Company-level news and announcements.
If you have read previous blogs from Christian Smith or Chris Lynch you're probably becoming very familiar with the term "Software-as-a-Service" (SaaS). In this post I'll begin to explain my strategy for delivering value-added solutions on top of the On-Demand eProject platform. I refer to this approach as "Solutions-as-a-Service".
There are numerous software companies that provide enterprise PPM products, but they are simply tools; in an of themselves they are not a solution, let alone an On-Demand Solution.
Our customers (current and future) typically have multiple groups or departments that leverage eProject's varying capabilities from pure collaboration projects to more complex projects with structured methodologies or processes (such as Six Sigma, RUP, SCRUM, CMM etc.). In order for products to become a valuable solution, especially an On-Demand solution, they need to support the varying process and methodology requirements of the entire organization. There are "point- solutions" that support Six Sigma, Sarbanes-Oxley and various software or product methodologies, but deploying those point-solutions in an organization only supports the one department or group that needs a solution to support that methodology. Another major downside to utilizing some of these point-solutions is the myopic approach to the problem as opposed to the solution as a whole and how it fits into the enteprise "big picture". These also tend to be very expensive to deploy and train.
With eProject many of the common uses of the product, such as collaboration, are identical regardless of the process, and therefore the amount of time for product training is reduced and end-user adoption increases. The "Solution-as-a-Service" approach allows cross-functional or matrix organizations to leverage the "service" required regardless of the project, process or methodology. From an enterprise perspective it is difficult, and typically extremely manual to capture and roll up that project information to the entire organization when other groups are using different solutions. The data will certainly not be real-time.
In order to address the organizational needs of delivering a solution to support multiple processes that roll-up project status, resource and financial information to the enterprise level we'll be developing "Solution Sets" (previously In-A-Box solutions) on top of eProject to address the whole organization's varying process and methodology needs.
Some examples of the Solution Sets being developed for PPM6 are:
- PM Foundations (based on a proven PM methodology with standard phases, documents and templates).
- PMO Solution Set (for resource management, capacity planning and project planning)
- IT Governance (for higher level project and portfolio governance)
- Software Development Toolbox (for supporting various software methodologies)
- Sarbanes-Oxley Compliance
- Six Sigma
- CMM
- New Product Development
- Professional Services Delivery
- etc.
With the bulk of these solution sets we'll be partnering with industry leaders and domain experts for each of these disciplines to work directly with the organizations, and departments within those organizations to train, configure and deploy these solutions using their vast experience and best practices.With eProject's "Solutions-as-a-Service" approach the common project information can now be rolled up to an enterprise level, regardless of the varying process or methodology needs, for better decision support and project, program, portfolio visibility in real-time.Stay Tuned!
About Chris Broyles
As Vice President of Professional Services, Chris directs the consulting, configuration, training and custom development of eProject. In addition to managing a team of Solutions Consultants and Software Engineers he works closely with value-added partners that deliver training and packaged solutions. The Professional Services organization's primary focus is Customer Success. With Chris' 14 years of experience in Information Technology, software engineering, business development and enterprise software sales he possesses a deep understanding and passion for delivering valuable solutions to customers.
Chris joined eProject in April of 2002 as Director of Sales Engineering - initially focused on building a team to support the technical aspects of enterprise software sales. Chris eventually moved into the Product Engineering team where he focused on building out the Product Solutions Group that oversaw Product Management and Consulting. The company quickly realized the value of our Professional Service offerings and Chris became Vice President of Professional Services to focus solely on services.
Prior to joining eProject Chris held various technical, sales and leadership positions at Visio, Microsoft, Nordstrom, Analytical Software, Pacific Edge and eRoom. Chris holds a Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science from Whitworth College.