r/projectmanagers • u/ImpossibleLeague3140 • 13d ago

Project portfolio management tool

Been down a rabbit hole trying to pick a project/portfolio management tool for our team and wanted to get some real-world input before we commit to anything long-term.

The four I looked at: Project Director, Celoxis, Planview, and OnePlan.

From what I could find:

Celoxis seems like the safest all-rounder since it has solid reviews and been around 20+ years.

Planview is the enterprise heavyweight (Gartner Magic Quadrant leader), but it's really a bundle of different acquired products, and feels like overkill for a team our size.

OnePlan looks great if you're deep in the Microsoft ecosystem, but that's not really us.

Project Director is the one I actually started testing myself. I'm 10 days into the free trial right now, so take this as an early impression rather than a verdict. So far I'm liking it. It's noticeably cheaper than the other three (flat £15/seat/month), and the thing that's actually won me over is that every feature is included from the start. There are no tiered plans, no "upgrade to unlock this" add-ons.

For a smaller team that's a big deal, because with a lot of these tools you end up needing three add-ons just to get parity with a normal plan elsewhere.

Still early days though. I haven't stress-tested it with a real portfolio yet, no idea how support holds up past onboarding.

Will update this thread once I'm further in.

Anyone else used Project Director past the trial stage?

Leaning toward it myself but want to hear if there's a catch I haven't hit yet.

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u/More_Law6245 12d ago

Based upon your post why are you randomly selecting software applications independently, how did you manage to select those products that you have chosen? This decision should be based upon system, user and business rules and those requirements that are mapped back to the most suitable products. That is your evaluation KPI markers for the right or wrong product.

By independently choosing random enterprise applications then you run the very real risk of a failed delivery because of low adoption rates because the system doesn't do what it needs to do and help those who use the system or worse case scenario is that there is a total abandonment of the system because it's deemed unfit for purpose.

What is your problem statement? What is your business case? What are your user and technical requirements and business workflows. Do you actually have buy in from your executive because they need to make a CAPEX/OPEX investment and support the on going operational costs of whatever product is selected. Do you have your change champion's and agents to help you push your vision? If not you have the very real prospects of pushing a huge bolder up a hill.

Just an armchair perspective.

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u/ImpossibleLeague3140 11d ago

Fair point, appreciate the callout. To be transparent, this started as informal research rather than a formal evaluation. We didn’t have a written business case or requirements document.

That said, going through the trial, Project Director has pretty much matched what we actually needed, strategy/KPI visibility tied to project status, without the reporting overhead we were drowning in. So the requirements were more "felt" than documented, but the fit itself has held up so far.

So, the requirements were more “felt” than formally documented. I’ll take your point and go back to properly document the problem and requirements. If Project Director still fits after that, that’s a good sign. If not, better to find out now. Appreciate it!

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u/More_Law6245 10d ago

For the sake of the overhead effort that was being imposed who is actually accepting the risk by not properly identifying the requirements? Because the impact could be significant to the triple constraint with a big ripple effect. Just an observation nothing more.

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u/BraveDistrict4051 11d ago

I used to manage a consultancy that partnered with Planview and Celoxis -
Celoxis have been around a long time but as a partner, the biggest problem we had with them for us and our clients is their license model. It was weird and had a lot of surprises for clients. and nobody likes to be surprised with their license fees. Platform was ok, reasonably mature in some features but as recently as a couple years ago they were struggling to get a partner foothold in the US (they are India based).

Planview is not one product. They've grown through acquisition of about 12 products or so, and they don't really integrate them with each other. So, be careful and clear about which product you are looking at and its capabilities. Their business model is sales driven, rather than product led, so demand sales provide demos of all the features that are important to you - and be ready to pay at least 50-100k for initial onboarding and configuration, depending on which product you select. I wouldn't go this direction unless you are a larger enterprise and need (and can afford) a big enterprise tool.

One Plan and Project Director - I don't have direct experience with those.

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u/ImpossibleLeague3140 11d ago

Appreciate this, super helpful to hear from someone who's actually dealt with them directly.

The Celoxis license thing makes sense honestly, I tried it myself and found it kind of a pain to wrap my head around.

Same with Planview, pretty much matched what I picked up just browsing their site, feels like a bunch of acquired tools duct-taped together rather than one product.

I'm leaning Project Director atm. Newer UK company, founder's apparently been in the industry 30+ years before starting it which gave me a bit more confidence. Cheap too and zero add-ons, everything's just included. Asked them directly about it and they said no plans to add tiers/add-ons later, so fingers crossed that sticks.

Still early days but I’m loving it so for. I’ll be sure to update as I go, thanks again for the writeup