“Our current tool isn’t built for cross-project visibility.”
“Leadership wants reporting we can’t get from Trello or Monday.”
“We’re managing a portfolio, not just a checklist—and it’s messy.”
“We can’t forecast capacity or model tradeoffs.”
These are just a few common complaints you hear regularly. Basic tools like Monday and Smartsheet aren’t enough for strategic execution. Or perhaps you’ve outgrown your current task tool. Your needs are simply too complex.
What’s the difference between task management vs project portfolio management? The distinctions are essential for project managers, PMO leaders, and decision-makers to understand. If your organization has complex, high-value portfolios that require visibility, strategic alignment, and governance, your platform must allow you to manage far more than just task completion. PPM empowers you to lead with data and impact.
What’s the Difference Between Task Management and Project Portfolio Management?
First, it’s important to note that a project and a portfolio are not the same thing. Individual projects might be grouped or managed under a single program and could also be grouped in a portfolio, depending on the given organization’s hierarchy. Projects are smaller units with discrete start and finish dates. In contrast to projects, portfolios are more about strategic project execution, ensuring that individual projects are aligned with larger organizational goals.
Task management involves overseeing individual tasks: discrete actions or responsibilities. A task is typically a short-term step, something that can be completed quickly and efficiently.
A series of tasks form a project. Think small picture vs big picture. Task management involves identifying, prioritizing, delegating, and tracking tasks. Project management, meanwhile, examines the entire project and encompasses coordinating task workflows and project capacity planning to meet the needs of the entire initiative. Project portfolio management requires you to link a project to larger organizational goals and ensure that initiatives are properly prioritized and in service of your business objectives.
Consider a garden. Each type of plant within the garden represents a project, a single unit, something you need to care for and nurture. The entire garden is a portfolio, a blend of complementary plants that form a cohesive work of art. Tasks may include choosing the plants, planting them, watering them, trimming, weeding, and so on.
Tasks are important, of course. You can’t complete a project without undertaking the day-to-day responsibilities. But you also need to think in terms of the big picture. Every task should be in service of your comprehensive portfolio. Taking a top-down and bottom-up approach to project planning is a key part of ensuring that every plan is tied to higher level targets and goals.
You need both. Part of portfolio management is outlining the individual tasks, delegating them, and ensuring that they all help you meet your goals. But shifting your mindset from task management—focusing on the day-to-day—to portfolio management is a necessary step.
When Does a Team or Organization Outgrow a Task-based Tool?
As businesses grow and mature, they outgrow their tools. Because task-based tools are fairly limited to begin with, the odds are good that you will find yourself in need of a more robust platform, such as a comprehensive PPM tool.
Here are the signs it’s time to invest in new solutions.
Emphasis on Manual Processes
Your team is relying on manual processes for compiling status reports, or reporting to executives, because the tool you’re using can’t easily and accurately aggregate project data.
Lack of Efficiency
The task management tool is hindering productivity rather than improving it. In fact, you’re spending too much time creating workarounds in the tool than actually using it. It’s detracting from efficiency and creating inefficiencies.
Data Silos
The tool is too simple to provide a centralized repository of information, so teams use other tools to store and manage information, creating a matrix of silos where project data lives.
Lack of Support for Project Needs
Your current tool doesn’t accommodate high-level projects or portfolios. There are no or limited features for complex or regulated projects; the features focus exclusively on simple tasks. There are no enhanced features for resource management, planning, prioritization, reporting, dashboards, risk management, and other project management requirements..
What Capabilities Does PPM Software Offer that Task Tools Do Not?
Task management software allows you to manage individual tasks and individual projects. It might have basic scheduling and task-tracking capabilities, simple budgeting and visualization tools, and rudimentary reporting, but it’s not intended for detailed work breakdown structures, high-level views, or management across interrelated projects.
PPM software, meanwhile, is a comprehensive and high-level tool for managing and overseeing projects, programs and portfolios, ensuring projects are aligned with company goals and are synchronized with one another. It’s a “big-picture” platform that provides a holistic view of your portfolio, offering features like resource management, capacity scenario modeling, risk management, budgeting, and thorough reporting and dashboards, which give you real-time information and insights.
How Do Trained Project Managers Use PPM Tools to Support Decision-Making?
When used effectively, PPM tools assist you in making better decisions and boosting productivity and efficiency. Here are some pointers to keep in mind as you get started with a new platform.
Establish Your Goals
Determine what you want to get out of the software to benefit the entire business. Quantify the concrete reasons for implementing PPM software, such as time savings or more effective change management, and tie them to organizational goals like the ability to get projects done faster so that new ones can be started.
Understand the Difference Between Task Management and Portfolio Project Management
Understand if PPM is necessary to achieve your larger objectives and what features you need that make a low-level platform insufficient.
Solicit Buy-in
To ensure that team members and stakeholders are on board, start by explaining the importance of the PPM platform and how it will help you achieve your organizational goals. Roll out features gradually, and provide ample training, all while ensuring strong communication and feedback both within and outside the platform.
Monitor Continuously
Continue to review progress, tracking the effectiveness of the tool and your team’s use of it. Adjust your parameters and features as needed. It may be beneficial to implement a phased approach to rollout, using early phases to gather feedback and address issues. This also fosters stronger buy-in.
What Are Real-World Consequences of Relying on Task Tools for Strategic Portfolios?
If you rely too heavily on task tools, you will inevitably face numerous challenges. These are just a few of the real-world consequences of failing to adopt strategic, high-level PMO tools.
Fragmentation
Reliance on task tools can lead to misalignment. The tool fails to connect activities to larger goals and strategies. You might experience conflicting priorities. This can also contribute to data silos.
Resource Conflicts
Task tools can be inflexible regarding resources. They don’t consider other projects and how you’re using resources outside of a single project; you can’t plan for resource constraints across project portfolios or departments. Teams and other resources may be over- or underutilized. Meanwhile, PPM tools help you manage and control resource constraints.
Lack of Strategic Focus
Task tools are inherently focused on single activities, not the big picture. They don’t consider the long term and don’t respond to or enhance your long-term vision. For example, they don’t typically include comprehensive reporting tools, so you can’t visualize how individual activities are contributing to your overall organization.
Inability to Scale
To accommodate your growth and maturity as an organization, you need a platform that will allow you to manage high-level projects and responsibilities. Task management tools simply don’t allow you to scale your operations as your business grows. In other words, you need a PPM tool.
What Does Scalable Project Governance Look Like in a PPM Environment?
Scalable project governance establishes a framework to ensure proper protocols, rules, and roles. A governance framework confirms that projects and portfolios align with the organizational goals and overall strategy. In contrast, task management focuses on what it takes to deliver a given project or projects, without the benefit of a larger context.
Scalable project governance standardizes practices and ensures that processes can scale within an agreed-upon framework. The framework clarifies responsibilities and aligns projects with overall goals and mission.
You will see greater transparency and have stronger oversight. You’ll also have access to real-time insights, which are often limited with a task management tool. This leads to better visibility, which leads to better decision-making.
Task Management vs PPM: Why Prism PPM Is Necessary for Project Portfolio Success
Spreadsheets and task management tools only get you so far.
Perhaps if your projects are small-scale and basic, you can continue to work with equally simple platforms. But for organizations grappling with complex project portfolios with numerous moving parts, you need a solution to manage projects easily, drive benefit realization, and enhance productivity.
And as businesses continue to focus on cost control and becoming more efficient, it is critical that project delivery shifts from simply doing work, to delivering value with every endeavor.
Prism PPM is a project portfolio management tool that gives you a comprehensive, enterprise-wide view of your project portfolios. It allows you to go beyond task management to ensure strategic alignment with your overall goals and organization.
Take advantage of features like:
- Idea & Demand Management
- Project Planning
- Portfolio and Program Management
- Resource Management
- Agile Project Management
- Time Tracking and Budgeting
- Reports and Dashboards
- Strong Security
Keep in mind that Prism PPM is customizable. You can tailor dashboards and other features to your unique needs.
Want to learn more? Book a demo to find out how Prism PPM takes you from task management to strategic project portfolio management. Our team of project management experts are always available to answer your questions. Book a 30-minute consult or a 60-minute high-level demo to see if Prism PPM is right for your organization.