Project Management Systems (PMSs) are a collection of management structures, standards, procedures, and information technology (IT) and software applications that are used to manage projects.

Project management environments have a multiple-project emphasis--such as with program management (PM) and portfolio project management (PPM) as well as the project management office (PMO)--demand project management system (PMS) capabilities that transcend those required for project lifecycle management. The project lifecycle management facilitates the achievement of project management activities during the project initiation, planning, execution, monitoring and controlling, and closure.

Program management is a synergistic approach to facilitating the activities of an organization based on an affinity grouping common to a product, functional business unit, specific customer or industry, or other such organizational emphases.

Typically, programs comprise a cohesive group of projects to obtain organizational benefits beyond those obtained from the projects individually; thus, the program management scope extends beyond a project scope and continues over the program's life. For program management of projects, the PMS considerations may require additional capabilities and functions such as pro forma and capital management capabilities or programmatic business analytics based on the amalgam of the project information of that program, as well as program-level collaboration, information sharing, program-level resource leverage, and document management (which serves as a central repository for project artifacts and other program project-related documents).

Portfolio Project Management is an enterprise-strategic approach to organizing and facilitating the project- and program-related activities of an organization to achieve the strategic objectives and organizational value embodied in the organization’s mission and vision statements and delineated by its goals.

Portfolio project management has a strategic scope that extends beyond the scope of a project or program. The PMS for project portfolio management should primarily focus on aligning the projects with the business strategic goals. To select a suitable PMS for project portfolio management, the main considerations include strategic project identification, evaluations, and selection features, strategic metrics, and balanced scorecard assessment and reporting capabilities. Other considerations include the assessment of enterprise-level risks, capability, capacity, and resource availability.

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Project management standards, principles, and methods are generally recognized as good practices, such as in the PMBOK® Guide (PMI, 2021) to determine project management requirements. However, industry-specific application of project management--such as in construction, petrochemical, pharmaceutical, scientific research, development of software applications, and professional service organizations, and other specialized industries--has evolved to incorporate additional project management requirements. For example, professional service organizations (e.g., lawyers, auditors, IT consultants, etc.) perform their operations and deliver client services on a project basis. Thus, they integrate operations activities (timekeeping, billing, reporting, Customer Relationship Management [CRM], etc.) with project management activities. In this situation, the PMS should be encapsulated within the scope and functionality of professional services automation (PSA).

Excellus BXBS Transforms IT with Portfolio and Resource Management:
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Excellus BlueCross BlueShield Transforms IT with Portfolio and Resource Management

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Let’s look at Plainview’s system more closely:

Demand: ideas, projects, requests, features.
Strategy: strategic planning, business capabilities, programs and outcomes, road mapping.
Capacity: capacity planning, prioritization, scenario analysis, financials.
Execution: resource management, projects and work, status, cost and actuals.
Outcomes: products, services, applications, technology. (Plainview, n.d., Page Portfolio and Resource Management demo)