2016 Gartner Magic Quadrant for PPM Project Management Software Tools Review

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The Gartner Magic Quadrant for PPM project management software reports continue being the global reference in our industry for comparing and choosing the best cloud-based (also known as SaaS) PPM services and/or self-hosted project management sofware applications.

Cloud project management tools have become the best choice for most of the companies, due to the fast deployment of these SaaS solutions compared with traditional self-hosted solutions.

SaaS Project Management Software: Gartner Magic Quadrant for Cloud-Based IT Project and Portfolio Management Services

The worldwide 2016 Magic Quadrant for Cloud-Based IT Project and Portfolio Management Services includes 4 Leaders (Innotas, Changepoing, Clarizen, and Workfrom), 4 Visionaries (One2Team, ProjectObjects, onepoint Projects, and Upland Software), and a 2 Niche Players (WorkOtter, and LiquidPlanner).

Innotas

Innotas is Innotas’ company cloud-based IT PPM project management software.

The 2016 Gartner Magic Quadrant has highlighted from Changepoint Daptiv the following benefits:

• Innotas’ support for the IT PPM software scenario and use case is very rich, as is its experience in helping IT departments adopt PPM capabilities that go far beyond the “table stakes” PPM functions offered elsewhere in the market.
• Innotas’ new “kanbanlike” feature enhances the product’s ability to support iterative and agile work and development efforts in an IT PPM context. This adds to the Innotas product yet another desired set of features — that is, IT departments shifting to bimodal IT delivery mechanisms, where iterations and sprints are beginning to eclipse standard waterfall methods, and emergent work management capabilities are becoming more necessary.
• Innotas’ web integration-as-a-service platform, an OEM partnership with Dell Boomi, is already built out and fully servicing a significant number of customers that need web integration services between the Innotas product and third-party products. Innotas is leading in this area right now.

Changepoint Daptiv PPM

Daptiv PPM is the Changepoint’s company cloud-based IT PPM project management software.

The 2016 Gartner Magic Quadrant has highlighted from Changepoint Daptiv the following benefits:

• Prior to Changepoint’s acquisition of barometerIT, Daptiv PPM’s scenario modeling capabilities for automating the generation of prioritization schemes or models were limited to its own reporting services. These capabilities are now enhanced through integration between barometerIT and Daptiv PPM.
• For customers that want a truly robust set of reporting and business intelligence capabilities, the Daptiv PPM product is a strong choice, because these capabilities are furnished chiefly through an OEM partnership with Cognos.
• A very recent partnership with Dell Boomi is a component of Changepoint’s strategy to be a SaaS-first IT PPM vendor. This additional option will provide customers with the ability to link cloud-based and other third-party products to the Daptiv PPM product via web integration platform services.

Clarizen

Clarizen is Clarizen’s company cloud-based IT PPM project management software.

The 2016 Gartner Magic Quadrant has highlighted from Changepoint Daptiv the following benefits:

• The spring 2016 release of Clarizen delivers a host of new features and improvements, including portfolio-level project approval and decision making through what-if scenario planning. These features allow users to include and exclude projects, adjust rankings, and review projects above and below waterlines.
• Clarizen is well-positioned as a potential IT PMO tool for IT departments, seeking to collaborate internally and with external stakeholders, or to be a collaborative IT work management solution supporting a specific workgroup or function in a larger IT department.
• Clarizen is designed to be highly configurable, flexible and easy to use, with a cost-effective price point that rivals other providers in this market.

Workfront

 Workfront is Workfront’s company cloud-based IT PPM project management software.

The 2016 Gartner Magic Quadrant has highlighted from Workfront the following benefits:

• Workfront is offering a new mobile application for use on iOS and Android devices. It features a better look and feel, a full company directory, approval workflows, revamped notifications, and the ability to digitally proof documents and assets like user experience mockups or design documents.
• Workfront provides a high level of flexibility in configuration in ways that allow the system to grow with customers as they mature. Specifically, the product allows users to configure the system for business case analysis prior to proposal generation; full business cases can be created with calculated columns showing the effort and cost of each proposal in relation to one another.
• In the February 2016 release, Workfront introduced an updated agile storyboard with improvements that include, but are not limited to, quick assignment of users to a story via avatar drag-and-drop, configuration of color indicators used on the agile storyboard, and configuration of additional fields to be included on cards on the agile storyboard. A promising new capability also allows users to create a waterfall project, and then, with one click, to switch from that standard traditional project plan view to an agile storyboard view.

Project Objects

Project Objects is Project Objects’ company cloud-based IT PPM project management software.

The 2016 Gartner Magic Quadrant has highlighted from Project Objects the following benefits:

• Project Objects’ most prominent strength is in the area of independent portfolio decision making and planning. Users can perform strategic budget planning, and run an optimization engine against a set of portfolio constraints to identify projects that can be executed based on the context of the portfolio. Users can also set up metrics to measure the performance of programs and projects that are defined in the system.
• Project Objects provides a robust set of financial management features, including, but not limited to, the ability to build annual and multiyear project budgets.
• Project Objects supports stage-gating, as well as the management of contracted and other external resources.

onepoint Projects

Onepoint Projects is onepoint Projects’ company cloud-based IT PPM project management software.

The 2016 Gartner Magic Quadrant has highlighted from onepoint Projects the following benefits:

• One2Team allows users to add their own personal “to do” items to projects defined in the system, without compromising work breakdown structures or critical paths and milestones.
• One2Team includes a distinct focus on benefits tracking as part of its product strategy, and leverages its Dashboard and Time Manager capabilities to bring in and consolidate time and cost information (inside the system and externally) for better benefits tracking.
• One2Team extended its mobile support in 2015 by launching a native mobile app supporting iOS, Android and Windows mobile devices.

Upland Software PowerSteering and EPM Live

PowerSteering and EPM Live are Upland Software’s company cloud-based IT PPM project management software.

The 2016 Gartner Magic Quadrant has highlighted from Upland Software’s products the following benefits:

• Upland Software provides two independent cloud-based products serving two key audiences in today’s IT departments: PowerSteering for top-down portfolio planning and management; and Eclipse PPM for bottom-up, execution-focused IT project and resource management.
• Eclipse PPM drives notable, overall flexibility in configuration through numerous, ongoing agile releases to improve the product’s capabilities and overall value proposition.
• PowerSteering has strong program management support, which includes a Program Console where users can see the health of a program, its subprograms and projects on a scheduling, financial or indicator basis. Program Console also provides portfolio dashboards of programs, enabling the visualization of multiple programs and their hierarchies on the home page.

WorkOtter

WorkOtter is WorkOtters’ company cloud-based IT PPM project management software.

The 2016 Gartner Magic Quadrant has highlighted from WorkOtter the following benefits:

• WorkOtter is easy to use, aggressively cost-effective in this portion of the IT PPM market, well-suited for small or midsize businesses, and presents PPM features with a strong focus on simplicity in design. It also provides a deep Atlassian Jira integration that allows time sheets originating in Jira to be fed into WorkOtter.
• WorkOtter’s My Portfolios component provides integrated resource supply and demand information for the planning of multiple projects. The Project Portfolio Viewer allows users to build a consolidated Gantt chart and resource plan view of projects in a portfolio that can be shared. Drill-down is possible to time frames, dependencies, critical paths and other details.
• WorkOtter, a rebranding of the former VCSonline company and VPMi Enterprise product, represents a substantial investment that the company is currently making in business leadership, product development and a highly focused marketing strategy.

LiquidPlanner

LiquidPlanner is LiquidPlanner’ company cloud-based IT PPM project management software.

The 2016 Gartner Magic Quadrant has highlighted from LiquidPlanner the following benefits:

• LiquidPlanner is a highly configurable, easy-to-use and cost-effective collaboration platform that is well-positioned to support IT work management for specific groups or functions in IT departments (great and small).
• More than 50% of LiquidPlanner’s installed base is composed of customers representing developer teams or organizations that are using the product to manage iterative and agile software and product development work and projects. This is because LiquidPlanner helps teams capture and surface uncertainty while quantifying the impact of changing priorities on delivery dates.
• Many improvements and extra dashboard features were recently added to LiquidPlanner, including the ability to share dashboards with people outside the product, an intake widget, a project view/Gantt chart widget, and canned dashboards and dashboard templates. The product can also present users with best-case and worse-case estimations of projects.

Here you can find a video with more Cloud-based project management software options:

Self-Hosted Project Management Software: Gartner Magic Quadrant for IT Project and Portfolio Management Software Applications

The worldwide 2016 Gartner Magic Quadrant for IT Project and Portfolio Management Software Applications includes 2 Leaders (Planview, CA Technologies, and Changepoint), 4 Challengers (Microsoft, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Sciforma, Planisware), and 2 Niche Players (Cerri.com, and Project.net). 

Planview Enterprise

Planview Enterprise is Planview’s company IT PPM project management software.

The 2016 Gartner Magic Quadrant has highlighted from Planview Enterprise the following benefits:

• Planview Enterprise 11.5, released in December 2015, provides a number of new and incremental enhancements, including an RPM Analytics reports catalog and custom reports embedded in the product’s “ribbon” technology, a new “business capability” dimension allowing users to optimize human and financial resources by both business capabilities and strategies, and a new organizational resource pivot for department- and role-based planning of resources and assignments.
• The new Planview Enterprise Power BI Content Pack provides users with data visualization via Microsoft Power BI, for easier comprehension and manipulation of information stored in Planview Enterprise.
• Forecasting is a core strength of the Planview Enterprise product, specifically when users leverage the Investment and Capacity Planning capabilities. This functionality allows users to model project portfolios and associated financials, and delivers many of the prioritization and resource capacity and scenario planning benefits of the product.

CA PPM

CA PPM is CA Technologies’ company IT PPM project management software.

The 2016 Gartner Magic Quadrant has highlighted from CA PPM the following benefits:

• CA Technologies introduced a number of improvements in the areas of business intelligence (BI) and reporting. These improvements include an optimized star schema data warehouse, an embedded BI platform, and an OEM Jaspersoft reporting platform, in response to its customers’ needs for flexible, easier reporting and BI capabilities. Users have much more flexibility in these areas, and the need for custom report writing is greatly reduced by these improvements.
• Customers interested in, or already engaged in, agile development project execution may find CA Technologies’ acquisition and subsequent integration of Rally Software’s RallyDev with CA PPM a significant benefit, especially customers that already use RallyDev. Integration with VersionOne is also available.
• CA PPM now includes refactored Microsoft Project integration based on the latest MS Office XML schemas. The benefits of this new integration include, but are not limited to, a field mapping capability allowing project managers to map additional information into their plans as required by their governance stakeholders, such as finance groupings, application information and status reporting. This allows financials, resources and applications to all reside in the same plan.

Changepoint

Changepoint is Changepoint’s company IT PPM project management software.

The 2016 Gartner Magic Quadrant has highlighted from Changepoint the following benefits:

• Changepoint’s newer SaaS deployment option is showing some initial momentum, with the vendor having signed on at least one new SaaS Changepoint customer on average per month during the past 12 months.
• Changepoint’s time capture, project portfolio reporting and traceability are key strengths of the product.
• Changepoint’s embedded invoicing and billing capabilities are known strengths, as well as the product’s ability to support internal chargeback use cases where customers want to share chargeback information with common back-office ERP systems and data repositories.

Microsoft Project Server

Microsoft Project Server is Microsoft’s company IT PPM project management software.

The 2015 Gartner Magic Quadrant has highlighted from Microsoft Project Server the following benefits:

• Because Microsoft Project Server is based on a SharePoint foundation, customers find it easy to share documents, project logs and other artifacts with other individuals or across teams.
• Microsoft Project Server can provide a natural progression from an initial or established use of the Microsoft Project desktop scheduling to centralized project and resource management provided by Microsoft Project Server. Portfolio-level, what-if scenario planning allows for vetting of new project proposals.
• Microsoft’s ecosystem of certified Project and Project Server partners gives customers a vast network of additional technologies and services designed to enhance and extend usage of Project Server beyond what Microsoft provides out of the box.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE)

Hewlett Packard Enterprise is HP’s company IT PPM project management software.

The 2016 Gartner Magic Quadrant has highlighted from HP PPM the following benefits:

• HPE PPM has a very powerful workflow engine, which offers a key strength in supporting annual planning and governance processes. The workflow is highly flexible and configurable, and assists with projection of demand hours and estimation.
• HPE PPM’s resource management and reporting capabilities, specifically around tracking time across very large groups of people or across large enterprises, is a notable strength. It captures comprehensive information about resource utilization, and is scalable to thousands of users.
• HPE PPM has strong demand intake process automation as a significant strength, as well as extensive portfolio-level reporting and a supplied data mart for BI.

Sciforma

Sciforma is Sciforma’s company IT PPM project management software.

The 2016 Gartner Magic Quadrant has highlighted from Sciforma the following benefits:

• A what you see is what you get (WYSIWYG) designer renders end-user interfaces that can be customized and that are based on HTML5.
• Sciforma is suitable for large enterprises and midsize enterprises, yet is simple in design, making it easy to use and configure.
• Sciforma provides a number of different deployment options, as well as pricing that is attractive to midsize enterprises.

Planview Enterprise

Planview Enterprise is Planview’s company IT PPM project management software.

The 2016 Gartner Magic Quadrant has highlighted from Planview Enterprise the following benefits:

• Planview Enterprise 11.5, released in December 2015, provides a number of new and incremental enhancements, including an RPM Analytics reports catalog and custom reports embedded in the product’s “ribbon” technology, a new “business capability” dimension allowing users to optimize human and financial resources by both business capabilities and strategies, and a new organizational resource pivot for department- and role-based planning of resources and assignments.
• The new Planview Enterprise Power BI Content Pack provides users with data visualization via Microsoft Power BI, for easier comprehension and manipulation of information stored in Planview Enterprise.
• Forecasting is a core strength of the Planview Enterprise product, specifically when users leverage the Investment and Capacity Planning capabilities. This functionality allows users to model project portfolios and associated financials, and delivers many of the prioritization and resource capacity and scenario planning benefits of the product.

Cerri.com

Cerri.com is Genius Project’s company IT PPM project management software.

The 2016 Gartner Magic Quadrant has highlighted from Cerri.com the following benefits:

• Cerri.com, the latest reincarnation of the former Genius Inside and provider of Genius Project, has changed its focus in a way that is in direct alignment with the expansive PPM market. The focus of the new company goes beyond traditional PPM market views, and its strategy is based more now on surrounding Genius Project with complementary web applications, rather than on continued development of just a single PPM product.
• Genius Project version 8, introduced in September 2015, includes an improved UI, editable multiproject Gantt charts, two-stage time sheet approval, and the ability to import resource information, such as unavailable time and public holidays, from a comma-separated values (CSV) file.
• Cerri.com’s initial enterprise web application offerings, due for imminent beta release, are scheduled to include Cerri Task and Cerri Central. The Cerri Task app allows users to receive different assignments, and all tasks and communication, such as deadlines, notifications and alerts are provided. Users will also be able to collaborate around documents. The Cerri Central app acts as a database and data repository. Any actions performed in Cerri Task are captured in Cerri Central.

Project.net

Project.net is Project.net’s company IT PPM project management software.

The 2016 Gartner Magic Quadrant has highlighted from Project.net the following benefits:

• Project.net provides a cost-effective (freeware) initial step toward IT project team management, because it is the only vendor in this Magic Quadrant that leads with an open-source option. When customers mature with the product, and want to protect the data they store in it, the vendor offers an assisted, on-premises deployment and an SLA supporting it.
• Project.net’s freeware option is not limited to just the application itself. It leverages Pentaho as an open-source, freeware BI and reporting option for customers that want it. Pentaho follows the same freeware-to-supported solution model as Project.net, allowing both pieces to mature along with, and based on, the needs of its customers.
• Project.net is best suited for leaders of project teams or groups of project teams, and is backed by strong product stability, performance and reliability.

Here you can learn more about how to choose the project management software that better fits for you: