With @David Sprague, Product Management, Clarity PPM
Q: What are the biggest improvements in Clarity PPM 15.7?
A: Let me break it down into four buckets. In the first bucket, we have new modern tools for different personas, like project managers, portfolio managers or team members. Our task hierarchy timeline, for example, gives you that visual way of managing tasks that customers really like.
We’re bringing in boards, which are very intuitive and easy ways to manage investments and work across a lifecycle. We’re also bringing in additional capabilities around idea management and custom investment types, such as cost plans that allow people to manage their costs for an idea. The fourth bucket would be filled with customer requests to help them adopt the modern UX. There's something for everyone.
Q: Why should a customer upgrade to Clarity PPM 15.7?
A: With this release we have brought over some of the key capabilities from the old UX, which allow many of our customers to make the switch to the new experience. There’s a big telecommunication company in Europe, for example, that was looking to combine ideas and cost plans. Voila, there it is in the new release. That’s one of many examples.
Q: How does Clarity PPM 15.7 compare to the competition?
A: Talking to industry analysts, Clarity PPM really is the only project portfolio management solution that’s innovating today. We’re continuously introducing modern ways of working that are simple, usable and powerful. Many apps out there have features we developed years ago. They are not thinking about it from a holistic solution standpoint. As they acquire more technologies, those applications remain independent, in most cases, leaving customers with a disjointed experience.
Clarity PPM is one comprehensive solution for the enterprise, with new innovative capabilities delivered every three months.
Q: What are you personally most excited about in the new release?
A: Teams are a new, more agile way of organizing your work that we introduced a few versions back. But some users wanted a better way to capture the time and effort teams and individual members spent on work. With version 15.7, we’re bringing in enhanced time management, allowing more of our customers to start working with teams. That’s exciting.
Q: What's coming next in Clarity PPM?
A: Our customers are adopting new ways of managing work. In addition to projects, which have a fixed start and end date, fixed budget, fixed set of people, customers are moving toward product management. A product is a sustained asset that lives on forever. Just like any commercial software, the product has releases, but no real start or end date.
With a new flexible hierarchy, Clarity PPM gives customers a way to manage their investments in different products, align those investments with the company’s strategies, and manage all that in the context of a hierarchy. That is going to be very powerful when it comes out in December.