PMPeople Business Model

PMPeople is a collaborative tool to manage projects professionally. There are plenty of collaborative tools to manage tasks, messages, notes, videos, files, emails, etc.

Apart from these, project management professionals need tools to manage projects professionally, not simply as task coordination, but as a proactive management activity aimed to finish projects on time, on budget, on quality, anticipating problems, engaging stakeholders, enhancing governance, tracking team and procurement activity, etc. Standards and methods –PMBOK, PRINCE2, OPM2, etc. –tell us what to do to manage projects professionally.

PMPeople is properly a PPM tool. PPM stands for Project Portfolio Management. Some PPM product examples are Microsoft Project Server, Clarity, Primavera, Planview, SAP PPM, Wrike, ProjectManager.com, etc. Most of them are not free, they are not usable on mobile devices, and they don’t integrate with other tools.

From a functional perspective, they do not implement effectively the professional project management standards:

• They lack basic features like work packages, scope and cost baselines, performance reviews on different status dates, etc.
• They don’t distinguish among the different roles in project management.
• They have not been designed for mobile project management.

PMPeople is aimed to fill these gaps. In the following sections, we describe the two Business models: B2C (Business to Consumer: for people) y B2B (Business to Business: for organizations).

Business to Consumer (B2C): Aimed at Professionals

Most PMPeople users start for free, managing their projects in the organization “PMPeople”. They can manage also programs and portfolios. All features are included, except the PMO role. Our income here come from advertising. Many users keep here forever. Virality is our main goal here, but also gathering data related to project performance as a basis for future evolutions on BI or AI.

If users need to keep project management activity under a separate organization, not the shared “PMPeople”, any user can create a premium organization.

There are two ways to create a premium organization:

1. User creates a new organization from scratch. Hit menu option [New Organization] to start a new empty organization. Trial period counts down from 20 days. Creator user is appointed as organization owner.
2. Users can also move their projects –those belonging to their Business Units– from “PMPeople” to a new organization. Hit menu option [Move to Premium] to see how a new organization is created, containing all his or her Business Units, no longer being at “PMPeople”, with all the projects and users with their respective roles. Creator user is appointed as organization owner. Trial period of 20 days is started. During trial, owner has to decide if upgrading or reverting back to the free organization “PMPeople”.

Users can create as many premium organizations as they need. Any time, any user follows this state chart:

• When users sign up, they start as free: they only see the free organization “PMPeople”, including some demo projects and with some roles enabled. They can manage their projects in business units, invite other users to collaborate on management, invite team members to assign them work, approve time sheets and expenses, etc. Users can keep free usage forever. Any time, users can unsubscribe PMPeople and leave: Admin user will manage the Business Units, if no other user has taken this function.
• Users can create a new organization, moving projects from “PMPeople” or as empty. Trial period of 20 days is started. If time is up and no payment is made, or trial is cancelled voluntarily, then all data is moved to free organization “PMPeople”.
• If premium seats are paid, premium mode is started. Organization owners pay premium seats 20€/user/month, taxes excluded. Users with more than one role count as one seat. Yearly payments save 2 months. Renewal is due when paid period is over, minimum amount as of premium seats in use. In the middle of a period, more seats can be added, amount calculated as proportional until the end of the ongoing period. Any time, projects can be reverted back to the free organization “PMPeople”.
• Referral fees: If any user invited to organization A pays for a new organization B, then organization A gets a 10% discount in next payment. These discounts can be cumulative. A is eligible for each discount only if: 1) organization A was the first one to invite organization B’s owner; 2) the user who made the invitation from organization A was using a premium role; 3) the payment for organization B is for the year, not for the month; and 4) the payment was done within 20 days from the invitation date.

Four roles are always free: stakeholders, sponsors, team members and resource managers .

Ads are not shown in premium organizations. Members can easily manage the organization specifics: departments, portfolios, programs, clients, sellers, calendars, reports, etc. Other important premium benefits are:

• Organization owner can manage users and roles.
• Members can use the PMO role, to access and manage all projects in all business units, and all team members of all resource pools.
• Organization owner can set the “reliable seal” on, so that status reports are secured and stored in Blockchain.

Business to Business (B2B): Aimed at Organizations

PMPeople is the tool for professional collaboration in project management. Organizations need their projects profitable, strategy aligned and value adding. Top managers do not have time to manage each project crisis. Project management should be addressed professionally.

PMPeople gets organizational project maturity to the next level, in an agile way, without changing organizational processes, nor adding more bureaucracy. People don’t need to be trained, or getting certified in project management. Costly PMO teams are not needed, either.

A small consulting team, in least than 3 months, can set up the tool, including project management processes, and later they continue providing continuous training and support. Setup projects include usually the following activities:

• Load the projects currently on execution –loading can be automated with an Excel file organizing projects in business units, programs and portfolios.
• Invite people and assign them roles to collaborate on projects.
• Start project governance through periodic status reports published by project managers, accessing via web or the mobile application.
• Since projects are in the core of enterprise management systems, this projects usually include integrations with other information systems.

PPMPeople makes people start collaborating on projects, improving organizational project maturity, even for agile organizations, to lead the project economy. Uncontrolled projects are reduced, with less bureaucratic work flows, less dependency on individuals, unpredictability, etc. Organization starts closing more projects successfully. Managers have more time to initiate, control and close more value projects.

In premium organizations, only managers have to pay 20€ a month. Several roles –stakeholders, team members, sponsors and resource managers– are always free. Premium seats can be increased or reduced according to the organization actual needs. Premium organizations have interactive support through Slack. Our servers are located in the European Union. This software can also be hosted on customer premises.