(SYS-CON Media) - Planview, provider of comprehensive portfolio management solutions, introduced the newest version of its industry-leading Project & Portfolio Management (PPM) solution, Planview Enterprise 9, designed to bring new levels of productivity to the project management experience. One of the fundamental building blocks to portfolio management is establishing effective project management processes. By driving increased productivity for the project manager and visibility into the project portfolio, Planview Enterprise 9 provides an easy to use structured framework for true resource management and comprehensive portfolio level analytics.

“$55 billion of IT spending is annually wasted on failed IT projects, which represents 22% of an average organization’s overall IT project budget. Planview Enterprise 9 directly addresses the growing portfolio management challenges faced by today’s project managers by providing them with a project management experience that dramatically increases visibility into the project portfolio,” said Jeff Durbin, senior vice president of product management at Planview, Inc. “Usability and end-user adoption are two of the biggest challenges in the software industry. This release represents Planview’s deep-seated commitment to delivering rapid-time-to-value by enhancing the usability of and accessibility to the most popular components of our solution.”

With a focus on enhancing the project management experience, Planview turned to its customers, creating a unique, customer-driven co-development process known as the Inner Circle. The result of this process is a powerful solution that dramatically reduces the time project managers spend performing daily tasks. Ultimately this capability can drive increased adoption of a robust project and portfolio management solution across an organization.

“Planview really listened to their customers when building this new version. It is phenomenal in this day and age that an organization such as Planview would take the time and expense to listen firsthand to what the customer wants and then build it,” said Elliott Morgan, Great-West Life. “Usability of the new project management capabilities is very intuitive, giving our users the ability to jump right in versus waiting to be trained. Not only do we expect this to increase user productivity, but we expect rapid organizational adoption of the product.”

The new features of Planview Enterprise 9 include:

* Productivity-Driven Project Management

Planview Enterprise 9 is designed to improve productivity and efficiency at the project level. Leveraging the latest AJAX technologies to deliver a highly interactive, thin client user experience allows for quick “get-in-get-out” productivity, resulting in faster scheduling, staffing, and status reporting for project managers. To make data more accessible, the new release includes powerful search, editing, and navigation functions to further enhance usability. In addition, multi-feature access on a single page and split-level views put project information at users fingertips allowing them execute basic tasks like assigning resources and entering names more efficiently.