A Comprehensive List of the Best Project Portfolio Management (PPM) Tool

A portfolio management solution is a must for any business that wants to stay organized and efficient. There are many project portfolio management software options on the market, but not all of them are created equal.

In this blog post, we will discuss the best project portfolio management software available and how they can benefit your business. We will also provide a comprehensive list of the top PPM tools on the market!

Why Project Portfolio Management software is the BFF of portfolio managers

There are many reasons why portfolio management software is a portfolio manager’s friend. The most obvious reason is that it helps managers keep track of all the projects in their portfolio.

Another big benefit of using portfolio management software is that it can help you with capacity planning. By being able to see all the projects in your portfolio, you can more easily plan for future capacity needs or future projects.

Additionally, portfolio management software can help you with risk management. By being able to track risks associated with each project, you can more easily identify and mitigate potential problems.

Finally, portfolio management software is a great way to keep track of your portfolio’s performance. By tracking key performance indicators, you can more easily see how your portfolio is performing and make necessary changes.

Why Project Portfolio Management is a project manager’s best friend

Project management is a tough gig. You’re trying to manage resources, track and report progress, and achieve strategic objectives – all at the same time.

You may do this in a tool that works for single projects.

But if you’re managing multiple projects, each with their own timelines and resources, you need a portfolio management solution.

A portfolio management solution is a project manager’s best friend because it provides visibility into all the projects in the portfolio. This means that you can more easily see where projects are at, what risks they face, and how they’re performing against objectives.

Some project portfolio management tools even come with features like Gantt charts and earned value analysis to help you track progress and report it to upper management. Project portfolio management tools can also help you assess risks, identify dependencies, and track issues – so you can avoid potential problems down the road.

Key features of project portfolio management software

Capacity planning
Risk management
Resource management
Project tasks management
Portfolio planning
Tracking of Key Performance Indicators
Tracking of multiple projects
Project planning
Capital and expense constraints
Business objectives & strategic goals
Project health and analytics
Risk management

These are just some key features in common portfolio management solutions. Some features may included in enterprise project management software while a project portfolio management tool focused on smaller businesses may include a pared-down, easier-to-use feature set.

The top 13 Project Portfolio Management tools on the market

There are many portfolio management software options on the market, but not all of them are created equal. Here is a comprehensive list of the best project portfolio management tools available:

Project portfolio management software from Bubble PPM

From Bubble PPM

Bubble® is a leading provider of Project and Portfolio Management software. Founded in 1999, the company serves clients globally via offices in London, Cambridge, and Vancouver.

Its cloud-based solutions help customers improve the planning, governance, and delivery of Innovation, New Product Development, Engineering, IT, and other initiatives.

Using Bubble PPM, our customers benefit from:

Real-time overviews of the portfolio for informed decision-making
A complete set of project management tools for efficient and reliable delivery
Inbuilt best practices and processes that improve returns on project investments

Good to know tidbit

Users enjoy Bubble for enterprise project management data and resource management

Project portfolio management software from Planview (Clarizen and PPM Pro)

From Clarizen:

Clarizen One is enterprise project and portfolio management software that helps you get work done.

Clarizen connects work across the enterprise by bringing together project management discipline, workflow automation and collaboration to turn ideas into strategies, plans, and action. With Clarizen, organizations can work the way they want to work and have real time-visibility into all their workstreams. Clarizen helps keep teams focused on the things that matter and deliver results faster so they can exceed their company goals and customers’ expectations.

Good to know tidbit

It’s enterprise PPM software so it could be hard to use for small, day-to-day projects

PPM Pro

From PPM Pro

Accelerate PMO success with centralized Project Portfolio Management with Planview PPM Pro™ software.

Planview PPM Pro enables PMO teams to focus resources on the work that delivers the most value to their organization. Project managers, program managers, PMO leaders, resource managers and CIOs can use PPM Pro to gain top-down visibility into their project portfolio and align work with business goals.

A robust set of capabilities distinguish PPM Pro from less capable project management software and help you take your PMO to the next level of effectiveness.

Project Portfolio Management
Resource Management Tools
Project Time Tracking
Project Prioritization and Alignment
New Product Development (NPD) Management
Project Management Dashboards and Reports
Project Budget Management
Project Intake Management
Cloud-based Project Management
Predictive Portfolio Analysis
Gantt Chart Creation
Project Team Collaboration Tools
Portfolio Management for Agile

Project portfolio management software from Meisterplan

From Meisterplan

Meisterplan is a people-centric portfolio management solution that enables organizations to execute with confidence. Our lean, highly visual software solution is built to help organizations or departments who struggle with managing resources and dependencies across teams and initiatives.

Make portfolio-level decisions on priorities, allocations, timing, and capacities, creating unparalleled visibility and alignment. Our portfolio designer dashboard makes it easy to see the full project, resource and financial picture in one easy to use interactive view. Easily adapt to changes and deliver results with scenario planning. Staff resources across teams based on skills and available capacity. Use our Reporting API or integrated pivot reports to communicate your portfolio status to the rest of the organization.

Good to know tidbit

Some users wish it had more operational project management features like task planning and resource management.

Project portfolio management software from Easy Projects

From Easy Projects

Easy Projects is an award-winning project management platform designed for fast-moving midsize to enterprise-level teams. Our flexible solution includes visual project planning, resource planning, beautifully designed reports, best-in-class security, and much more. We support 2,000+ integrations so your team can use the tools they love best. Customers who use Easy Projects report a 30% decrease in project duration and a 98% completion rate, leading to more projects and profits.

Good to know tidbit

Resources and project budget management are a bit less established than some competitors

Project portfolio management software from SAP PPM

From SAP

Control and innovate projects, processes, products, and services with tools to standardize project execution processes and reduce administrative burden.

Good to know tidbit

PPM is also a project management tool, of course don’t expect a project management tool to manage a big construction project with a lot of subcontractors, but this can be used for medium size projects, specially is very good in resource management.

Project portfolio management software from Oracle Primavera

From Oracle

For more than 30 years, successful projects around the world have relied on Oracle Construction and Engineering’s Primavera solutions to plan, build, and operate critical assets. It is the only solution that integrates project and portfolio planning and delivery teams for planning, resourcing, risk mitigation, scheduling, and program management. Manage projects of any size. Robust and easy-to-use.

Key Benefits

Cloud-based, delivering fast time to value
One platform for planning, prioritizing, executing, and monitoring projects and programs
Optimization and oversight of capital spend to maximize return and align with strategies
Enhanced risk mitigation; better visibility of project and portfolio health
Comprehensive, integrated planning – critical path method (CPM) and Lean scheduling, plus upstream portfolio planning and downstream risk mitigation
Total resource management – maintain optimal staffing levels to improve delivery efficiency
Collaboration and control across teams – drive efficiency and quality, reduce waste
Connect teams with access from any device, create and update activities and tasks, and view portfolios and files with offline support
Risk mitigation – avoid delays and cost overruns

Good to know tidbit

for Organization resource management, it’s an excellent tool for identifying the demand and utilization task

Project portfolio management software from Sciforma

From Sciforma

Sciforma PPM’s robust and easy-to-use platform supports PMOs with these very critical PPM capabilities: idea & demand, portfolio & program, planning, work and collaboration, resources, and time tracking. Flexible and functionally scalable, it accomodates various PMO maturity levels and fits many sectors: health care, manufacturing, public, finance, and more. Sciforma includes:

Dynamic business case criteria and scoring
Risk and benefit visualization
Budget-driven ranking
Pipeline dashboards, portfolio status overviews, portfolio simulations
Powerful gantt with project path, cost, budget, and work package management
Resource management: time tracking, capacity planning, resource allocation

Good to know tidbit

Sciforma is appropriate for an already established team that needs a greater flow of outstanding and complex projects,

Project portfolio management software from Replicon

From Replicon

Replicon provides end-to-end Time Management software and services to enterprises of all sizes. Capture, analyze, and optimize time, your organizations most critical asset, to improve profitability, productivity and employee satisfaction.

Finance & project management teams choose Replicon because their success depends on accurate, granular and real-time reporting on exactly how well the business is performing with respect to project delivery, client billing, labor utilization, and other critical metrics.

Good to know tidbit:

Replicon is extremely useful for employers who manage hourly employees, especially if those employees have unpaid lunch breaks or consistent breaks throughout the day that need to be documented.

Project portfolio management software from Microsoft Project

From Microsoft

Take project management to the next level. Microsoft Project 2010 offers flexibility and choice by providing tailored work management solutions for individuals, teams, and enterprises.

Good to know tidbit:

Be sure to ensure your version is on the Microsoft project server if you choose to use the server option. Otherwise, the changes you make will stay on your local machine and never be seen from other team members.

Project portfolio management software from Kantata

From Kantata

The Kantata Cloud for Professional Services™ is a powerful collection of resource management, financial management, project management, team collaboration, business intelligence, integration, and workflow automation functionality that optimizes resources and elevates operational performance. Kantata is purpose-built to meet the unique needs of professional services firms so they can field the best team, every time and see up-to-the-minute progress against timelines and budgets, so projects run smoothly, predictably, and profitably.

Good to know tidbits

Was formed after merging mavenlink and kimble

“With the full integration, when project managers change something in Mavenlink that is linked to the ERP, the change may affect the figures in the accounting system” – Julieta S

From ITM Platform

From ITM Portfolio

ITM Platform is the Project Portfolio Management software that seamlessly aligns your projects with your business strategy. A quick two-week integration means you and your team members will be up and running fast, using the fully-featured work and management tools designed to provide portfolio managers with the metrics that matter.

ITM Platform offers robust control over the costs and revenue at portfolio, program, project, and task levels. Manage agile and waterfall projects, prioritize what’s best for your business, and use real-time information to report progress company-wide.

Good to know tidbit

It can’t get the as-is assets when bringing in documents from MS-Project. It doesn’t have an approach to characterize loads at Programs and Portfolio level. It can’t appoint more that one Strategic Objective affected, yet including more altered fields.” – Spencer M

Project portfolio management software from Proggio

From Proggio

Proggio is an enterprise Project Portfolio Management (PPM) solution that works to give you the portfolio clarity and control you need to perform top execution for strategic alignment.

Good to know tidbit

Proggio has a very powerful interface that helps you allocate resources, do task management, manage the project lifecycle, and track project performance.

Project portfolio management software from Smartsheet

From Smartsheet:

Smartsheet is the enterprise platform for dynamic work. A leading cloud-based platform for work management, Smartsheet empowers organizations and teams to dynamically plan, execute, and report on work at scale, resulting in more efficient processes, innovative solutions, and better business outcomes.

Today over 90% of Fortune 100 companies and over 75% of Fortune 500 companies rely on the secure, scalable Smartsheet platform to connect the entire enterprise. The single Smartsheet platform gives people a solution flexible enough to adapt to the changing needs of dynamic work across a broad array of departments and use cases.

Good to know tidbit

“Portfolio management of multiple projects is doable out of the box with a standard license, but to manage a larger portfolio effectively, you’re going to want to investigate Control Center which adds additional cost.” – Frank R.

There you have it! A comprehensive list of the top project portfolio management tools to help you choose the right solution for your needs. Be sure to consider your specific requirements when making your decision, and good luck!