Broadcom Clarity Other Advice

Lowell Wetzel - PeerSpot reviewer
Systems Administrator at Cambia Health Solutions

The one tip that seems to be fairly universal is to get management approval or get executive sponsors for it, and it would be best to implement it universally across an entire company so that it is not like you're just feeding this set of resources over here and not setting up other resources. Universality is probably the easiest way for the best implementation because I have sincerely complex scripts to auto setup resources. Originally, we had it based on sets of team codes. So, I created a dynamic team code list to only activate this set of resources and not others. It becomes complicated when you only partially implement the solution, or technically, it is more complicated on the programming side.

I would rate it a seven because it is very dynamic. You can generate any of the metrics and fields you want, and it has a lot of great out-of-the-box calculations. Some of the complications come when your company decides to change directions. It does take a bit to find all the changes you made. There is a little bit of a complication there. For example, if you customize a lot of screens and such, it is a little tough to keep track of what changes. That can become a complication. Out of the box, it has got a lot of great project and resource calculations and financial calculations that you could readily implement anywhere.

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Gaurav Datar - PeerSpot reviewer
Technology Architect at Infosys

I would definitely recommend Broadcom Clarity PPM to others because it's a time-tested solution, and I've been hearing it for the last fifteen to twenty years. Broadcom is also adding a lot of new features to the tool. The new UI is also very efficient, and though it's still not in its fully mature state, it's pretty usable. I'm advising others to avoid customizing Broadcom Clarity PPM as much as possible and use it the way it was designed, but I would definitely recommend it as it's a good tool, and the new UI is also very efficient. Broadcom Clarity PPM also has an agile model which is a plus, so you don't need separate JIRA or any other integration. The out-of-the-box agile model is pretty efficient to take care of all the agile requirements, so Broadcom Clarity PPM is the only tool that provides that kind of capability to agile as waterfall project management.

My rating for Broadcom Clarity PPM is eight out of ten, and the reason behind this score is that it's a very expensive tool. Cost-wise, the tool is very expensive and some tools might be able to cater to 80% of the functionality provided by Broadcom Clarity PPM but are not as expensive.

The tool has a new UI and that is good, but it has a lot of limitations. For example, you cannot access sub-pages on the second level or third level of sub-objects. There are also some technical limitations overall, so on a scale of one to ten, I deducted two points and rated Broadcom Clarity PPM an eight, rather than a ten.

On the plus side, the solution is highly customizable, and I haven't seen any other tools which are as customizable as Broadcom Clarity PPM.

My company is a partner of Broadcom Clarity PPM.

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MohammadJarrar - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Clarity PPM Technical Consultant at Al Rajhi Bank

I have experience with Broadcom Clarity PPM only. I have no experience with Jira.

We have 800 users of Broadcom Clarity PPM within the organization.

We have one guy: a business analyst, and he's in charge of handling and maintaining the project and Broadcom Clarity PPM itself.

Everyone in the organization is using Broadcom Clarity PPM now, so there's no need to increase usage, e.g. all our departments including top management, even the CEO, uses the platform. We can approve, reject, and do things on the platform. We monitor each project and dashboard through Broadcom Clarity PPM, e.g. every PM on the CapEx project has access to the platform.

The advice I'd give to others who are looking into implementing Broadcom Clarity PPM is that they need to be agile. They need to be flexible.

I'm giving Broadcom Clarity PPM a rating of nine out of ten.

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Buyer's Guide
Broadcom Clarity
March 2024
Learn what your peers think about Broadcom Clarity . Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: March 2024.
765,234 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Kiran  Reddy - PeerSpot reviewer
Presales Head - Retail & CPG at Infosys

I would rate the solution a nine out of ten. I rate the solution highly because we sell Broadcom licenses to most of our customers, and if somebody would ask us for the best PPM tool, Clarity PPM would be one of the top two tools we would recommend to the clients.

Most customers find the solution user-friendly in terms of deployment and scalability aspects, and integration into the larger ecosystem. In terms of licensing aspects, the support aspects, and the support provided by Broadcom, I think they find it's very easy to work with compared to other PPM vendors, not in terms of the product, but in terms of the overall support and response times. And there's enthusiasm to take the proper feedback and incorporate it back into the system.

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Nishant Rao - PeerSpot reviewer
Practice Head - Wipro Digital - PPMS at Wipro Limited

I would recommend Broadcom Clarity PPM to others.

I rate Broadcom Clarity PPM a nine out of ten.

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AD
IT Consultant at Abinvest Swiss Fiduciaria Switzerland


We are satisfied with the system and happy with the results. I would rate it eight out of ten.
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it_user778710 - PeerSpot reviewer
Manager IT Project Portfolio at Owens-Illinois, Inc.

The new UX is great because it has helped remove some of those barriers, so that people who are not classically trained project managers can easily get up to speed in using the tool without having to learn a whole other tool set. It's very intuitive, and very collaborative, and very easy to adapt to their existing work styles.

Regarding choosing a vendor, for us the vendors need to understand how we do business, and understand our unique needs and requirements, and be responsive.

Start simple. We tried to do too much in the beginning. Just start simple and grow into the tool.

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it_user779232 - PeerSpot reviewer
PPM Product Owner at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees

No tool is going to fix your process problems. You better have a pretty good process in place, and know exactly what it is you are trying to do. Implementing a tool in parallel with implementing a process, you are potentially going to do that sort of over-engineering that I was talking about. The tool is not going to solve the problem. The tool can help you automate, but it is not going to solve those problems.

Most important criteria when selecting a vendor: Being available when we need them, and leaving us alone otherwise. Being available to us when we need the assistance. It is great to have a relationship where you are not always trying to sell us something, but when you see something that is a good fit. It is sort of like crying wolf. If you are always trying to sell us new features and so forth, we are not going to want it unless we really need it.

I will throw another thought out there, which is I am getting a lot of pushback from my management about, "Hey, we need to upgrade, because this is coming end of life." We hear that a lot from our vendor partners. "This is becoming end of life. It is going out of support." The feedback that we get from my management, and what I am going to be asking my account team to tell me is, "Do not tell me it is going to be out of support and we have to upgrade. Tell me what it is going to do for me over and above what I currently have, then I can sell it to my leadership."

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it_user779034 - PeerSpot reviewer
Product Manager at a healthcare company with 10,001+ employees

Make sure you have a really good roadmap of what you want the tool to do for project and portfolio management, which is really what it is supposed to be doing. From a financial, what kind of data you would think. From a resource management, what you expect. There are other systems, like PeopleSoft. A lot of people use PeopleSoft. That is your true resource management system. It should not be used as a PPM. For finance, a lot of people use Oracle, and other things. That should be your sources system, it should not be PPM, so do not make PPM more than it is supposed to be.

Use the other source systems to feed data into PPM to get what you are looking for from a financial transparency of the work that you are delivering. That would probably be the number one thing, because we did not do that.

Then I think the number two thing is you have really have to get with a partner that knows the industry and does not just say they know the industry. They can actually give you the data to back it up.

Most important criteria when selecting a vendor: I need a vendor that will partner with us. Not just show us a new shiny tool, then walk away and we have to figure it out. I need somebody that will teach us to crawl first, then walk, and finally to run. Being there all the way with us. Not giving us a nice presentation and then we are on our own. That is where we will kind of get stuck.

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it_user558096 - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr Project IT Leader - Project Management at Honeywell Aerospace

I think we moved to it fairly quickly once we got going. I think it's easy to move to. It seems to offer a lot of advantages, tools, and functionality. Just try it out. The company has been around and the solution has been used for a while. It's been proven and tested. It's not something new. Just give it a try.

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it_user778968 - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Manager at a tech consulting company with 1,001-5,000 employees

We're excited about the new UX. We're actually going to do the 15.3 upgrade in 2018.

When looking for a new vendor, our criteria include combining all the "asks" from our customers, but also with what we can manage. What's ready out of the box versus what we're going to have to customize. I'm a very big fan of CA's configurability. It's not necessarily something that is custom-built, but people can rearrange their filters, they can set up their criteria based on their needs. 

I give it a nine out of 10 right now. I'm not giving it a 10 because I have to see how the Agile piece works. Past life, we were using Rally and CA PPM and their integrations were just really wonky, and we ended up backing out of it. That was kind of cumbersome. So we're looking forward, now that CA has obtained what was formerly known as Rally, the Agile Central. I'm very curious to see how's that going to overlay. If it makes me happy, it will definitely be a 10.

In terms of advice to a colleague, I would say know the data that you have and what you want your output to be later. I think it's important to think about the future, because if you start off - for clarity purposes - using that idea, there's not a step before that. So you really want to have to make sure that your idea is your goal-point from the beginning. 

Also knowing what you want to extract from it later. Permissions and securities are going to have to dictate, "Are you going to access that?" or "Are you going to want your customers to be able to pull their own information?" Do you want to utilize partitions? Because everything has that downstream impact. If you know what you want or you think you know what you want, take that step back and look at your long-term goals and how they fit into it. From everything, from work streams to tasks.

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RR
Experienced Analyst at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees

I know that our company, worldwide, does business with about 300 vendors for its information technology needs, whether it's manpower, equipment, or services. Inside that list of 300 vendors, I know for a fact that Broadcom is one of the top vendors relative to our company worldwide. We're not just a customer. If you look at it from a dollar standpoint, there are some vendors that maybe we spend $20,000 a year or $100,000 a year, and not $1 million a year.

For companies where we spend hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, or multiple millions of dollars a year, Broadcom, in general, has a more elevated status on the list of vendors. It's probably in the top 30, or top 50, vendors, which, for me qualifies it as a partner.

It meets the definition of being enterprise-wide. I don't know if it was on a company server or if it was some kind of a cloud-based service that we were ascribing to. What I do know is there was an initial instance where I know for a fact it was installed on a company server somewhere and that there was a transition, maybe to a newer version, or a newer instance, which may have changed the deployment. I never really had a need to know that. All I know is can I access it and get the data that I need.

I'd recommend the solution. I didn't find any reasons why I would not want to use it. If somebody were to say, "Are you familiar with this tool in technology?" I would say, "Yes." I don't know what version or instance of it was of what I made use of, however, I would say, based on my use of the tool, my ability to look at data in the interface itself, or to get data out of it, export data to do additional manipulations and digging, or what have you, I would say, "To me, it was not difficult to use. It was straightforward. It was logical." I wouldn't have anything negative to say about it.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.

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it_user558186 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Manager at a retailer with 1,001-5,000 employees

Make sure that you need all the functionality included in the PPM tool because it's very complete. That means it can also be very confusing. If you don't need this much functionality, look at something that's not quite as robust in the enterprise class. There are other tools that don't have all the features. They aren't as complete, but they are easier to use.

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it_user481104 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Program Manager IV at a computer software company with 10,001+ employees

There are definite improvements that could be made but overall, this is the best project portfolio management system I have seen and evaluated out there. I have evaluated several before we choose CA PPM, but CA PPM does give us the best project management functionality and features.

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MartinQuiroga - PeerSpot reviewer
Value Stream Management specialist & Solution Leader at Tricise at OdPe Business Solutions

The solution is good but I would recommend a team from Broadcom to do the implementation. If a poor implementor does the work there could be problems.

I rate Broadcom Clarity PPM a nine out of ten.

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it_user797940 - PeerSpot reviewer
Head of EPMO at Telstra

There are a few things we looked at when we scanned the market for moving to a new PPM system. We've had CA since 2008, but we actually took a step back and looked at the entire market. For us, it's obviously the reputation that they have in the market, but more importantly today, really, around the cloud and the SaaS arrangements that you enter into. You also need to look at where you think that organization's going to take that product moving forward. For us, what gave us a level of confidence was the investment and the transparency that CA showed in relation to their product roadmap, and where they want to take it. 

To back that up, the fact that they were leading in industry evaluations, so being in the top-right, just reinforces also, as far as an independent body, that they're the right partner. They're already leading the industry. They're expected to lead the industry moving forward, so for us, that made the most sense, to partner with CA.

I would rate the product at an eight out of 10, and I would say that there's always room for improvement, and I think the team's already starting to improve that.

It's very hard with such a large complex product to actually get those new features in there. I've got empathy for how hard the teams have got to work to bring the new UI and new look and feel that we want. It's not just an app that you can quickly turn around, but I think they're striving really hard to do that as quickly as they can. An eight at the moment, and I think over the next 12 to 18 months, they'll be rating it much closer to a 10.

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it_user779199 - PeerSpot reviewer
Technology Lead with 1,001-5,000 employees

Moving ahead, I am looking forward to CA PPM mobile technologies, the mobile app for PPM users, that would also be a good addition to the user experience.

The new UX is pretty cool. I would rate it about an eight out of 10. I joined in the demo for a couple of users for the new timesheet UI. They feel a little bit cool about it, and I have put one idea forward for the timesheet UI and that is with CA. But the new UI is pretty cool, and the "Thumbs Up, Thumbs Down" approach for the approval or rejection of the timesheets is a pretty cool approach.

I would say the criteria for investing in a vendor would be how complex the implementation would be for financial, how complex implementation would be for the projects, how complex the implementation would be for Agile.

I rate it a seven out of 10 overall because they are still using SOAP functionalities. I want them to move out of SOAP and go for REST APIs.

Go for the PPM product, try it once, you will see it makes a big difference and you can get a lot of benefit from CA PPM.

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it_user779187 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Engineer with 1,001-5,000 employees

Regarding the new UX, we have not actually onboarded that yet. But, we plan to in the near future. From the administration team, we have seen it, we have implemented it in our sandbox environment, but it's not rolled out at the organization level yet. There is still a lot of planning to go into that.

Regarding the most important criterion when selecting a vendor to go with, I think it would be a long-term partnership that the company has with them. If we had already engaged with them in some other products and we see a value, then I think that would be the most important criterion.

I would say that you should first see the problem you are trying to solve in your company. I think if project, resource, and financial management are the things you are trying to solve, then it would be very useful.

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it_user373071 - PeerSpot reviewer
Application Development Manager at a healthcare company with 501-1,000 employees

I would put it right at a 7 to an 8/10, because I like what it is. It provides all the solution you need, the only takeaway, or coming off that 10 mark, is the user experience and the user interface. Forward looking to what the application is going to become by the time you go live and what you're going to do with it, not necessarily looking back and talking to users of long past, like myself, we have had it for a long time, but I try and keep my fingers on the pulse of what's coming.

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Fabio Nicida - PeerSpot reviewer
CEO at Agila Tecnologia

For people new to the solution, I would advise them to keep it simple and start using default functionality.

I rate Broadcom Clarity PPM a nine out of ten because it has a lot of functionality, is very flexible, and is highly stable.

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it_user93960 - PeerSpot reviewer
Director, IT at a consultancy with 1,001-5,000 employees

It's functionality is way up there at a grade of 9-8 out of 10. It's the industry leader in what you can do with it. The ability to get in and do that stuff, for people maybe with a lower technical aptitude than guys like us at these conferences, the user interface would make it a 4.

Make sure you have a PMO in place that is a very strong center of knowledge for your project managers. Also, make sure you're providing solid training on the usage of the tool. If you elect to go with a more agile model where you're kind of doing away with PMO, then what happens is you lose that center of knowledge about the use of PP MCA, and as I mentioned before, the complexity of the use of it is it's weakest point. We're experiencing a lot of problems with that right now.

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it_user779022 - PeerSpot reviewer
PMO Principal at GAF Materials / Building Materials

Regarding the new UX, it's very good. I wish it would come out faster, but I know that it has to be developed, tested, and rolled out. I like the way they're doing it in something like an Agile format, giving you some features and then gathering feedback and improving them, instead of trying to wait for a big bang, which I think might take couple years for them to finish. So, I like that. Could it be faster, is the only question.

When selecting a vendor, when our company is looking at vendors, we develop the RFP, gather our requirements and it has multiple sections: 

  • The financial stability of the vendor
  • Where are they in user ratings, are they in the top quadrant? 
  • How long they've been in the system?
  • Are they the industry leader? 
  • Are they committed to this product? We don't want to deal with a small company which has really good looking reports right now, but you don't know whether they're going to be in the business or not. 
  • How much they meet our requirements, obviously. 
  • We also look at how big they are in terms of supporting us.
  • We want to make sure they have a broader customer base.
  • They are constantly working on product improvements and things like that.
  • And that they are there if you need help in implementation. Are resources from their side available to come and help us? We typically prefer people who are in the U.S., but not necessarily.

In terms of advice to others, there are a lot of players in the market. This is a major transition for our whole industry. You have DevOps coming in, you have Agile, you have a lot of other things automated - data creation and the like. You want to pick a vendor who can help you in all those things. 

PPM is one part of the tool. There is also the argument about whether product managers will be there in 2020? So you want to look at something that is more current and has all these new technologies incorporated. If they're not incorporated, at least that they have those planned, so later on you can start to bring them on board.

And during the implementation, I would definitely say start simple. Start as simple as possible. Give as little additional work to each of your resources as possible. Then slowly, once you start to prove the value of the tool, you can slowly start to make more and more improvements on the new features.

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it_user558252 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Programmer at a engineering company with 1,001-5,000 employees

They should look at the tool itself because it's a powerful tool. It can do a lot of things, cover a lot of ground quickly and it can easily be picked up as far as skill sets go.

This tool solves a lot of the project-related issues. Right now, we're just figuring out how to use the resources.

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it_user558120 - PeerSpot reviewer
PPM Consultant at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

Depending upon the environment you are in, whether you are on SaaS or on-premises, take the decision based on which environment your company wants to be in and not just get any product. Talk to other banks or any other customers who are in SaaS and have similar requirements. Based on that, make your decision. Since on-premises has some benefits and on the other hand even SaaS has its benefits, so based on that you can select your solution.

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AK
Information Systems Engineer at Masarat Technologies

I highly recommend the solution to medium to large enterprises. If organizations want to align their business objectives, vision, and mission with the execution on the ground within their departments, they must use Broadcom Clarity. Overall, I rate the tool a nine out of ten.

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SC
Service Delivery Manager at Syntech

Technically some procedures are difficult, such as day-to-day queries, because they have their own structure. It's not a common structure for everyone. You should know the SQL  language to understand all the queries, this should be universal, it is a necessity.

I would recommend to those that want to implement this solution is to understand all the project management terms that are related to large projects, such as time management, financial management, and resource management. It is important for the solution to be deployed by people who know all these management roles and are familiarized with these types of solutions.

I rate Broadcom Clarity PPM an eight out of ten.

I rate the solution an eight because there are more solutions on the market that are easier to manage.

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SC
Service Delivery Manager at Syntech

Just to be clear, when we are designing and recreating the solution design, we have to be fair with the scope. We need to use all the components to improve the functionality. We have to use all the components available. XFlow, IT PAM, all the tools that can be used to improve the functionality, because competition is getting very hard. This makes it very difficult because I have 12 years working with CA components and CA technologies. So for me to switch from CA, from Broadcom, is sometimes kind of hard because I am a Broadcom implementer.

On a scale of one to ten, I would give Broadcom Clarity PPM an eight.

The user interface should be improved to be able to receive any challenges from the users. They expect an easier interface, an easier way to find the sections, and an easier way to find the menus. I think that would be the biggest improvement.

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it_user779019 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Director Project Delivery Office at McKesson

I think Agile Central is an industry leader in the agile methodology. I would look at it. 

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it_user558264 - PeerSpot reviewer
Application Architect at a consumer goods company with 10,001+ employees

You should really look at the tool itself because it's a really powerful tool. It can do a lot of things, cover a lot of ground quickly and it can easily be picked up, as far as skill sets go.

I have rated it as such because of a lot of the project-related stuff it solves. Right now, we're just figuring out how to use the resources.

Even though I didn’t really make the decision, the most important criteria for me when selecting vendors, in general, are knowledge; experience; willingness to walk the customer through their issues; really understanding what problems they have; and how they can help them achieve their goals.

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it_user558060 - PeerSpot reviewer
Manager Ppm at a insurance company with 10,001+ employees

Regardless of the solution you're looking for, always think about what your process is. Define those processes and have a clear understanding of your goal. Document that, clearly state it, and get buy-in from the key stakeholders, because they're going to be the individuals that are key to helping drive adoption downstream once those processes are built. It's not about the technology, it's about the process. In this case, I think the technology supports the processes that we want to invoke now and in the future.

We're using it as an on-demand service. We're don’t have an on-premises install, so we're learning some things in that space, as well.

When selecting a vendor, the relationship is key. A solid customer relationship must be more than just talk. You have to be able to demonstrate it and practice it. I think we saw that early on in the partnership with CA and in initially setting up the solution and understanding what was required. I think that's key to success.

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it_user558243 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Manager Information Technology at a insurance company with 10,001+ employees

It takes time; it's not done overnight. It takes a year or two to implement.

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it_user558315 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Project Manager at a hospitality company with 1,001-5,000 employees

I think it will give you a good 360 view of your project once you can roll out the other features. If you can incorporate your resource management so you can then track what people are working on, as well as the project financials, I think there would be value in seeing that holistic view.

If you're going choose that, make sure that you understand what you want to get out of the product. There's a lot to it and if you don't have a direction or strategy on how you want to use the product, I think you're not going to get the value out of your investment.

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GG
Consultant at a outsourcing company with 51-200 employees

Just make sure it handles all the business cases. Spend more time with the customer or the end users to get as many of the business cases and try to flush out "what ifs" with them, because it will make the configuration easier and you won't be backtracking. You do not want next year them saying, "They wanted that or we would have done this differently." 

Get upfront and mess with it, because it can do a lot of stuff. Join the communities, the CA communities, because you can learn tons. You can ask people questions. It is the best community that I have ever been in with lots of different software packages. Honestly, you can write a question, "Will this work?" and you get six people say "I did it," "It didn't," "Do it this way," or "Try this." Absolutely, the most active community I have ever been on. Good stuff.

Most important criteria when selecting a vendor: It has to be a vendor that is on the GSA, because it is government. It has to be the GSA and it helps to have schedules. It typically has to be someone that has a good credit score as we have to have software maintenance, because you can't run a piece of software in the government without it being under software insurance as they call it. We can't just pick any vendor, but of the big vendors, we can pick pretty easily. 

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it_user778965 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Director at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees

Understand your business processes first, in great detail. Then, understand your data structures and you will be home free.

Most important criteria when selecting a vendor: 

Since we are a global, multinational company, we require all of the following:

  1. They have got to be on our preferred vendor list, before we are allowed to talk to them.
  2. Relationship
  3. Price
  4. Support.

We look at how can we leverage the product and how can we get pricing and scalability across the whole enterprise.

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it_user572901 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Project Manager / Management Consultant at Edmonton Police Service

Start slowly. Look at it from a module perspective. Do your resource utilization piece first. Go to project management. Go to portfolio management after that.

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it_user558147 - PeerSpot reviewer
Infrastructure Portfolio Manager/CA PPM Administrator at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees

Take a good hard look at what you need as well as where you may see your product needing to be in five more years. Then take a look around you at the market and see where things are moving. Even if you are not going there now, it doesn't take much to turn on a dime. You might need that expanded capability package later.

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it_user348435 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Clarity PPM Consultant at Rego Consulting

It provides the functions you need to do governance in the organization which makes it best in class, in my opinion. It does a lot very well, but there’s always room for improvement. If you hit 10/10, the competition is going to leapfrog you and you’re done.

Talk to companies in their industry that are using PPM tools and find out what they like. If I’m in the banking industry looking for a PPM tool, I'd ask other banks.

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VS
Practice Manager & Solution architect at Wipro Technologies

Clarity PPM is an open design tool that you can design the way you want. I would give Clarity PPM a rating of nine out of ten.

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it_user462963 - PeerSpot reviewer
Client Project Manager/Coordinator II at a tech vendor with 5,001-10,000 employees

For many of the project creation and lifecycle functionalities, it is quite useful, but the overall user feel and agility is lacking. In the gaming industry, project lifecycles are very short compared to a standard PMP model (typically a 16-18 week cycle for larger projects and as few as two days on some of the smaller projects). Because there can be many changes to the project team, schedule, project scope and other factors, we needed a system that could be agile. While CA PPM has many tools and reports, being able to make changes quickly or being able to pull specific data out of the system requires a large effort for a small amount of information. A specific issue I have with the tool is the fact that there is no true project schedule in the system (calendar view). The Gantt chart is very helpful and well built, but there is no resource schedule that can be pulled out of the system for an employee who wants to know when they are traveling, how long they will be on a customer site, or whether or not there is a double-booking or other conflict. This can be very frustrating to our teams, schedulers, and managers.

The best advice I can give anyone looking at this tool for their organizational Portfolio/Program and Project Management needs is ask for very specific details from your sales representative. If they say that the system can do something, make them prove it in a demo. Many of the functions that they sold us on don’t exist or are much more challenging than they lead on. When it comes time to install, make sure the System Architect they send is comfortable with walking clients through the system processes and configurations. Our architect was not friendly and was clearly uncomfortable in front of an “audience”. He was also very confrontational in many instances. If you start to see this in your architect, halt all proceedings and get a replacement ASAP. If not, you can be looking at a lengthy delay in deployment.

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it_user558135 - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Project Manager at Guardian life insurance

To offer advice to colleagues researching this solution, I would need to know what they were looking for first, and then I could see what wasn't working for them. Nonetheless, (CA PPM) Clarity is a very robust tool and you can really do a lot with it. It has a lot of features and a lot of capabilities that we don’t even use yet. For our needs, it works.

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it_user558339 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Software Enginer at a computer software company with 10,001+ employees

Technical support is your friend. Technical support is wonderful. They're very helpful. They're very knowledgeable; and they can get you through most anything unless, of course, it’s a bug. In this case, they have to report it to their people.

I think the most important thing when you select a vendor is that it fits the business need. If the business isn't happy, it doesn't matter how much or how little you spend.

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it_user558411 - PeerSpot reviewer
Manager Systems Delivery at a computer software company with 10,001+ employees

Understand how your business works, and know that the PPM tool can only do so much. You have to develop your processes to go along with the technology.

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it_user348348 - PeerSpot reviewer
Director of Program Management at a insurance company with 1,001-5,000 employees

It’s a very robust tool and really does everything we need it to do as a PPM tool, but the reporting has held back its adopting, as has the user interface. People tend to find folks who use it because they’re forced to be compliant and not because it’s their tool of choice.

Most obvious piece of advice is, don’t underestimate the effort in implementing a tool like this. Understand the maturity of the people in your organization relative to project management and discipline. The more mature they are, the easier it will be to sell. Make sure you’ve got the process down before you try to implement the CA PPM solution.

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it_user345678 - PeerSpot reviewer
Director IT Business Office at a healthcare company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Let your employees understand the benefits of CA PPM and show them how much it will help them to do their work. A tool should be used to make their lives easier and not treated as an annoyance.

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it_user779148 - PeerSpot reviewer
Business Analyst at a manufacturing company with 1,001-5,000 employees

When selecting a vendor the most important criterion is longevity.

I give CA PPM a nine out of 10 because there's always room for improvement, but they gave a good quality solution.

I would recommend it.

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it_user779004 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Engineer at Northwestern Mutual

Go for it. I like PPM. I love the fact that it is very flexible. I am the lead engineer with enhancements, development, developing new portlets, anything that has to be added on, and integrating data, such as ETL processing.

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it_user778566 - PeerSpot reviewer
Project Manager at Premier Health

I would absolutely recommend this product. Just the capability of it is really blowing my mind so far. It is more than anything we have ever done. We have worked with Microsoft Project and used Excel spreadsheets in my department. So, this is just blowing our minds, everything that we can pull together, and how much more efficient it is.

I am the backup for our project management office in that I assist our project manager, getting out and helping all our project managers, and everybody from IT. I am in our innovate office, which is basically, project management. 

Most important criteria when selecting a vendor: Accessibility would be my number criteria. Helping us out and getting us going.

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it_user779049 - PeerSpot reviewer
Manager IT Service Transition at a hospitality company with 10,001+ employees

I have two words regarding the new UX: Love it.

When evaluating other vendors, the most important thing is a lot of the professional services, because my organization is not inherently a technical organization. We are a restaurant company. We don't staff a lot of technical folks. So probably the number one priority is that technical professional services offered.

I give the solution an eight out of 10 because I think the classic UX is a little bit clunky. Obviously the new UI is taking over. But also obviously, everything we can do in the classic UI cannot be done yet in the new UI. So we're waiting.

In terms of advice, have your specific requirements of what you need upfront. That way, you're not going to be swayed by all of the cool little gadgets that you could use. Know what you do want to use upfront, and then all the cool gadgets can come later.

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it_user778569 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Business Analyst at a retailer with 1,001-5,000 employees

When it comes to selecting a vendor we're actually trying to not have more vendors, because CA is now providing the different utilities. We have another system - there are a lot systems that are integrated with our Clarity environment right now. I have heard about a lot of things which we did in past, buying products from another vendor, CA already has those utilities so we are looking at that.

I haven't used any other products so I can't really compare with anything else, but I gave it a seven out of 10 because it's not customized per client. Sometimes we want to do something but we are stuck because Clarity doesn't allow you to do it. There are a lot of restrictions in some areas and, considering we are on SAS, we run into a lot of restrictions. It's a generic product, so sometimes it doesn't follow our business rules. And there are some scenarios in which is Clarity is not behaving the way it should. We asked about it, but I didn't get any use-case for it. So there are some areas which need some improvement.

We don't use the Portfolio Management piece, but I'm really happy with Project Management and resource management. So if you're looking for something with granularity, Clarity can do it.

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it_user558129 - PeerSpot reviewer
Portfolio Manager at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

I think the important criteria when choosing a vendor are 

  • reliability
  • innovation
  • the ability to listen to their customers. 

I think those are the key.

Don't customize it right out of the gate. Understand its capabilities out-of-the-box.

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MS
IT Governance & Performance Management Analyst at a energy/utilities company with 10,001+ employees

Get familiar with the out-of-the-box functionality. Even if you do not plan to roll out fully fledged resource management with time tracking, make sure you understand how the things work. If you decide to start with something "lighter" (that is what CA PPM integrators always suggest), you will be left dependent on the custom solution of that vendor.

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it_user558042 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Project Manager at a financial services firm with 5,001-10,000 employees

My advice would be to make sure that you understand the tool before you start fitting everyone or moving everyone to it. If you don't understand the architecture, it can cause a lot of rework in the future. Truly understanding the tools is important while having experts that understand the tools is critical.

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it_user558249 - PeerSpot reviewer
Project Management IS Analyst at a insurance company with 10,001+ employees

My advice is to plan, plan, and plan. Just know what it is you want and then go for it.

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it_user558168 - PeerSpot reviewer
Clarity PPM Developer at a healthcare company with 1,001-5,000 employees

This product does a lot so it would depend on what you are doing. I would recommend to use this software.

There are some improvements that the product can make in regards to the reporting solutions and data warehousing, It should also improve with the way the screens work. Currently, it is one of the best solutions out there and it has a lot of functionality. It could be better though.

In my opinion, the most important criteria while selecting a vendor is how responsive the organization is to your needs and that plays a big part. I know a lot of people with this software who have their own personal implementations or ways to do it. You can get into some issues that are unique to your own. When an organization is always willing to communicate and is flexible, that helps a lot.

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it_user558348 - PeerSpot reviewer
Strategy Manager at a retailer with 10,001+ employees

When selecting a vendor, I want to know that that can support our scale. The size of the company, the ability for them to support us. Our large size is a burden for a lot of companies. I want to see their set-up process and their ability to support us, not only from a support standpoint, but from a feature standpoint as well. I want to know if the development team is nimble enough to adjust and be responsive to what we need. Are they going to fit our needs today and then tomorrow we have to go buy something else, because they can't keep up? That flexibility and size is important. Depending on those needs, I would say the tool is robust to handle portfolio management at scale, but depending on where a company is and their maturity, and if they're still Waterfall or Agile, for instance. If they're more Agile, I would point them to something else until this tool can catch up. In terms of just core basic PPM requirements, I think the tool does a good job.

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it_user558600 - PeerSpot reviewer
Solutions Architect at Excers

It's a very good solution. You get a lot of value out of it. If you're bringing it into an organization, the software is only part of the challenge. There are also the people and processes that you already have. Go in stages. Start with a step, and then take a bigger step. Don't try to do it all at once. Try to do a phased implementation.

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it_user498396 - PeerSpot reviewer
Product Planning Manager at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees
Two pieces of advice:
  • Make sure that you have clear and defined processes prior to implementation.
  • Insist on an experienced and knowledgeable SI from CA PPM. They are worth spending the money on, and their advice, particularly on best practices, is invaluable.

There is a lot of potential for portfolio management functionality. However, integration functionality with other financial and resource management tools would go a long way, as it would allow for the input of the required information needed for portfolio management. For large(r) companies with established / preferred financial and resource management systems, it is unrealistic to expect them to move (quickly) to a new tool. For us, this has meant not using the portfolio management functionality at all.

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it_user383805 - PeerSpot reviewer
Manager, Software and Support Services at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees

I would look at ROI and really try to assess what type of information is going to drive the success of your company. If PPM could assist in doing that by either reducing cycle times or giving you real data in order to drive the direction of your business, then go with PPM.

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it_user778998 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Manager at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees

Try the solution according to your necessities.

Most important criteria when selecting a vendor: 

  • Big name brand
  • Proven solutions
  • Theories
  • Implementations
  • Especially the functionality in their solutions. 
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it_user778614 - PeerSpot reviewer
Managing Director at Statpathfinder Consulting

I give it a ten. Like I said, the scalability is great. It has a small amount of competition in the space but for me it's an easy sale because it's been the selected software for that space in the federal government of Canada.

It's performing how it is. And I think the more they come out with new versions, they're closing those gaps on anything that does exist.

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it_user558216 - PeerSpot reviewer
Enterprise Portfolio Manager

Cost and speed are important factors when selecting a vendor.

You should do your homework. Make sure that you understand what you're getting. This would be relevant for any solution. You should then talk to other companies or entities that are using this solution.

We are not using the SaaS version of the product, i.e., our specific company is not using the latest version but we do have a global company that's using it.

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it_user558366 - PeerSpot reviewer
Business Solution Expert (CA PPM) at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

I strongly recommend to using CA Service for their expertise. Also, minimize the configuration as much as possible (stay out-of-the-box). Although PPM is highly configurable, getting to know how various functions work together in the tool is much more important than changing a label on a screen to meet a specific requirement!

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it_user558366 - PeerSpot reviewer
Business Solution Expert (CA PPM) at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

Do your research. Make sure you understand what the business requirements are before deciding on a tool because a tool itself is just a tool.

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it_user383811 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Technology Manager at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees

You have to figure out your biggest need and pick the software based on it. A lot of times I think it's that one glamorous feature that people love that they want to go with, but I think you have to look across all the different requirements, weigh them, and take it from there.

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GJ
Consultant at Ericsson

If anyone is looking for a Project and Portfolio Management tool, then I highly recommend CA Clarity PPM. Of all the PPM tools we had tried, Clarity PPM is the most robust, multi-functional and reliable tool.

Check out my other Clarity PPM detailed review at http://www.itcentralstation.com/product_reviews/ca...

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RU
Software Engineer at a retailer with 10,001+ employees

I would say that the support and the community of Broadcom is pretty extensive and it's actually very good. I did not use it initially, but I would suggest that you should use the support and the community that is available for Clarity. We were lucky to have good initial support so I didn't have to struggle that much because I got enough knowledge transfer to get me through.

I would rate this solution an eight out of 10. 

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KF
Process Manager

Think about processes before implementing the solution. Then, connect the processes with the solution and make sure the solution is supporting the processes, and not that the processes need to be adjusted to fit to the solution.

The most important criteria when selecting a vendor is to have a good balance between cost and functionality.

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it_user778902 - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Project Manager at IBERIABANK

Regarding the new UX, at this point I feel like there could be more done to make it a more fluid experience. Five years ago, seven years ago, that sort of windows and records click was standard, and there wasn't much else out there that was better. Nowadays, things are, across software packages, just a little bit more fluid.

Is that a bad thing that it's like that? No, it's just that's where they could go next.

Our most important criteria when selecting a vendor are, first, that they meet the requirements that we set ahead of time. Second, that they are willing to answer those questionnaires. If they're not, then it's my opinion that they are not ready for prime time and we wouldn't even talk to them. And suitability, that's above everything else; that's above costs, that's above relationships, or how well known they are.

I would advise a colleague to look at the nature of the work they are trying to do, and what is the end goal they are trying to achieve. If your end goal is to ultimately get to the point where you can report up, then it might be a very good product to look into. If your end goal is either greater communication with your team, downward, or being able to have a clear idea across the organization of what needs to be done in a project, maybe look at another tool.

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it_user779088 - PeerSpot reviewer
System Analyst at a healthcare company with 10,001+ employees

Regarding the new UX, I actually haven't heard about it.

When selecting a vendor the most important criteria are that

  • their product has to be easy to maintain
  • the users can easily adopt it, with whatever interface
  • it's easy to upgrade.

I would tell colleagues who are looking for a similar solution this will work. Give it a try. I know there are a lot of products out there, and companies that are really well known. But just give them a chance to demo it and you will like it.

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it_user558462 - PeerSpot reviewer
Director - Territory Manager at Netready CCA

It is definitely worth taking a good look at it. Don't be scared off by some people saying it's an expensive solution. You cannot compare a tool like this with some other tools that are out there in the market, or even open-source options. It's an unfair comparison. If you're looking for an enterprise-level solution, then CA PPM definitely is the best out there.

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it_user558393 - PeerSpot reviewer
Clarity Architect and Functional Specialist at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees

Save time. Manage your projects in Clarity and in CA PPM.

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it_user481119 - PeerSpot reviewer
PMO - Logistics at a mining and metals company with 10,001+ employees

I strongly recommend that you have your project and portfolio management process defined and look for a senior consultant expert in CA PPM.

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it_user356061 - PeerSpot reviewer
Quality Assurance at a insurance company with 1,001-5,000 employees

You have to look at your own internal systems and processes and optimize them before you implement the tool, but PPM can do a lot of things. It’s a flexible tool. Just don’t use that flexibility too much.

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it_user778920 - PeerSpot reviewer
Clarity Architect at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

We are using version 14.3 but we would love to go to 15.3. We have seen the new UX and it's looking good so we think it is a positive change.

I would say go with PPM with SaaS. I would suggest that any customers or new customers use Clarity PPM at its default values, not customize it terribly. It has a lot potential using the product out of the box rather than making your own product.

CA has been working every year to provide a product upgrade, and if you can't use the latest features immediately, or in the near future, you are missing out on a lot. Use the regular settings, or at least most of the product out of the box, and leverage or grow from there, rather than making your own changes.

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it_user572865 - PeerSpot reviewer
Solutions Architect at a financial services firm with 5,001-10,000 employees

I definitely recommend going to CA World and talking to all the other companies that have implemented PPM solutions to see how they did it. One thing we definitely learned at a previous CA World, when we were doing our evaluation of PPM, everyone we spoke to had accolades about how they love the tool and what they are doing with it. Of course, when you hear all the stories of how they basically move from their legacy solutions to a PPM-based solution, you quickly realize that it can do everything you need to do, more and more.

It's definitely met and exceeded all our expectations with regards to the tool. We knew we'd have to make some concessions with the tool. Obviously, if you're moving from your completely customized solution to one that's more of a package-based solution, we figured we’d have to give up on some things with regards to our process, but we found with PPM, it's so flexible and so configurable that everything that we had customized for the homegrown solutions, we were able to actually port it directly into PPM. Now, essentially, we've got a standardized solution across our whole entire organization that still has all the benefits of our homegrown solutions that we had in the past.

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it_user558225 - PeerSpot reviewer
Director at Mckesson

You should know that you can customize it to suit the way that you do business. Don’t think that you need to do everything all at once.

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it_user558048 - PeerSpot reviewer
Head of Portfolio Management, Capacity Planning & Delivery Effectiveness at a financial services firm with 5,001-10,000 employees

Think about your business processes along with the tool’s capability. The tool has a lot of capability but you need to make sure your business processes are aligned to leverage that capability in order to maximize it.

The problem is leveraging the organization; it is hard to get people to adopt it. We need to shift some business processes so we can leverage it more. We have partnered with CA and they are doing what they need to do.

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DM
Project Manager

It has improved; 15.3 was a huge update. You have the Risks/Issues/Changes added to the new UX.

The most important criteria when selecting a vendor include

  • usability
  • functionality 
  • making it easy for the end user to use. 

Make people want to use it. If anything's overly complex, people won't use it. People have a difficult time moving to a new solution so it just has to be easy, so a non-technical user should be able to feel comfortable, click around, and not be intimidated by the solution.

I would give it a seven out of 10, just because the classic UI is very cumbersome. It can do everything but it's hard to use. It's easy to use once you understand it, but it's intimidating at first for somebody to see the solution. With the new UI, CA is heading in the right direction, and fast. They're adding features, I would say major features, two times a year, which is fast.

I would recommend it, but are there better solutions out there for another company? Maybe. There may be easier solutions out there.

CA should go in the same direction, move forward with the UX and keep developing that. There are a lot of startups that already have the usability; it's easy for them. But they're missing features.

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it_user778914 - PeerSpot reviewer
Manager Of Engineer at Daktronics

Regarding the new UX, I don't have an opinion. I've only used it a little bit so I don't think I'm the best person to ask about the UX itself. I think it's easy to use.

When selecting a vendor functionality is the first criteria, does it do what it needs to do. Certainly trust in the vendor is in that list as well. But the first need is that the tool has to do what we need it to do.

Be clear about how you want to use the tool, what processes you intend to use as you're making your selections.

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it_user779154 - PeerSpot reviewer
Manager at Geha

I would give them advice that the learning curve and the adoption curve for an organization, which is attempting to bite off this much functionality and complexity, is a lot longer than they will think. Put some serious energy into how to get the groups involved into driving adoption. Then, knowing that the new OData connector is now out, finding ways to quickly leverage data, so you can start telling business stories and showing the value of the tool.

Most important criteria when selecting a vendor: Stability in the marketplace. We definitely wanted to go with something that was going to be around for a while, and they were constantly improving.

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it_user651855 - PeerSpot reviewer
Solutions Architect at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

Take the implementation as an opportunity to simplify your business processes and not simply to try to replicate existing processes into a new tool.

The out-of-the-box functionality has a lot of power and capability and should be used wherever possible.

If you do have a few critical, must-have processes, have them demonstrated before you commit to the tool. Be sure that they are real needs and not just legacy “that’s how we have always done it” items.

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it_user572835 - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Delivery Manager at a financial services firm with 5,001-10,000 employees

I don't like to give anything a perfect score because I don't know enough about every aspect of it; however, from my experience, it's been a great tool.

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it_user474588 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Solutions Consultant at Ericsson Global Limited

I have only one piece of advice before implementing this product: understand what you want to achieve with this tool. Otherwise, you will be clueless once it has been set up.

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it_user345618 - PeerSpot reviewer
Governance Administrator at a insurance company with 5,001-10,000 employees

I would love to see the company teach me more how to actually take advantage of the tool. Know your requirement before using something like this and how it would fit in at the company in terms of the company culture and process. This is one of our struggles – they have, for example, never had to track time.

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it_user779223 - PeerSpot reviewer
Systems Administrator at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

Contact CA. They are very good at sending up a PoC.

I do like the new UX very much. We have only turned onto a few users so far. We just upgraded to 15.3 a few months ago. The ones that have been using it do like it very much. We just have not rolled it out to everyone yet. We want to have some feedback first. So far, it has been very positive.

Most important criteria for selecting a vendor: 

  • Support is a big one.
  • Ease of use of the product.
  • It interfaces well, and we are able to get the data out that we need.
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it_user778725 - PeerSpot reviewer
Administrator at AmerisourceBergen

It is a very good project portfolio tool.

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it_user558390 - PeerSpot reviewer
Solution Architect at Excers

Take baby steps. Go with a crawl, walk, run approach. The organization will never be ready to adopt any change, so user adoption is critical. Get a feel for your change. It should come from senior management. At the end of the day, we should show what's the value to each and every individual. What's in it for me? Then, yes, we can implement PPM anywhere without any stress.

Important things in picking a vendor are the support structure, and an orientation to reaching out and delivering value. CA Technologies always put the customer first and are factual, and deliver solutions that exceed customer expectations.

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it_user351639 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Project Manager at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

The thing with software is it can do anything but you can't adopt anything. Know your audience, know your internal customers. Start small. Keep it simple. Get the blocking and tackling and the basics down pat. You will see change. You'll see lasting change but you've got to stick with basics and build upon them.

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JA
Project Manager at a government with 5,001-10,000 employees

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.

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it_user797979 - PeerSpot reviewer
Projects and Planning at a government with 201-500 employees

I would probably rate it about an eight out of 10, because there is always room for improvement.

Most important criteria when selecting a vendor: It is more about the product and what it can provide for us as well as the professionalism of the organization and the staff. We rely quite heavily on their expertise and on their thoughts as well as their best practices.

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it_user779058 - PeerSpot reviewer
Business Advisor at Mary Kay

Regarding the new UX, we haven't used it yet.

When it comes to selecting a vendor, although I wasn't involved in the selection, what I heard my boss say was that there are a lot of Fortune 500 companies using it, and if all of them trust it, that's probably a good indication that it's a good product.

Just focus on what there truly is, because there is a lot of functionality in the tool, and probably nobody is going to use all of it. So just focus on what you think are the most important things for you right now and just look at those particular features.

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it_user778572 - PeerSpot reviewer
Systems Analyst at Daktroniks

In terms of the new UX, we've only been on the one version. That is the UX. We've never seen anything else. I just came out of the 15.3 session though, here at the CA World conference, so I'm curious to see what happens. I don't think we're on that version yet. I'll be curious to see what my organizational feedback is once that goes live.

It's still pretty early, like I said, we've only been users for a month, but I would give it an eight out of 10 overall.

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it_user348177 - PeerSpot reviewer
Manager of Contracts and External Programs at a local government with 1,001-5,000 employees

It’s a big robust application that does lots of things that we don’t use or need to use. Because it’s so configurable, in that way it is very complex.

Reporting has been an issue for us, so what I would consider a fundamental report that links financials to actuals. Do due diligence around time entry and allocations because that’s really the engine that drives resource scheduling and management. In order to get the tool to work there has to be a lot of underlying data that have to be good. Getting resources to put in their allocations, getting resources to make sure their time sheets are completed, and getting PMs to allocate and assign resources are all key.

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it_user346476 - PeerSpot reviewer
Program Management Coordinator & Quality Specialist at a manufacturing company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Look at the support as that's important, not what's in situ. However, things like trend analysis and flexible reporting are missing, which are weaknesses.

Take advantage of out-of-the-box functionalities. We made the mistake of doing a lot of customization when we set up 10 years ago, and it doesn’t play well with certain newer abilities or other output. So use as much out-of-the-box features that are already there as possible, as you never know what you want.

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it_user778947 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Manager at a tech company with 10,001+ employees

Talk to other clients.

The depths of tools and technologies that you have available for all clients has surprised me. 

Most important criteria when selecting a vendor:

  • Willingness to do partnerships
  • Willingness to be transparent
  • Credentials and references from other people. 
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it_user779238 - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Senior Manager

We see it as overhead. Let us collect all the data in one place. Which, it is always nice to have everything in one place, but it does cause that overhead. So a lot of the teams are not comfortable with it. They are going to track it separately. We are just a data gatherer to say, "Okay, what is the last date we are going to code drop? When are we going to be SD?" So, a lot of overhead.

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it_user779076 - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Resource Manager at a energy/utilities company with 1,001-5,000 employees

From what I have seen, the new UX is pretty impressive, which meets that user-friendly, more adaptable, or agile, user-friendly solution. 

I believe firmly in process management, so from an organizational perspective understand your processes, then be able to look at this tool and know the full capabilities of the tool before you just install it. Sometimes companies will install a tool to handle the basics and not ever grow to its full process and tool alignment, which could be beneficial.

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it_user687165 - PeerSpot reviewer
CIO at a tech services company with 11-50 employees

My advice is to start using the solution almost as it comes, something basic, simple, that it already provides. Then we develop small consultancies, configurations by functionalities, demand, projects, portfolios, resources, inventory of applications, services, products, etc., until arriving at a model of strategic government.

Besides offering software development services, PMO, attention to demand of requirements, we are a CA Technologies Partner, for consulting services, consulting and strategy of governance, methodology, processes, as it is what we do with our clients.

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it_user558321 - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr. Member, Technical Services at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees

I would suggest not customizing it. It makes it much simpler that way and makes upgrades easier. It makes long-term maintenance much easier and allows you to use existing functionality.

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it_user558183 - PeerSpot reviewer
Project Manager at a retailer with 1,001-5,000 employees

I think the new UX is going to be better for project planning. There are some features I'm looking forward to in future releases. Some of the stuff we saw in the roadmap: program planning, roadmapping, dependencies. The Resource Planning, I look forward to using that a little more.

When choosing a product/vendor the important criteria for me are

  • easy to use
  • quick results; being able to provide a status in two seconds
  • having anyone else sign in, where I can display my screen, and they know what's happening with the project. That's important to me.

I rate it an eight out of 10 because it's "almost there" and it's probably the best solution I've seen in my career. It's not a 10 because I see what's coming and we aren't there yet. We use what we have now, but the next release will help move the needle further.

I don't know if I would give advice. I would just tell them how it's worked for us.

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it_user779283 - PeerSpot reviewer
System Admin Manager

I wouldn't be able to say there is one particular criterion that's important when selecting a vendor, it's a combination of all of them that we will look at, like 

  • trust
  • cost
  • the value they're going to bring.

I would rate it eight out of 10, actually.

I would say definitely look at this solution but understand your business needs first. There is a tendency on the customer side to look for "one size fits all." That's never the case. So make sure Clarity is really a best fit for your business needs. Otherwise, you are just buying a fancy, glorified timesheet tool.

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it_user778911 - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Project Coordinator at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

I like the new UX. I think it is cool. We pretty much only use it for the time-tracking, which probably more companies do than not. The UX is super-simple, very user-friendly, colorful, and fun. So, I think it is really awesome, and we have received a lot of positive feedback from our time-trackers.

It is something our company continues to use and likes to use. Otherwise, we would not be using it. It gets the job done, and it helps us get our jobs done. 

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it_user738354 - PeerSpot reviewer
CA PPM Architect / Project Manager at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees

This product needs technical expertise. Purchasing the software is not sufficient and support is very important.

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it_user10272 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Developer at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Focus on correct licensing and integration with other applications like JIRA, Remedy, ServiceNow, SAP etc during the implementation. Also, this application has good automation features to automate your offline/over the mail approvals and processes. This can also be kept in mind during the designing part.

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it_user558234 - PeerSpot reviewer
Director Of Business Architecture at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

When looking for a vendor, I look for stability in partnership. For this price and for our use of the tool, this is an effective enterprise solution.

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it_user558111 - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Lead at a financial services firm with 5,001-10,000 employees

Make sure the organization is ready for the solution. Sometimes it's a lot about process. The tool can't fix process issues. If the process isn’t built for the tool, it is not going to work correctly. Make sure you prepare the processes first, so they will be ready for it.

We look for something sustainable. Sustainability is a very important value for the users and for our IT team, who are the people supporting it.

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it_user558114 - PeerSpot reviewer
Project Controls at a energy/utilities company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Make sure that the production requirements are detailed and thorough, so that the vendor can understand what is needed for successful implementation.

We're not in production. We had gone to production, but we had to go back. There was difficulty in understanding our process and expectations from the start of the project to where we are now and that hasn't been realized.

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it_user558324 - PeerSpot reviewer
CA PPM (Clarity) Architect at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees

Don’t overcustomize it. Just because you can do it doesn't mean you should do it. We would've been better off if we could go back in time, roll it out of the box again, and use it for a predetermined amount of time before determining what we needed to customize.

We’re using the on-premise version.

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it_user350013 - PeerSpot reviewer
Director, PMO Project Management with 10,001+ employees

We did not have a global solution and we needed one. This was something we needed internally and now we have it. You need to really understand what the business needs are going to be; this is essential. Also, I recommend going out and evaluating, both personally and from people in the industry.

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it_user779262 - PeerSpot reviewer
Project And Portfolio Analyst at a security firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

Do your research, do your homework, and definitely, contact CA.

Most important criteria when selecting a vendor: 

  • Product stability: It has been around for a while. It is not a brand new thing. 
  • The reputation of the vendor
  • Cost
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it_user653565 - PeerSpot reviewer
CA PPM Expert at a tech services company with 11-50 employees

CA PPM is one of the best solutions in the PPM area, but it is quite expensive.

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it_user372642 - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr Developer at a aerospace/defense firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

I would recommend going right into Jaspersoft, which is part of the reporting feature of PPM, not to start out with Business Objects. Go right to Jaspersoft if you can.

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it_user351285 - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Trainer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

If you are going to buy it, you should understand its usage, and make sure you appreciate how to exploit it because it’s not cheap and you’d be wasting your money if you won’t exploit it. Some organizations underutilize it, and I ask people why they bought it if they don’t exploit it.

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it_user350085 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Project Manager at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

Take the time to understand your desired outcome. You get so involved with what you want, but be sure to have a roadmap and game plan with using PPM.

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it_user349314 - PeerSpot reviewer
Resource Analyst at a healthcare company with 1,001-5,000 employees

We haven’t leveraged the full functionality of the solution. The tool is pretty great, and we have implemented some unusual things and not implemented some of other functionality that would enhance our use case. There are have been some challenges on the reporting side with maintenance, and that adds to our frustration when we go through upgrade after upgrade.

The main thing is defining your requirements – don’t let the tool drive your requirements. Understand what your goals are, so you can track that and really get the value out of the tool. It would be smart to use the functionality that exists within the tool in the out-of-the-box state, and only customize as necessary. Take your requirements and match up with OOB functionality and do the gap analysis to make decisions. When we first implemented PPM, we tried to make it into a previous tool that we had, which was terrible, so we turned PPM into the same type of tool.

Also understand what resource constraints you have in your organization to decide whether it needs to be on-premise or on-demand. Understand what level of control you really need in your environment because there are some limitations in the SaaS environment that you need to be aware of.

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it_user481143 - PeerSpot reviewer
Consultant at a tech consulting company with 51-200 employees

People or companies looking for PPM tools can go for CA PPM as it is perfect for customizations and is user friendly. As usual, most of the products have pros and cons and this product also has some issues. By using a better team and knowledgeable people in your team you can make it fit perfectly.

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LR
Solution Architect

I would rate it an eight out of 10. Nothing ever rates a 10. There's always areas, opportunity to improve.

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it_user778782 - PeerSpot reviewer
Technological Engineer at a retailer with 1,001-5,000 employees

Know what your full use case will be before launching into something as big as CA PPM. It does a lot of things and it is great at doing a lot of things, but if you only need a small subset, maybe it is not right for you

It does everything we need it to do. It could definitely be improved as far as speed and interoperability with other tools that we have in place. 

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it_user778686 - PeerSpot reviewer
Consultant

The factors that are important to us when selecting a vendor are

  • capability
  • integration points.

I rate it an eight out of 10 because there are some pieces that are just not there that we would like to see. It's not like core type features that you'd expect in a product like this, the ones I talked about earlier, the financial stuff.

I would say, take a very strong look at CA PPM, depending on if you have a couple of specific things that they were looking for. 

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it_user488790 - PeerSpot reviewer
CA PPM Consultant with 51-200 employees

In addition to the on-premise offering, CA offers this also as SaaS (on-demand). In my opinion, that allows a cost-effective way to implement only as much as you can utilize by having only the initial implementation team use the initial functionality. Then, if so desired, you can extend the functionality, number of users and move to on-premise. With on-demand, CA takes care of the system maintenance, but the user organization is responsible for the data maintenance.

Some organizations think that when they hire an implementation with prior experience, the implementation is straightforward, which is not the case. Unless it is just a version upgrade, the user organization does not know the product and consequently does not know the best way to use the product for their ways of working. Therefore, a development environment for the implementation team is a must, as well as a system for testing the developed solutions.

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it_user346677 - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr. Software Engineer at a tech services company with 5,001-10,000 employees

Overall it’s a very good, powerful product. It’s one of our two or three major products. It’s used by everyone, and it’s easy to customize. It’s fairly reliable once it’s deployed, it looks nice, the reports look nice, and it’s easy to move around. The only gripe I have is the install.

With any solution, you need to be able to customize and tailor it. You need to modify and add your pipelines and any other custom attributes you need, fairly easily and fairly quickly. It needs to be able to deploy from one environment to another fairly easily, which the CA PPM solution does.

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MF
Director of Operations at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees

I'm not sure of the exact version of the solution, however, I believe it to be some aspect of version 12 - potentially 12.4. It's an older on-premises version.

Overall, I would rate the solution ten out of ten.

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it_user351282 - PeerSpot reviewer
Advisor at a hospitality company with 51-200 employees

We got too much marketing and not enough of the actual product itself during the sales process. Pay attention to the product and not the marketing.

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it_user660021 - PeerSpot reviewer
Portfolio Management Office Jr at a financial services firm with 11-50 employees
  • Try to understand the most important parts of the system and make a relationship between the different parts of the portal.
  • Try to engage in knowledge sharing, in order to boost fast learning and be more agile to use the system.
  • Have specialists for the technical parts and the configuration aspects.
  • Have other employees for the front-end functionalities.
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it_user345717 - PeerSpot reviewer
Director & Owner at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

Check other CA technologies, and see if you can integrate the technologies as they work well together.

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it_user501972 - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Engineer & Consultant with 1,001-5,000 employees

It seems obvious, but it’s strongly recommended to stay close to the standards and to use the OOTB functionalities (and to customize them if it’s the case), instead of implementing custom parallel functionalities. You will avoid future compatibility issues or complex product upgrade processes.

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it_user391806 - PeerSpot reviewer
Project Manager at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees

I can say that it’s a product with high potential.

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it_user351312 - PeerSpot reviewer
Lead project manager at a engineering company with 1,001-5,000 employees

I only recommend to use it the way it was designed and to minimize custom configurations.

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it_user778752 - PeerSpot reviewer
Software Developer at a manufacturing company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Consider your company's requirements and review the features of PPM against those requirements.

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it_user778758 - PeerSpot reviewer
Program Management at a tech vendor with 1,001-5,000 employees

Look at the needs of your organization first. If you can meet that need with a scalpel, do not go with the sledgehammer. CA's outlook has a pretty broad spectrum in terms of being able to meet the needs of varying organization sizes. However, focus on the need that you have at that point in time and do not cast such a broad and wide net, because chances are your organizational change management is going to limit you anyway. 

Take a look at what your needs are. Choose a product that is modern and cloud-based. Do it in phases. Do not try to bite more than you can chew.

Most important criteria when selecting a vendor: It is the ability of the vendor to really understand where we are coming from in terms of our pain points and our requirements. Not using the book and opening to chapter 17, paragraph three. I do not want that. I want vendors to really feel the pain, relate, and be part of the team. 

There should be a seamless integration between full-time or contract people. Be honest, open, and transparent to the biggest extent possible without giving up any proprietary information. That is not what I am after. 

Just be upfront and honest about dealings and capabilities. Winning the trust of clients probably takes care of 80% of the headwinds that contractors and vendors face.

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it_user350313 - PeerSpot reviewer
Voice and Data Network Specialist at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Just buy it and use it as the tool and all its features are very, very good.

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it_user309312 - PeerSpot reviewer
ERP Project Manager at a tech company with 51-200 employees

Plan, plan, plan. Make sure you understand your organizational needs and you know the process forward and backwards. The software is just a tool, if you do not understand what you're fixing, there is no way the software will help

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it_user593280 - PeerSpot reviewer
CA Clarity PPM consultant at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees

Do not get overwhelmed by the solution’s options and capabilities. Start small with the areas which are the most important for your business and then grow continuously using the agile implementation approach.

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Buyer's Guide
Broadcom Clarity
March 2024
Learn what your peers think about Broadcom Clarity . Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: March 2024.
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