The announcement that Planview has entered into an agreement to acquire Tasktop marks a new milestone in the evolution and maturity of the value stream management (VSM) solutions market. This acquisition brings together two companies with very complementary strengths: Planview provides lean portfolio management, capacity, and financial management, and Tasktop provides value stream management and a tool integration hub. Both companies performed well as Leaders in our recent evaluations. Planview was a Leader in The Forrester Wave™: Strategic Portfolio Management Tools, Q1 2022, while Tasktop was a Leader in The Forrester Wave™: Value Stream Management Solutions, Q3 2020.

The VSM Market Is Finally Taking Shape

Over the past half-decade, we’ve seen the market for VSM solutions blossom — what was once a niche and nascent market consisting of a few vendors with just a portion of VSM functionality has grown into one that has close to 24 vendors actively marketing and selling VSM solutions as either standalone products or as features of their integrated software delivery platform. But VSM has become more than just data-informed software delivery — it’s also about becoming a more agile enterprise and becoming more effective at delivering value.

The SPM Market Is Evolving, As Well

To that point, Planview’s SPM (strategic portfolio management) tools are part of the next evolution of the 20-year-old-plus market of project portfolio management (PPM). SPM’s new capabilities include strategic planning, business architecture, and capability-based planning. The SPM market has seen some significant consolidation over the last several years, especially from Planview, which acquired several smaller PPM vendors to play in the midmarket project management, professional services, and collaborative work management spaces. For SPM clients, the coming together of the two companies provides end-to-end traceability from strategy to delivery and, importantly, to provide feedback in a context that is meaningful to portfolio optimization.

We Have High Expectations For This New Combo

We see the Planview + Tasktop combination having the potential to shake up the SPM and VSM marketplace and force it to evolve at an even faster pace by putting pressure on existing leaders in agile planning and DevOps management solutions, such as Atlassian, Digital.ai, and even Microsoft, putting them on notice that the SPM and VSM markets are not standing still. Some of the innovations we hope to see from the Planview + Tasktop combination are shortened time to first insight and improved collaboration between product and portfolio managers and development teams, which, based on recent client discussions, is necessary to help companies overcome clunky yearly budgeting processes, get greater insights into opaque dev organizations, and achieve end-to-end business agility.

Stay Tuned For More On VSM And SPM

In the coming months, we plan extensive research on both SPM and VSM. Please check back for our Value Stream Management Solutions Landscape, Q3 2022; The Forrester Wave™: Value Stream Management Solutions, Q4 2022; and State Of Value Stream Management (to be published this quarter). In addition, you may find the following research helpful:

Get MAD With Value Stream Management

Integrated Value Stream Management Benefits Business And Development Leaders