With the rising global trend of digital transformation comes the increasing necessity of implementing a digital solution to assist organizations in meeting emerging customer demands and executing business objectives. Embracing business agility and driving digital transformation initiatives toward successful execution has prompted many companies to use SPM software tools.
Included in this article, we discuss the basic features SPM software solutions have, the benefits they bring to companies and a list of 9 powerful tools to consider.
What Is Strategic Portfolio Management Software?
Having a strategic portfolio management tool helps you manage a portfolio of projects, programs, initiatives, etc., and align them with the company's strategy. SPM software comes with a set of powerful features that allow organizations to organize and keep track of the performance of their projects in an efficient manner.
Recommended Features SPM Software Should Have
An essential capability of an SPM software solution is a scalable and flexible architecture to achieve strategic alignment with company-wide project initiatives and provide a bird-eye overview of an organization’s portfolios and top priorities.
In addition, here are some other key features found in SPM solutions:
-
Objectives & Key Results to bridge the gap between high-level goals and execution.
- Road mapping capabilities to visualize and prioritize strategic objectives.
- Executive dashboards to capture project performance insights.
- Demand management functionalities to utilize resources according to most urgent needs.
- Data-driven figures for risk analysis and accurate forecasting.
- Integration with external tools to stay connected and share information.
Some of the most common advantages of SPM tools are:
- They provide a strategy hub to align goals and projects.
- They help you enable project prioritization across large portfolios and allocate resources accordingly.
- SPM tools give you capacity planning and demand management capabilities across the organization's top priorities.
What Are the 9 Best Software Tools for Strategic Portfolio Management?
The vast array of benefits that strategic portfolio management software brings to organizations is what makes them so popular nowadays. When choosing the right solutions for your organizational needs, however, you may need help with this exercise. So, here is a brief overview of some of the top strategic portfolio management tools available today.
Our list of top SPM software includes:
- Businessmap (formerly Kanbanize)
- ServiceNow
- Planview
- Apptio Targetprocess
- Smartsheet
- Strategic Portfolio Manager by UMT360
- Planisware
- i-nexus
- OnePlan
1. Businessmap (formerly Kanbanize)
Businessmap is an end-to-end project portfolio management platform that helps companies connect strategy with execution by aligning goals, project portfolios, and work activities in a central place. The solution offers a flexible architecture that you can tailor to any existing organizational structure.
The software emphasizes providing companies with bird's-eye visibility across all projects and work activities through Management and Team workspaces. With integrated goal-setting capabilities, managers can set up their outcomes and easily connect them to projects across different parts of the organization. To gain a central view of what's going on across the company, the platform offers executive dashboards where you can detect risks, compare goal vs. work progress, and assess whether what you're working on brings you the results you're after.
Combined with customizable dashboards to visualize various sets of data for the performance of your projects, the software provides a single solution for the management of all moving parts in the organization.
Connecting strategic objectives and execution activities across the enterprise
Key features
- Management Dashboards
- Goals Visualization through OKRs
- Project Performance Reporting
- Integrations with multiple digital tools such as Power BI, Microsoft Teams, Tableau, Google Data Studio, Google Drive, Github, Zapier, etc.
- Enterprise-Grade Security
- Customizable workflows
- Advanced Analytics Module & Lean/Agile metrics
- Dependency Management
If you want to learn more, you can try Businessmap for free.
2. ServiceNow (SPM)
ServiceNow’s SPM solution helps you bridge the gap between strategy and delivery by aligning work across the organization with strategic outcomes and continuously building true organizational agility. The software supports connecting strategy with investments through planner workspaces that create roadmaps based on the company’s demands, epics, and projects.
This integrated platform allows teams to apply a management approach of their choice (such as Agile project management), organize and structure their work, and empower teams to deliver more value. With Project Workspaces, you get a central view of the key initiatives and track the dependencies across different teams and workspaces. This feature also ensures that everything is aligned with the strategic goals.
Key features
- Scenario Planning
- Demand Management Dashboard
- KPIs and Project Performance Analytics
- Resource Allocation Workbench
- Unified Backlogs to manage Agile or Waterfall development
3. Planview Portfolios (formerly Planview Enterprise One)
Planview Portfolios is one of the four solutions for enterprises, part of the Planview Portfolios (formerly Planview Enterprise One) arsenal.
Its primary purpose is to help business leaders drive success in strategy execution and empower business agility while keeping up with market changes. The platform helps reduce the barrier between strategy and delivery by making the right tradeoffs across people and financial resources. As a result, the end-customer value delivery is improved, and processes are optimized to address any changes.
Key features
- Objectives and Key Results (OKRs)
- Investment Prioritization
- Demand Management
- Scenario Planning
- Process Automation and Workflows
- Dashboard Analytics
- Portfolio Reporting and Visualizations
4. Apptio Targetprocess
Apptio Targetprocess is a SaaS platform for strategic management and enterprise agile planning. It allows managers throughout all organizational levels to organize and manage their projects and portfolios, investments, and financial resources while keeping them in line with corporate strategic goals.
The platform offers various in-built solutions that support organizations during their Agile transformation and helps them create value across all business levels. These solutions assist teams in creating an end-to-end visualization and alignment of work as well as keeping track of project progress.
Key features
5. Smartsheet
Smartsheet is a cloud solution for project and portfolio management. The platform primarily aims to align the right resources, people, and operational tasks to projects and portfolios to deliver better results and achieve greater efficiency. The software lets managers connect business strategy with execution and make data- and value-driven decisions based on real-time work performance and end-to-end visibility across project and portfolio status.
Key features
-
Strategic Planning
- Demand Intake
-
Portfolio Prioritization
- Resource and Capacity Planning
- Project and Work Delivery
- Project and Portfolio Reporting
- Integrations with applications like Slack, Google Workspace, Jira, ServiceNow, and Microsoft 365.
6. UMT360 (now North Highland)
Equipped with advanced strategic portfolio management accelerators, the solution by UMT360 helps companies deliver an advanced approach to managing portfolios and achieving true business agility. It allows companies to align and connect their investment with strategies to drive business performance and agility more effectively.
Key features
- Road mapping and Release Management
- "What If" Scenario Modelling
- Performance Management Tools
- Dynamic Financial Management
- Business and Enterprise Workflow Architecture
- Portfolio Rationalization
- Capacity Management
7. Planisware Enterprise
Planisware Enterprise is a cloud, end-to-end solution that combines Strategy and Financial Planning, Project Portfolio Management, and Business Asset Management in a single platform. With powerful features like objectives, target dashboards, roadmaps, and strategic buckets, teams can align and measure the project’s contribution to the strategic goals and visualize activities and events crucial for the strategy execution.
The software also provides teams with various communication tools where staff at every level can insert ideas like customer or work requests, keep track of personal action items, and more.
An extensive list of analytics and reporting toolsets helps teams keep a record of team KPIs and provide visual insights better to forecast the financial benefits and cost of projects.
Key features
- Strategic Buckets
- Road mapping
- Investment Scenarios and Portfolio Simulations
- Agile at the team level and Agile across the Enterprise with SAFe
- Document Management
8. i-nexus
i-nexus strategy execution and strategy planning software is a complete solution to deliver value and achieve desired results. It facilitates all steps required to plan and execute your organization’s strategic goals. The tool helps to embrace the approach of Hoshin Kanri planning, translate strategy into action with a balanced scorecard, or apply a custom business system.
Key features
- X-matrix Planning
- Workflow Management
- KPI Metric Bowling Charts
- Metric Journals
-
A3 Root Cause Analysis
- Automated Strategic and Operational Reports
- Hoshin Kanri
- Balanced scorecard
9. OnePlan
OnePlan is a provider of an AI-enabled Strategic Portfolio and Work Management platform. It offers various solutions to help business and executive leaders adapt to the rapidly changing work environment. Equipped with multiple tools, the platform supports the SPM approach, enables digital transformation, and adopts scaling Agile practices.
Using this solution, you can connect your key business objectives to company-wide execution activities. It allows leaders to implement the OKR framework across different levels and easily update progress against OKRs. The software also allows portfolio prioritization, optimization of financial investment, and resource capacity.
Key Features
-
Strategic Roadmaps
- Financial and Resource Plans
- Work plans supporting Agile and Waterfall practices
- Integrations with Microsoft Planner, Microsoft Project for the web, Microsoft Project Desktop, Azure DevOps, and more.
- Sofia GPT, an AI-powered tool
Businessmap is the most flexible software platform
for outcome-driven enterprise agility.
In Summary
Going for SPM software will bring plenty of positive effects when adopting a strategic approach to managing portfolios. It is a trusted partner for organizations undergoing the inevitable digital transformation. Investing in this type of solution helps close the gap between strategy and delivery and helps organizations flourish in today's volatile business world.
Connecting strategic objectives and execution activities across the enterprise
