Project managers (PM) at Roche execute around 300-500 investment projects yearly to improve production or office sites. These small to mid-size capital investment projects are executed and controlled by PMs, who often execute up to 15 different projects simultaneously. Many projects controlling and portfolio management processes are still driven manually and are time-consuming to execute. To let PMs focus on their core activities, Roche has been striving to implement a new controlling and portfolio management (CPM) system.

An existing User Requirements Specification (URS) documents requirements that should be met by the CPM system. Based on this URS, a criteria-based evaluation of the vendor's PPM system was conducted. Interviews with Roche PPM users and demonstrations of the PPM system were held to gather feedback and insights. Once the data was gathered in the weighted scorecard, the project evaluation team decided to choose the vendor to implement the CPM system, starting the project's second phase. The customization phase included contract management, workshop planning, execution, and software architecture definitions.

Upon completion of the evaluation, it was determined that Roche should implement the vendor's PPM because they offer a highly configurable solution that can be scaled from small to midsized projects. The evaluation project phase allowed Roche to document, in detail, why the vendor was chosen and what benefits could be offered through the implementation of the PPM system. Additionally, through an on-site workshop with the vendor, that was held on-site, the implementation team was able to create a shared understanding of the requirements and document any changes to the existing requirements on a high-level. Thus enabling the vendor to create a reliable schedule and cost estimate for the CPM implementation. Shortly thereafter a contract was drafted, negotiated and signed. Moreover, due to the research invested in the software components, the CPM software architect and CPM project manager will be able to implement the respective components. Hopefully, the hard work dedicated to this project and thesis will enable the system to go live in April 2023 and make the lives of project managers a little easier.