Enterprise Project Management: How To Plan & Implement
As your organization scales, you may find that managing projects individually is not giving you the return on investment that you’d hope to see.
For example, if your organization does not have a robust project selection process, the projects in your portfolio won’t align to overarching business goals. And, in execution, you’ll find inefficiencies in trying to plan, manage, and close out projects individually.
To lower project failure rate and optimize resource utilization company-wide, large organizations can consider enterprise project management as an alternative to traditional project management.
In this implementation guide, I'll define enterprise project management and explain why you need it, discuss the best way to implement it at your organization, and share an overview of EPM software to help you get started.
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What Is Enterprise Project Management (EPM)?
Enterprise project management (EPM) is the process of managing multiple, usually complex, projects within an organization.
EPM often requires cross-functional collaboration among different departments and project teams to ensure that individual projects within an organization’s portfolio stay on track and meet stated objectives. While different projects may have different business objectives, these objectives should align with enterprise level goals.
Through EPM, organizations can select and prioritize projects for completion, effectively allocate and manage resources, avoid duplication of effort, and ensure that projects finish on time and within budget.
Organizations can practice EPM regardless of the project management methodology that they use for their projects—whether waterfall, agile, or hybrid.
How Does Enterprise Project Management Differ From Traditional PM?
Enterprise project management is a method of managing projects at an organizational level. It usually entails the coordination of several complex activities at once.
While the tasks may appear to be unrelated, each of them impacts the organization more broadly. EPM requires a different approach than traditional project management, or even program management.
EPM is focused on outcomes rather than individual deliverables. This means that project success is measured by how well the project meets the needs of the organization, rather than by whether the milestones have been met and dependencies unblocked.
This holistic approach requires a deep understanding of the organization’s strategy and objectives.
EPM also takes a more collaborative approach than traditional project management. Because EPM projects are often interdependent, it is important to involve stakeholders in decision-making. This allows for a more coordinated and efficient use of resources.
Finally, EPM emphasizes adaptability and flexibility. With ever-changing organizational objectives, EPM must be able to rapidly respond to changes in scope or priorities. EPM takes into account the strategic objectives of the organization to involve stakeholders in decision-making functions.
How To Plan An Enterprise Project
As a systematic approach to managing projects across an organization, EPM incorporates seven specific elements to streamline business processes and optimize productivity.
Each of these elements is essential to the success of any EPM system and should therefore be applied thoroughly when planning any enterprise project:
- Risk analysis and control: identifying potential project risks early on and developing a risk management plan to mitigate them
- Project estimation: estimating the cost, timeline, and resources necessary for a new project
- Methodology review: continuously evaluating and tweaking systems, enterprise PM frameworks, management processes, and workflows to improve project performance
- Issue prioritization and escalation: quickly addressing any problems that arise during project execution
- Time management: planning, monitoring, and adjusting project schedules
- Information systems: using real-time data to inform project reviews and decisions and track progress
- Training and mentoring: providing employees with the resources they need to succeed
How To Implement EPM In Your Organization
- Inventory ongoing projects at your organization to understand the current state of your project portfolio.
- Create and set enterprise business goals to understand what you want to achieve.
- Evaluate the list of ongoing projects against your business goals and adjust the project list accordingly to align with these goals and with capacity.
- Create a reporting system for teams to record project progress and track against business goals. A centralized enterprise project management dashboard enables organizations to maintain visibility across multiple projects.
- Monitor and control progress, including a cadence for creating quarterly goals and documenting lessons learned and decisions made. Many EPM software providers offer the capability to create goals and align and track project progress against goals.
Implementing best practices for project management is essential to manage the complexities of enterprise-level projects effectively.
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Benefits of Enterprise Project Management
Taking the time to plan and implement enterprise project management at your organization yields several benefits:
- Robust project selection process: ensures that the projects you choose to pursue align with organizational goals
- Stakeholder accountability: engages stakeholders in organizational decision-making and holds them accountable to project outcomes
- Enterprise resource allocation: streamlines resource planning and allocation across your organization
- Improved project reporting: reports on project progress individually and organization-wide to understand potential bottlenecks and opportunities for collaboration
Tools to Simplify Enterprise Project Management
Enterprise project management software is a specialized form of project management software that helps organizations and the enterprise project management office (EPMO) plan, execute, and track large-scale projects across an organization. EPM software can be used to manage multiple types of projects ranging from construction to product launches.
Similar to project management software, EPM software typically includes features such as project planning and scheduling, resource management, task tracking, and budgeting. In addition, EPM systems can help organizations optimize their resource usage and thus improve efficiency across the project portfolio.
As a step up from wrangling spreadsheets and monitoring tasks via email or Slack, organizations can use EPM software to identify potential risks and issues upon project initiation or early in the project life cycle and track project progress.
When choosing an EPM software, project managers should consider the following factors:
- Robust feature set: EPM software should offer a variety of features, such as task management, resource allocation, and project reporting, that are essential for managing large and complex projects. The software should also meet any needs specific to your business, such as custom budgeting or time tracking requirements.
- Ease of use: EPM software should be user-friendly so that employees can start using the tool effectively with minimal ramp-up time. Spending a lot of money and time on software acquisition and implementation does nothing for you if your team members are unwilling to use what you’ve purchased.
- Affordability: Software costs should be in line with your organizational budget.
- Compatibility: The software should be compatible with other applications that your organization uses. (More: What are PM applications?) In addition, it should be scalable, so that the software can grow with your business as it expands.
There are a number of excellent software tools out there that meet these needs and can make managing projects a breeze. It's important to acknowledge that PM software has a learning curve that varies depending on the user's prior experience.
Why use project management software and which one is best for you? Check out our list of the best enterprise project management software tools to find out.
Not there yet? Start with the definition of project management software to understand how it works and what it can do for you.
Get more details on each of the above tools (and more) in this video:
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Bottom Line
If you want to ensure your organization is getting the most out of its projects and available resources, it’s time to introduce enterprise project management.
Do you need help getting started? The team at The Digital Project Manager is here to support you every step of the way. Sign up for DPM membership and join the conversation in Slack with 100s of other digital project managers.
