Need to pick a Project Portfolio tool to manage dependencies BETWEEN projects

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Hi all,

I need some advice on Portfolio Management Software for our team. We are currently using Asana to manage individual projects, but we presently don’t have a way to manage dependencies/conflicts between projects.

I’ve been doing research for the past few days now (both internally on the Amazon intranet and externally). There are a LOT of good software options, and I just don’t have the time or the patience to review them all. It seems the main competitors are JIRA, Asana, Monday.com and Amazon Playbook.

Requirements

•	Easy to use tool with low learning curve
•	Feature rich out of the box
•	SIM integration
•	Project graphing tool (GANTT like)
•	Able to track projects as a whole and be able to drill-down into a projects sub-tasks
•	Able to assign and track resources between projects
•	Ability to assign ***times and dependencies*** at a project and a resource level (which resources are spread across multiple projects, etc.)
•	Plan on a page (Single pane of glass)
•	Align to our Big Rock Goals as top line business drivers
•	Screen mockup idea (below)

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12490×1246 119 KB

Questions

•	Should key project stakeholders be emailed when their project component (task, resource, etc.) has a conflict/pending deadline?

Risks

•	Price (how much would it cost to adopt new tool)
•	Time to integrate
•	Opportunity cost
•	Resources available
•	Adoption (ramp up time / learning curve time)

I would prefer JIRA but it seems it is geared more towards individual projects. Is Asana the best tool then at the portfolio level?

I welcome any advice on how to pick the best PPM tool.

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Hi,

Did you know the milestones you marked on the image can indeed be made dependant of one another? It won’t show up visually though (not yet anyway).

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Hi Bastien,

This is my question. It seems that portfolios exist outside of projects and teams and they don’t show task-level details for projects. They only show project level info on the timeline. If you want to track dependencies visually on the timeline across projects then you could try having 1 “master project” which contains the tasks for all of the sub projects.Continuing w/ example above you would have a 3rd project called Project C, where all tasks for both Projects A and B are multi-homed. This would let you track dependencies visually.

Bastien, are you saying we don’t need to do this “workaround” (above). Can you elaborate please on how to do it the correct/intended way?

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Your workaround is correct: having all tasks (or maybe just milestones?) in a dedicated project will allow you to use the Timeline view and see dependencies across projects.

In my message I wanted to point out that you can create dependencies between projects, by using tasks in each one, but there is currently no way to see those dependencies (except with your own workaround :muscle: )

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Can someone else please reply to this thread for an alternative viewpoint?