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The Rs 34,045-crore Larsen & Toubro is an organization on the move. Over the last few years, it has grown at about 40 percent year-over-year and it's also entered new areas including insurance, railways and ship building.

As a result, the company has a phenomenally high number of IT projects that are either under study, being implemented, or supported at various stages of their lifecycles. "In large and diversified organizations such as L&T, there are a number of IT initiatives in progress at any given time," says S. Anantha Sayana, head-corporate IT, Larsen & Toubro. "In such a scenario, it's vital to identify, prioritize and pursue the most effective projects. Closely tracking so many IT projects is important for IT's success."

He needed a tool that would give the IT team visibility, insight, and control across all IT initiatives. This would enhance decision-making and improve business alignment. He found that tool in Microsoft Project Portfolio Server 2007-based Project Portfolio Management system.

But the implementation was not as straightforward as running the application. Sayana needed to convince people to enter all the relevant data into the system. "We needed to train them to look at the tool not as an information hungry system, but as a tool that would facilitate prioritization and help them make objective and informed decisions," he says.

Today the Rs 13.67-lakh project, which was nicknamed 'Physician, Heal Thyself' helps managers control projects better and deliver increased value to the business. It has also helped with identifying risks earlier. And through a dashboard, the CIO and IT's senior management can monitor the health of various projects. "Prior to the PPM implementation, it was not humanly possible for the CIO to monitor all IT initiatives. There wasn't a single view of all the initiatives across L&T. The PPM system has made these possible," says Sayana.

"Physician, heal thyself is a perfect phrase for this initiative. In IT, though we design solutions to help others alleviate their pain areas, we do not focus at removing our own pain areas. I consider this project as medicine for the IT department," says Sayana.