This Just In...

WELCOM

Evaluating, selecting and prioritizing projects to support business strategy

WelcomPortfolio 2.5 is a project portfolio analysis tool that provides a structured approach to evaluating, selecting and prioritizing projects across the enterprise. New capabilities include the ability to track and create budgets based on different resource types, including non-labor resources, resource availability modeling, and enhanced capacity planning to better control and account for resource usage spanning multiple project portfolios.

Designed for executives and program managers responsible for overseeing multiple initiatives, WelcomPortfolio 2.5 provides the link between an organization’s strategic objectives and the projects that are chosen to ensure that the right projects are being done and that they are aligned with business goals. In addition to providing a structured approach to the project selection process, it also allows project leaders to easily assess project value at any point in the project life cycle through integration other project and cost management systems, including Welcom’s Open Plan, Cobra and WelcomRisk, as well as Microsoft Project and Primavera P3e. Using built-in adapters, connections can be set up to virtually any other product that uses a SQL data source or that can provide Web services.

"WelcomPortfolio 2.5 helps executives make a well-balanced assessment of each project under consideration and evaluate its impact on the organization’s business strategy," said Steve Cook, president, Welcom. "More and more companies are turning to formal project portfolio analysis to ensure their valuable resources are spent on the projects most conducive to business success."

New features in version 2.5 include resource types for tracking and creating budgets based on labor and non-labor type resources; Resource Availability Modeling that shows when resources are used at various times throughout a project’s lifecycle to save labor costs by preventing double data entry; the automatic generation of cash flow values based on resources assigned to each project; a Cumulative Variance Option to help decision makers decide which project to pursue by displaying the difference between resource capacity and cumulative demand; the ability to set Criteria Thresholds (passing grades) and provide immediate visibility to a project in trouble or that no longer satisfies organization needs; and support for Welcom’s Cobra 4.x earned value and cost management tool.

Improvements to existing functions include an improved Capacity Planner that takes into account resource usage across multiple portfolios and provides valuable information for running "what if" scenarios; the ability to view total hours, cost and revenue totals for each line item in the Project and Capacity Planners; prevention against double data entry; the ability to perform "what if" scenarios using different weights of criteria; and more reporting and Portfolio Workbook print options.

WelcomPortfolio pricing starts at $15,000 for five named users. For more information, contact Welcom at mailto:sales@wel.com.com or 800-349-8854.

BACKDRAFT

Producing precise, consistent writing and communications across the enterprise

Email has become the predominant writing activity for most business professionals, accounting for more than two work hours per day per person, or 400 hours per year. However, while two-thirds of all workers are expected to write their own emails, letters, proposals and presentations, one-third are unable to write clear, logical prose, according to the 2005-05 National Commission on Writing's survey of 120 American corporations and 50 state government institutions.

"The time it takes to create written communication is a huge hit on the corporate payroll, and a critical component of how corporations and brands are perceived," says Brian Hanington, CEO of BackDRAFT. "If companies can maintain a high-quality standard writing style across internal and external communications, they can effectively use written communication as a strategic tool. We developed BackDRAFT QMS so that companies could escape the restrictions of individual training and quickly master high writing standards at a group level."

BackDRAFT QMS is a writing-quality management system that allows organizations to establish a clear writing standard, trains all necessary employees to be able to meet that standard, and embeds an editing system that ensures that the standard is met any time a document is written — be it a proposal, a presentation or even an email.

The system incorporates an organization's existing writing style and brand guidelines, and augments that style with a set of principles by which writers can spot, name and fix the 40 most common fumbles in writing. The heart of the system is an 18-hour, personalized online curriculum that teaches company staff how to produce documents with flawless grammar, diction, syntax, logic and rhetoric. Other features include:

• Customized Courseware: Advanced learning software in which all course content reflects the issues, products, terminology and brand context of the organization.
• 1-on-1 Guided Curriculum: A self-paced training curriculum that monitors the writer's performance and adjusts the focus and difficulty of the curriculum.
• Mentor On-Call: A hybrid software/human customer-experience management tool that responds immediately to changes in a writer's performance and progress during the online training program.
• Visual Editing: A Flash-based learning environment in which words, phrases, sentences and whole paragraphs move around on the screen as they do in a seasoned writer's mind, providing a visual correction process that the writer can easily understand and replicate in work situations.
• Document Editing Xpress: A peer-review process that cuts editing time by as much as half, and enables the achievement of a consistent group or organizational writing standard.
• Online Class-progress Views: Role-based, password-protected Web access to individual, class, departmental and enterprise performance stats.
• Genre Independence: A flexible QMS that can be quickly applied to any type of writing, including email, visual presentations, reports and proposals

For more information, visit http://www.backdraft.org/.

ARETMIS

Enhancing earned value management and compliance on defense/aerospace programs

Artemis International Solutions’ enhanced Program Performance Management solution offers aerospace and defense industry organizations a host of new features designed to dramatically improves program performance, including the ability to comply with virtually all major regulatory and quality standards.

The new solution combines advanced schedule management, earned value management, time tracking, performance measurement and reporting. The combination of these capabilities delivers functionality that goes beyond products that focus only on project management or traditional cost reporting features, according to Patrick Ternier, CEO of Artemis. "Our proprietary Earned Value Management Intelligence technology offers customers the competitive edge they need by giving them direct and instantaneous feedback and control to guide their long term profitability and growth," Ternier says. "This new solution is flexible enough to be used in small or large programs while also offering compliance with stringent government contractual requirements."

With an emphasis on detailed scheduling and integrated cost management, Artemis Program Performance Management incorporates single and master schedule management capabilities, supporting Integrated Master Schedule and Integrated Master Plan requirements.

The company's proprietary EVMI technology gives companies in both commercial and governmental sectors the ability to influence and manage their long term profitability and growth, when managing large and complex programs involving multiple vendors or small, self-contained projects. By providing complete project, contract and financial management, as well as analysis and reporting, EVMI allows organizations to manage and control all costs and performance associated with programs and projects across the enterprise.

"EVM is expanding as a method for managing programs rather than simply for reporting on status, with the goal to trigger corrective action sooner on program variances," says Michael Burkett, research director for AMR Research. "This requires putting information into the hands of program managers and other business owners that can take necessary action. While capable of providing EVM, ERP applications currently struggle to provide the flexibility and ease of use needed to encourage adoption by nontraditional users."

The solution also complies with the stringent government contractual requirements for defense programs such as Earned Value Management ANSI 748, Integrated Master Plan, Integrated Master Schedule and the Software Engineering Institute Capability Maturity Model for Systems and Software Engineering. Offering flexibility for consolidating all program information and delivering integration with existing enterprise information systems, Artemis Program Performance Management PPM includes support for Oracle and SQL Server databases. For more information, visit http://www.aisc.com/.

PLANVIEW

Combining portfolio management best practices with enterprisewide collaboration

PlanView Community powered by EMC Documentum eRoom is an enterprise IT management collaboration solution that combines structured processes and best practices for project, portfolio and resource management along with flexible, unstructured collaboration. The solution integrates Documentum eRoom enterprise collaboration capabilities with PlanView Enterprise portfolio management software and is the result of the partnership between the companies, originally announced in February.

The collaboration, communication and cooperation across global teams and projects facilitated by the solution can deliver faster and more flexible idea generation, problem solving and consensus building. In addition, it enhances knowledge sharing and the reuse of existing knowledge bases. The solution is also ideal for organizations wanting to facilitate governance and auditability.

"Blending objective, structured formats with subjective, unstructured information can help clarify the logistical assumptions and realities that go into executing a successful project," says David Coleman, managing director at Collaborative Strategies. "Linking the data creates a clear relationship between the elements and results in a more complete picture whose combined value is greater than the sum of its parts."

"PlanView Community powered by eRoom provides organizations with an integrated set of technologies to improve the effectiveness of their IT management processes," says Jeff Durbin, senior vice president of business solutions at PlanView. "The discipline provided by the right IT portfolio management solution, combined with the flexibility of the right collaboration solution leads to a higher level of cultural adoption."

PlanView Community powered by Documentum eRoom is available immediately. For more information, contact market@planview.com.

VERTABASE

Advanced resource planning, project portfolio tracking and document management

Vertabase 3.7 features advancements in its resource-planning tools, new project portfolio-tracking options and enhanced document management functionality. The enhanced resource planning system now provides fully customizable settings for available work hours per user to accommodate different types of worker resources. It accommodates full or part-time employees, contractors, consultants, interns or temps, providing an accurate gauge of the resources available, and their available hours in the future.

"Businesses have diverse work forces: full-time or part-time employees and consultants, job-sharers, telecommuters, and potentially all of them with flextime," says Mark Phillips, CEO of Vertabase. "Managers need tools that reflect that reality and give them the power to effectively manage people and projects with these circumstances. We also often see managers wrestling with single initiatives that have multiple subprojects each with numerous vendors. Version 3.7 was built to meet the needs managers face in a 21st century work environment."

The document management system has added check-in/check-out functionality and more detailed version history. A team can now view and use different iterations of a document, and control the drafting process by checking out documents and locking them from further modifications. The enhancement limits the potential confusion of simultaneous edits, and ensures that everyone is working with the correct version of a document or file.

Version 3.7 also features a new project portfolio field that allows for easier categorization of projects in a larger portfolio view. Managers and executives can now view or collect data on an entire group of projects then drill down to evaluate performance by office, team, resources or tasks.

"The new features give my team a boost in managing my projects," says Melissa Morrison, director of client services at ClearStory Systems, a provider of enterprise content management solutions based in Westborough, Mass. "With the changes to the resource allocation and document management systems, I know I’m getting the most accurate read on what’s going on with my group's projects."

Other additions to version 3.7 include a simplified project list page with key reporting indicators for use as a quick project manager control panel and a new global project and budget grouping to view report results across different project groupings. Version 3.7, like previous versions, is written in Macromedia’s Cold Fusion MX and utilizes a Microsoft SQL database. For more information, visit http://www.vertabase.com/.

DIGITE

Combining portfolio management, software development and collaboration

Digite Enterprise’s web-based collaborative framework for IT portfolio and process governance offers a combination of portfolio and project management, software development lifecycle (SDLC), business process management and collaboration technologies, with a focus on the needs of corporate IT, IT services, and software development organizations.

The solution features sophisticated organization modeling capability, allowing organization’s to encapsulate successful processes and best practices into templates for instant re-use in executing similar projects in the future.

Digite Enterprise also provides a customizable, comprehensive software framework to facilitate the entire SDLC planning and execution, from capturing business requirements to development, testing, verification and deployment, providing stakeholders with their own role-based dashboard views.

The system also helps in automating CMMi by enabling enterprise project and process tracking from the definition of organization metrics and goals for measuring project performance and assigning them to each project in the enterprise. For more information, visit www.digite.com or email sales@digite.com.

MYC.R.O.

Providing Sarbanes-Oxley gap analysis with an enterprise view

With Sarbanes Oxley (SOX) carrying significant penalties, hefty fines and even jail time, public companies are looking for tools and services that help to clearly convey to customers, employees and shareholders that they are operating in an honest and ethical manner. To this end, myC.R.O. Solutions has introduced Comply, which quantifies the gap between SOX regulatory requirements and the existing enterprise technology environment.

"The challenge currently exists for corporate executives of public companies to find cost-effective tools that clearly identify to what degree their entire enterprise is — or is not — Sarbanes-Oxley compliant," says company cofounder KoniKaye Jeschke.

In addition to gap analysis, Comply offers risk mitigation insight, which includes detailed visual reports and illustrations of how each potential technology change will impact compliance with SOX, and automated reporting, which continuously illustrates how each change in enterprise technology has served to narrow, or widen, the SOX compliance gap. For more information, visit http://www.mycrosolutions.com/ or call 763-377-3241.