While speaking with a colleague of mine about project management and project management software yesterday, we discussed what organizations that do project-based work need—and what any business project management software should include—to help organizations focus on those things that will help make them more competitive and profitable.

We agreed that the list was relatively short:

1. A solution that will help business leaders sift through project requests and evaluate each request based on business value, alignment with strategic and financial goals and any potential risks and rewards.

2. A solution that will help manage "the process" of project implementation and execution to ensure that projects stay on track and are completed on time, on budget, and with the desired functionality.

3. A solution that makes it easy for project team members to participate in the project management process. Making team members jump through hoops or forcing them to become project management experts to complete tasks will only accomplish one thing—discourage them from participation.

4. A solution that gives business leaders access to real-time data validates that decisions made in the board room are being executed by project teams, and guarantees that they are looking at timely and accurate information for making future decisions.

Reviewing the list points out three obvious requirements that very few project portfolio management solutions are able to provide. For any work management tool to be effective it must address:

1. The needs of project teams—It's kind of a garbage in, garbage out scenario. If project teams don't have an easy-to-use way to input timely and accurate data, it doesn't matter how sophisticated a project management solution's reports or dashboards are, the data will not be accurate and so will be of little or no value to the organization.

2. The needs of project managers—Helping project mangers "manage" the process doesn't mean forcing them to manually input status information to push up to the executive suite. It means automating the collection of project information so that every time a team member updates status that information is automatically rolled up into the appropriate report or dashboard. That way, managers can spend more time helping team members be effective and successful and less time collecting data and writing reports.

3. The needs of executive decision-makers—Formalizing the project selection process makes it possible for business leaders to make data-driven decisions about which projects they will pursue and which they will not. This enables them to make strategic decisions rather than knee-jerk reactions. In today's economy, business leaders need a handle on what's happening within their organizations right now, not yesterday, last week, or last month. Accurate and timely information is often the difference between a business that is successful and thriving and one that is losing marketshare and failing.

How does your project management solution address the needs of executives, project managers, and project teams? I'd like to hear your thoughts.