The obvious benefit of project portfolio management is that it gives executives a bird’s-eye view of projects so they can spot redundancies, spread resources appropriately and closely monitor progress. PPM is a continuous loop of communication that allows an organization to collaboratively plan and evaluate its success or failure on projects.

Over the years, as the importance of PPM has been noticed, several PPM tools have emerged in the market. They have attempted to enable organizations to manage the continuous flow of projects from concept to completion. Some commercial vendors of PPM software emphasize their products’ ability to treat projects as part of an overall investment portfolio. A 2006 Forrester Research paper documented and interviewed over 41 vendors and ranked the following vendors as “Best-of-breed” Primavera, Artemis, Plan View, Business Engine, ITM Software & Pacific Edge. They also ranked ERP vendors, which, along with integration options to 3rd party products, provided a complete PPM solution–the leaders were Oracle & SAP, which allowed integration from 3rd party into their PPM Modules.