Project complexity is increasing with more organizations initiating enterprise-wide initiatives. Today, organizations view all changes to their business processes as "project oriented".

l How is Enterprise Project Management (EPM) different from traditional project management?
EPM is a distinct twist on management, brought about by changing times, an organization-wide managerial philosophy based on the principle that company goals and objectives are achieved by undertaking a web of projects simultaneously, which calls for a systematic approach to program management and is based on the principle that your organization’s vision, mission, and objectives are a set of projects.

Basic project management focuses and answers questions around getting a project done effectively and efficiently whereas, EPM aims at answering questions related to how to make a business more adaptable to change, responsive, and thus more profitable in a rapidly changing and multi-project environment. With the Enterprise Project Management solution, your business can answer the following questions: How do we prioritize projects across our organization? What is the status of our top five projects? Do we have the right people working on the right projects and Do we capitalize on our knowledge and best practices?

l What is Project Portfolio Management (PPM)?
Making decisions on key initiatives can be challenging. By providing a centralized and consolidated view of programs and projects, PPM helps you evaluate and prioritize activities. This makes it possible for you to maximize productivity, minimize costs, and keep activities aligned with strategic objectives. Applying effective PPM practices is becoming increasingly important to all business organizations.

l What do companies need to keep in mind while selecting and implementing a software solution?
Choosing the right project management software package used to be as easy as going to your local computer store and seeing what was available. But accelerating changes in project management software has mandated a different approach. More emphasis on sophisticated features require as an in -depth evaluation of major alternatives. No matter what you do, without executive sponsorship, you will fail. Make sure you understand who cares, who will be most affected, and who makes decisions. Remember to keep it simple, focus on value, and plan.

The entire end user community should be involved while selecting a system. Test drive the software first before a trainer is brought in. The primary purpose of a pilot is to demonstrate that the design works in the production environment as is expected and that it meets the business requirements. To get the maximum return on the investment, its important the enough time and resources are allocated to rollout the solution.