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SECTION 11

PROJECT MANAGEMENT
AND PROFESSIONAL

SERVICES AUTOMATION

Markets change. And as the needs that are represented by these markets are
identified, new business models, and tools to support these models, emerge
to respond to these needs. Some tools come from new vendors who, seeing the
opportunity, either develop software capabilities specifically to meet the needs, or
acquire tools to create a best-of-breed solution. Other tools come from existing
vendors who switch gears either by changing the emphasis of their solutions or by
teaming with other developers to widen their response. Mergers and acquisitions
become almost daily events as the aspiring vendors maneuver to gain position in
the emerging (and not yet well-defined) market.

In 2001, all of this activity is centered on the relatively new Professional Ser-
vices Automation (PSA) market. Even as this chapter is being written, the ven-
dors change, merge and acquire companies, products, and skills, and sometimes
even discard the ones that they picked up last year.

This emerging market lies almost entirely within the Information Technology
(IT) sector. But this is such an enormous sector, especially where issues of proj-
ect management and delivery are concerned, as to warrant significant attention
and activity.

In this section, we describe the PSA market and discuss the issues associated
with this market. We will look at the various sources of solutions and present an
overview of what these sources are providing. But first, let’s look at who the target
beneficiaries of PSA solutions are. Primarily, they are divided into two groups:

1. Professional Services Organizations (PSOs).
2. Internal Information Systems Organizations (ISOs).

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