PD-Trak Project Portfolio Management System
We have found that a project portfolio management such PD-Trak can significant improving the planning and execution of product development projects and better assure adherence to an organization’s stage/phase-gate process. We have worked with a number of these types of systems in the past and found that PD-Trak is one of the most cost-effective and flexible tools out there for both large and small enterprises. PD-Trak provides both management functions to plan and monitor projects as well as project execution functions. Key functions of the system are:
| Idea Management functions capture ideas for new products/improvements and related information and provides a simple evaluation system for a product manager or management team to use to evaluate which ideas to move forward with. |  |
| Portfolio planning and management functions provide a variety of ways to evaluate and rank projects and then test the feasibility of a proposed portfolio against resources and investment constraints. |  |
| Product development processes can be defined – phases, tasks and deliverables within a phase, responsibilities and document templates. Multiple processes can be defined such as ones for a new product, a simplified version for product upgrades or product line extensions, and one for technology or platform development. |  |
| Stage/phase-gate methodology is supported with defined requirements for each gate review, various performance measures to evaluate projects, gate review packages, and automated distribution. |  |
| Project management capabilities for budgeting, scheduling and risk management are included. PD-Trak provides scheduling tools or is integrated with Microsoft Project®. These tools enable effective project planning and execution. |  |
| Multi-project resource planning and resource management provides flexible options for planning project resources at a higher level or integrating detailed project plans with task level resource planning. The system provides flexible modeling of options and indicates when resources are available to start new projects for a Kanban approach. |  |
| Resource and pipeline management tools monitor and manage the product pipeline – maximizing project throughput. These tools provide visibility on the project flow and enable the establishment of a release rhythm as suggested by the theory of constraints and lean product development practices. |  |
| Performance measurement and dashboard tools are provided at the project and portfolio level. |  |
PD-Trak can be installed on your company’s own IT systems or used in the cloud. DRM Associates is a PD-Trak agent.
For further information or a demo, contact Kenneth Crow at DRM Associates
Email: k.crow@npd-solutions.com