Cognizant Modernizes Project and Portfolio Management to Drive Internal Transformation

After a cyber security incident and an increasing need to streamline its existing PPM processes, Cognizant embarked on a modernization initiative that included over 40+ programs requiring effective governance, with operational and executive updates along the way. With so many programs to manage, the company’s manual, labor-intensive processes and tools were neither sustainable nor cost-efficient.

By implementing Planview® PPM, Cognizant was able to quickly establish standardized processes, automate routine tasks, and gain real-time insights into program performance. This comprehensive approach helped transform their project management practices while positioning them for continued innovation.

Based in Teaneck, NJ, Cognizant delivers technology and consultancy services to a global client base spanning a wide range of industries, with a strong presence in life sciences and financial services. Founded in 1994, the company has experienced a healthy growth trajectory and employs 340,000 associates globally. Cognizant focuses on modernizing technology, reimagining processes, and transforming experiences for organizations worldwide.

Nothing drives organizational transformation like a crisis. Such was the case with Cognizant. After a experiencing a cybersecurity breach in 2020, the company successfully transformed its project planning and management processes in just six months, thanks to Planview PPM.

« Avant d'adopter Planview PPM, nos processus étaient très manuels et laborieux », explique Estela Lauricella-Thota, directrice principale de la transformation technologique et EPMO de Cognizant. « Nous avions très peu de visibilité sur nos portefeuilles d'investissement. »

Cognizant's PPM processes were not only manual, but they were also inconsistent and unsustainable. These problems became even more evident as the company embarked on major remediation and modernization initiatives. Each program required its own teams and governance structures, with frequent board updates complicating matters.

Bien que l'entreprise ait engagé très tôt des consultants pour l'aider à organiser et à moderniser ses processus internes, il était clair que Cognizant avait besoin d'un outil pour centraliser et automatiser une grande partie du reporting et des tâches fastidieuses. Il lui fallait aussi adopter une stratégie plus rentable.

Lauricella-Thota helped organize the company's Enterprise Project Management practice and worked to modernize the company's PPM processes and technology. This included selecting the right digital PPM solution for the organization's needs. She sought advice from Cognizant's customer consulting group to understand how to effectively communicate Cognizant's best practices to our internal stakeholders and new customers.

"Together we developed a very useful heat map analysis of our needs in terms of core processes, enablers, and support processes. That enabled us to get into alignment on portfolio management and program quality priorities, including the decision to centralize our PPM platform and develop our enterprise roadmap using a value-based approach," says Lauricella-Thota.

Lauricella-Thota put together a multidisciplinary steering group with representatives from IT, corporate security, and technology transformation to drive the enterprise PMO roadmap and implement new working groups, processes, and governance in readiness for the tool implementation. "We focused on setting up core process templates and standardizing project charters, status reports, change requests, and project closeouts across all domains." At the same time, the team investigated PPM tools and technologies available in the market starting with a few potential tools and then narrowing their options down to four tools for consideration.

"It became apparent very quickly that Planview PPM was a great fit for our needs, not only because of its features but the company's ability to execute on our roadmap. Planview was a great partner to work with" says, Lauricella-Thota. Lauricella-Thota stated that she valued Planview's PPM platform because of its cloud native with a modern user interface and it ease of use for self-services capabilities. "We felt the interface and depth of functionality and capabilities would make it easy to fulfill our biggest commitments and priorities quickly."

Over six months of releases, Lauricella-Thota's team implemented consistent processes for demand intake, investment planning, and program and project management. Doing so led to enhanced consistency, delivery success, predictability, and visibility into demand and project management lifecycles. With Planview AdaptiveWork, Lauricella-Thota was able to implement powerful investment prioritization scoring based on criteria that the teams developed.

"We're currently well on the way to centralizing resource capacity management and moving towards a complete enterprise integrated PPM platform," says Lauricella-Thota.

Lauricella-Thota finds the Planview dashboard and other capabilities extremely effective stating that, "Planview AdaptiveWork makes it easy to do comprehensive what-if analyses and the dashboard and decision-making insights are very valuable, allowing us to see demand and analyze value across portfolio domains."

At a click of a button project managers can digitize all the project charters, workplans, roadmaps, and Gantt Charts with their milestones, tasks, and dependencies for each project. Projects are organized by domains, business functions, and risks.

"Planview PPM gives us end-to-end visibility, accelerates our time to market, and readies us for all the investment scrutiny we need going forward," says Lauricella-Thota. "I can't over emphasize what a great tool this is for governance reporting."

Lauricella-Thota is proud of Cognizant's rapid PPM transformation with Planview PPM and advises others to spend time with discovery, roadmap building, alignment, and executive buy-in first before preparing to implement with whatever tool they choose. "Focus on a few of your biggest problems first. Once you get those implemented you can move on to other functions and optimize what you've implemented already."

As the portfolio expanded, leaders found it challenging to identify risks in large programs, while limited real-time data aggregation made reviews time-consuming. The organization also needed to scale PPM training to ensure consistent adoption of best practices.

It became clear that automation and Gen AI would be essential to centralize data and simplify workflows. The organization needed to make best practices both accessible and actionable across teams, leading to their exploration of Gen AI capabilities to complement traditional PPM approaches.

Implementing Gen AI Capabilities

With the Planview PPM foundation firmly established, Cognizant was ready to elevate its project management capabilities through artificial intelligence. The organization developed a structured approach to Gen AI implementation that included:

• Prioritizing use cases based on business impact and feasibility
• Setting clear expectations and success metrics
• Working closely with Planview to embed AI capabilities into existing workflows
• Leveraging their document libraries and knowledge base for AI training

The team implemented Gen AI capabilities across key PMO domains:

• Governance: Rapid project risk indication and automated content summaries
• Process/Training: Step-by-step guidance and "how-to" support
• Technical Reporting: Automated report retrieval and intelligent assistance
• Document Analysis: Quick insights from project documentation

"We focused on embedding these capabilities directly into our workflows and libraries," explains Lauricella-Thota. "This approach ensures that Gen AI becomes a natural extension of our project management practices rather than a separate tool."

Results and Future Direction

The integration of Gen AI capabilities through Planview Copilot delivered multiple benefits:

• Real-time program compliance monitoring and gap analysis
• Enhanced delivery productivity through Gen AI-assisted project management
• Accelerated user adoption through Gen AI-driven training
• Improved project risk identification and mitigation

Looking ahead, Cognizant continues to expand its Gen AI capabilities through Planview's inner circle for AI development, with enhanced Copilot features planned through 2025, focusing on custom workflow integration.

"It's about prioritizing your needs while setting realistic expectations for Gen AI productivity and adoption goals," concludes Lauricella-Thota.