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In the current dynamic and turbulent business ecosystem, projects are often recognized as a cornerstone of almost every organization’s work. Many organizations view projects as the main vehicle for delivering organizational strategy and gaining competitive advantage (PMBOK, 2017). Nevertheless, organizations handling different projects with different scopes, complexities and timelines experience ongoing challenges in managing their project portfolios (Pedersen & Nielsen, 2011; Wan & Saade, 2018). They are constantly challenged to optimize projects investments across business units, ensure alignment of appropriate resources with business needs, and demonstrate the business value of projects to stakeholders (Blichfeldt & Eskerod, 2008; Bolat, Kuşdemir, Uslu, & Temur, 2017; McDonough & Spital, 2003). At the same time, portfolio managers continue to struggle in their quest to keep projects and portfolios under control. Common issues include ad-hoc prioritization decisions, inconsistent approaches to planning and managing projects, and lack of visibility into resource availability and utilization across projects (Ajjan, Kumar, & Subramaniam, 2013). To cope with these challenges, organizations are required to deploy project portfolio management (PPM) software and foster a full-scale portfolio management culture among project and portfolio managers (Chen, C., Nakayama, Shou, & Charoen, 2018; Hasna & Raza, 2010). The main objective of PPM software is to ensure that with scarce resources and limited time, the organization manages the most optimal mix of projects that support their strategic objectives and deliver maximum business value (Kock & Georg Gemünden, 2016). With the support of PPM software, organizations are enabled to evaluate, select and prioritize new projects; accelerate, kill or de-prioritize existing projects; and allocate or reallocate resources so as to maximize the contribution of projects to the overall success and productivity of the organization (Sharda, Delen, & Turban, 2017).
Recent years have witnessed a marked proliferation in the number and variety of PPM tools that today’s organizations use. Gartner reported that the market size of PPM software is estimated to grow to reach $4.63 billion by 2020, with a compound annual growth rate of 12.9 percent from 2015 to 2020 (Stang, Light, & Jones, 2017). The major forces driving organizations to deploy PPM software can be attributed to the varied needs and requirements of PPM professionals and stakeholders, structural changes in today’s business ecosystem, increasing complexity and scope of projects, and the demand for real-time collaboration and integrated task management (Gerogiannis, Fitsilis, & Kameas, 2013). The proliferation in cloud services and mobile technologies has also greatly contributed to the widespread adoption and deployment of PPM tools within organizations of any type and size. When implemented successfully, PPM tools have the potential to offer increased business benefits to the organization at a portfolio level rather than at an individual asset level, while mitigating associated risk and, most importantly, ensure alignment of projects to the business strategy according to the organization’s resources and capabilities (Ajjan et al., 2013). The Project Management Institute (PMI) reported that organizations with mature PPM software utilization completed 35% more of their project portfolios successfully, while wasting less time and money (Stang et al., 2017).