What is EPM

A project is a temporary work or effort started to create a unique product, service, or result (Schwalbe, 2010, p.4). It has attributes and characteristics that help identifying it from operational tasks, those attributes are defined objective, has a definite beginning and end, progress with time, has a sponsor, resources with different technical and non-technical abilities, and includes uncertainties (Schwalbe, 2010, p.7-8). Each project has three or four constraints, those are scope, time, cost and quality/customer satisfaction, one of the project manager’s tasks is to complete the project within those constrains, or trade-off one of them to have a successful project. Usually its not easy especially in technology projects, as they hold vast number of uncertainties, due to technological factors and the need for talented resources.

Aggressive competition, cost pressures, new technology, and globalization are some of the factors Parr & Williams identified as creating the need for organizations to assume initiatives that are more complex with unique speed (Parr & Williams, 2003). Organizations are investing more in new projects; still the percentage of failure is considerably high, failure in terms of delivering the project objective in time, and within budget. One of the drivers of such failure is lack for enterprise wide project management strategy, a strategy than meets business needs, and considers new challenges to help making successful projects. When companies rely on conventional or traditional project management techniques, basically they ignore other functions within the organization, and run multiple projects in isolation. Such isolation might result in increased project cost, and bad resource utilization. Parr & Williams believe that organizations due to there increased complexity and interdependency, as well the need of collaboration between multiple functions to deliver real business benefit are main drivers to emergence of new project management methodologies that over come those complexities and provide organizations with holistic view over its budget, resources and objectives (Parr & Williams, 2003, p).

Schwalbe, identified a system’s view of project management as “carrying out projects within the context of the organization” (Schwalbe, 2010, p.45). To handle complex projects, project managers need a holistic view of a project to be able to relate it to the organization’s strategy (Schwalbe, 2010, p.45). technology project affect the surrounding functions, customers and society, for that it should not run in isolation, rather surrounding factors and implications should be considered to be able to deliver the best out of technology. Organizations have different cultures; structures and behaviors, each of those affect the ability to manage projects. An Enterprise Project Management (EPM) is a wider term than the conventional project management. EPM is more specific to managing a set of projects in an organization that contribute to the success and development of that company while conventional project management is about managing one project at a time regardless of any other dependent or related projects. EPM helps prioritize the current and/or future set of projects an organization plans to implement on an organizational level and may be grounds for discarding less important projects and focusing on the important ones. There are many tools and software applications that are developed for implementing EPM such as Microsoft Project Server which is designed to help many projects an organization is implementing on the same database which can utilize the use of shared resources, manage dependencies between projects, and set priorities for the projects. Implementing EPM in an organization calls for the need of starting an enterprise project management office that defines what methodologies to be used in managing projects, defines what project to implement first and what projects to discard, and follow up on the projects being implemented. EPM is not specific to a certain project management methodology, some use PMI methodologies, some use Prince2, and some even create their own project management methodology. 

EPM includes portfolio management where organization’s group and manage multiple projects as a portfolio of investments that contribute to the organization’s success (Schwalbe, 2010, p.18). Portfolio management is different than project management, project managers concentrate on projects in hand and their management way, while portfolio managers question projects in hand effectiveness. Englund & Muller lists steps to convert to EPM from traditional project management; they explain the benefits from such transformation as increased project success (Englund & Muller, 2004). It is with no doubt that EMP has been a point of turnover for many organizations, which lead to their success and improvement. This is due to the power that EPM provides in prioritizing projects and managing the dependencies and link between projects.

Reference:

Englund, R. & Müller, R., (2004), ‘Leading Change Towards Enterprise Project Management’, Projects & Profits November, [Online]. DOI: 10.1.1.88.2131, Accessed on 3 December 2011

Schwalbe, K., (2010), Information Technology Project Management (with Microsoft Project 2007 CD-ROM), 6th ed., Course Technology, 2010, ISBN 978-0-324-78692-7

Williams, D., & Parr, T., (2003), ‘Enterprise Programme Management, Delivering Value’, [Online]. Available from: Palgrave Connect, DOI: 10.1057/9780230514706, ISBN: 9780230514706, Accessed on 3 December 2011