Broadcom Clarity Reviews

We are mandated by law to rigorously manage change to our systems and to ensure zero or very minimal impact to our customers. Given the systems that we had in place -- and we've got thousands of users and thousands of projects in major systems, comprising a large part of the economy -- we could no longer use disparate systems to govern all of those things. So we implemented Clarity PPM to enforce a standard change management protocol.

However, what we have found is we are leveraging the data behind it to do more portfolio management, which really boils down to, are we working on the right things? Are we using the right people? Are we getting return on investment? Are we utilizing our resources and it has opened up a level of transparency into our change delivery efforts and costs that we've never had before?

The answers are, yes. It's an amazing solution.

It has been severely disruptive in a good way, which is exactly what I had hoped for. Although we manage projects well, our practices were immature. But we didn't manage portfolios well. There was a lot of room for improvement and now that we're migrating to be a more data-driven organization with strategic alignment and execution and quality and performance and those kind of measures, it's changing the paradigm of project management in our organization.

Typically, a portfolio management tool or project management tool is bought by people that need to govern the process, but it is used by people who have to get the work done. It's nice to actually see a transition to the governance space to the user base because you will enable teams to collaborate, giving you better performance and better quality if you focus on the end users rather than a strict governance command and control model.

Even using basic functionality, capturing all the data, and standardizing simple practices has literally in the last 12 months lead to the behavior change that we wanted to see. It helped us accomplish our goals. It did that for us. We would not have been able to do it without this tool and/or the support.

I'd like to see improvement in broader portfolio management. It still seems to kind of be a specifically separate module from the project management and we really are aggregating a lot of data to make higher-level strategic decisions. Now that we're in that space, our executives want more. Specifically, they want to see high-level reports. They want to see the underlying data that supports it so that we can build that trust. So combining the portfolio and project management aspects would go a long way towards that.

I'm more of a super user on the business side of adoption. We are constantly in contact with our sales rep about challenges we have in maturity adoption and what pieces of the tool will support what types of strategic adoptions. I know that we had a technical resource on site to help us configure. I'm very happy with the level of support we've got from CA.

I'm actually leading adoption efforts and was part of the team that reviewed and implemented the tool. Adoption is always difficult. Change is hard and it's never really a technology-type thing. It's more of a human behavior-type exercise. We were challenged. We were absolutely challenged. We found our champions early. We set some minimum baselines and adoption. We reported on adoption and quality of data to motivate people to clean their stuff up. We let people innovate and go farther ahead and as they they pioneered some of the functionality. That's the hardest part of the whole thing, is getting people to adopt.

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.

Obviously, the project management aspect itself is valuable to us, but we're also using it for portfolio management and financial planning. The combination of these three functions makes this a great tool.

We used an old, in-house system and we configured CA PPM to look and feel like the old one. This didn’t benefit us and we should have probably used PPM as it came.

There were some bugs in the old version that were supposed to be fixed but are not. Some features that needed to be added have never been added.

After assisted implementation, we haven't had issues with deploying it.

The solution has up until this point been stable.

It has scaled well so far.

Online support would be an 8/10, but it depends on the person, and the first level is not good as the next level.

We got support for our implementation so that made it easier.

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

It allows us to manage our products with all its features, like configurability, filters, add-ons, third-party app integrations, etc.

In our company, we have several projects for which PPM really helps us. It mainly helps us track dates and deadline, and makes sure we're within budget with project costs. All this is very important as we deliver projects for our customers. We're also able to track projects for out customers.

Right now, we're also seeking CMMAI certification, and PPM is helping us with that.

The user interface is a little outdated. But nothing is perfect, though it has all components that we need.

We've had no issues with deploying PPM.

It's been very stable for us.

The tool has supported our scaling without issue.

We aren't using technical support.

Initial setup was totally straightforward.

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

I like using the on-demand feature as it requires a lot less maintenance for me. Once you understand the product, it’s easy to use. It's initially challenging, but it does what it’s supposed to do. At this point, we can't ask for much more.

We upgraded from a previous version, and the reporting feature has made that aspect of our work easier. Other than that, I wouldn't say that it's changed the organization too much.

I think the user interface could be more user friendly. For people who don't use it as part of their daily routine, it can be challenging at first. You get used to it, but it could definitely use some improvement.

I've used it for eight years.

The system is extremely stable.

It has adapted well over time and handled everything we have thrown at it.

The support is excellent and very easy to work with. They are responsive, very nice to talk with; we have a long-term relationship.

Our previous version needed updating. There’s nothing more to say, we simply needed to update.

The initial setup was straightforward.

I implemented it myself and it was very easy.

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.

For us, it’s all about resource management and schedule management. Without this, we would be in trouble. This solution has it and more.

It’s driven global consistency and the management of our projects. We have used it a long time and are seeing great benefits by sticking with the product.

We have not deployed the latest version, but a problem we are seeing is the inability to get data out of the system and into Excel. This is a feature we want and need.

We have been using this solution since 2003.

It has been consistently stable over the years. This for us is critical.

In terms of scalability, it has adapted well. We use it for both small projects and very large projects. I think it’s great that it handles both kinds of projects with equal power.

They're very knowledgeable, and there have been times in which we have had big issues which we call show stoppers. When this happens, you need a different level of support, and, thankfully, we are on first-name basis. Therefore, all is resolved quickly.

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.

It's valuable for us to be able to get data across the enterprise. We focus a lot on resources, so being able to get the actuals by project is big. We do reporting at the enterprise level and are focused on the portfolio management side of things, so communicating, aggregating, and analyzing are important. We are married to Business Objects InfoView.

In our organization we are very siloed, so our executive management doesn't always see the value in sharing data across the enterprise. We feel that the business isn’t using it to its fullest extent, although it does give visibility as enterprise projects are moving through different regions.

It allows us to collect all of the projects for which people want visibility across different lines of business, but we have a lot of leaders who don’t understand a lot of the value of the information and what we could be doing with it, which is a business problem – that has hindered out ability to leverage the functionality with the tool and therefore some of our project managers aren’t fully engaged with the solution. It’s a top-down problem, but the tool is fine.

We’re happy with it. Very few performance issues.

We have not been overwhelmingly happy with that. We had the dedicated resource option, but it was challenging for us when we ran across problems during times of upgrade because we didn’t seem to get the assistance we needed. The documentation wasn’t always correct or thorough, or necessarily updated from version to version. There are some basic documentation problems, so we have found more valuable information for troubleshooting in the communities.

We get a lot of “I don’t know” or “let me find that”, but with nothing in the documentation, so we have ended up going with a third-party to help us as they had more expertise.

It was already in production when I joined.

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.

The most valuable features are project management, resource management, and idea management.

I run a PMO with a portfolio of initiatives, and we have to report on those to upper management to keep them abreast of the health of the products, critical issues, things that need to be escalated. To get the reporting, I need to ensure that the tool is easy to use for project managers.

It's really improved our organizational transparency. It gives us visibility into all of the projects and programs people are working on. That covers the health of the projects, financial health, resource allocation, etc.

The biggest area of improvement is reporting, though that’s going to be fixed in v14.3, which we’ll move to. There aren’t enough out-of-the-box, standard reports. The tools weren’t there for end users to write or create their own reports.

The user interface isn’t very intuitive for someone who’s not living in the product day in and day out.

Very stable, probably the most stable of any company where I’ve used it. It’s never gone down.

It’s very scalable – probably the most scalable for an enterprise that really wants to manage their portfolio of projects across the enterprise.

I’ve been working with it for about 15 years since it was Niku, then Clarity, then PPM.

We use our own technology team to support the solution, and if they can’t solve the issue they go to CA support.

I wasn't involved in the implementation.

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.

The most valuable features are resource management and portfolio management. We have too many projects in our organization and not enough resources, which PPM allows us to manage.

Right now, it’s supporting project prioritization. That’s why we brought it in. It lets us get a holistic view of what the projects are and whether there are deficiencies in a given area and whether we are short on something. We’re not quite there yet in utilizing its capabilities, but it’s getting better.

Anything that enhances portfolio management will help us out, but we’re still struggling internally to fully utilize that capability.

Pretty good. There are some hiccups in terms of our understanding of how the product works, and CA support understanding the problems as well. We didn’t understand that there are two components to PPM – in terms of the PPM solution and then the reporting is handled out of business objects. In our situation in on-demand if you run a report and then leave it up in business objects the time-out on the BO side is not the same as the time-out on the PPM side and it doesn’t synchronize and come across.

How that manifests- when it times out it makes my reports unavailable and can’t report anymore. We have a workaround for the moment. It took one or two months to even understand what the problem was, and CA didn’t understand either. CA provided a solution that was for on-premise versus our situation which is on-demand (cloud-based).

Not seeing any issues, but we’re only at 150 users. It could handle many more if we needed it to.

There were some misunderstandings when we set up our account in terms organizational differences within our business units, which we still need to straighten out with CA.

CA directed us to a systems integrator who may not have been completely skilled in the product, or maybe our timelines were too tight. Our product knowledge is still incomplete in some of the areas.

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.

It’s deployed corporate-wide and has a heavy user-base, and we provide custom modifications to the solution. I also do all the deployments for seven different environments with each having three servers.

I’d like the install to work a lot better and to be more tailored. It also needs to support a forced functionality of the install.

It’s not bad, though we have intermittent issues with services going down. It’s a background service that runs reports, which seems to hang every so often, so we need to be pretty diligent in keeping our eye on that. When it goes down, users aren’t able to run reports so we have to bounce the reports server. But overall, it’s fairly stable.

It’s pretty easy to throw into any environment.

Usually their tech support isn’t very good. We usually end up fixing it ourselves or writing our own XML code. But, they try their best.

If I call support, I don’t like getting a middle person, which I frequently do. I try to figure it out myself before I call them. Escalations are usually very good. We had an issue with a recent upgrade so we created a P1 ticket and escalated it after day one and they were right on it. They worked well with me and they were there with me for a 17-hour day to get the system up.

They’re getting better and have been better recently than in the past.

The installs never go smoothly. You can have all your system requirements met and all your ducks in a row. The CA XMLs won’t work.

We recently did an upgrade which took over two weeks to get up and running, which was an incremental update.

The install packages are the worst I’ve ever seen.

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.

The most valuable part is the ability to report efficiently across the globe how the company is doing. This is the biggest advantage to me.

Standardization across large company standard operating procedures. The biggest are financial reporting, task management, work breakdown structures, risk and issue reporting. As all of this can be done from one place. We can manage it all with change management.

I want to see trends and how things change over time. Now, you only see what’s live in the system, and there's no way currently to see what yesterday’s project was and how it's changed. They don’t have snapshots in time.

Also, I'd like flexible reporting that can be done quickly. Right now, we pull everything into Excel, and the length of time for reporting can be long.

We've been using it for 11 years. I joined five years ago and they had already had it for six years by then.

There's been no issues. There are occasional problems, but these are quickly resolved either internally or with the help of CA.

It scales well, but the problem is cost.

I haven't used it internally as our in-house IT team deals with them.

I wasn’t involved in the setup.

Buying in large quantities is more cost effective than a one-to-one basis. Periodically, we try to figure out how much we need to avoid buying one-to-one.

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.