Optimize IT Project Intake, Approval, and Prioritization

Decide which IT projects to approve and when to start them.

ANALYST PERSPECTIVE

Capacity-constrained intake is the only sustainable path forward.

"For years, the goal of project intake was to select the best projects. It makes sense and most people take it on faith without argument. But if you end up with too many projects, it’s a bad strategy. Don’t be afraid to say NO or NOT YET if you don’t have the capacity to deliver. People might give you a hard time in the near term, but you’re not helping by saying YES to things you can’t deliver."

Barry Cousins,

Senior Director, PMO Practice

Info-Tech Research Group

Our understanding of the problem

This Research Is Designed For:

• PMO Directors who have trouble with project throughput
• CIOs who want to improve IT’s responsive-ness to changing needs of the business
• CIOs who want to maximize the overall business value of IT’s project portfolio

This Research Will Help You:

• Align project intake and prioritization with resource capacity and strategic objectives
• Balance proactive and reactive demand
• Reduce portfolio waste on low-value projects
• Manage project delivery expectations and satisfaction of business stakeholders
• Get optimized project intake processes off the ground with low-cost, high-impact tools and templates

This Research Will Also Assist:

• C-suite executives and steering committee members who want to ensure IT’s successful delivery of projects with high business impact
• Project sponsors and product owners who seek visibility and transparency toward proposed projects

This Research Will Help Them:

• Ensure that high-impact projects are approved and delivered in a timely manner
• Gain clarity and visibility in IT’s project approval process
• Improve your understanding of IT’s capacity to set more realistic expectations on what gets done

Executive summary

Situation

• As a portfolio manager, you do not have the authority to decline or defer new projects – but you also lack the capacity to realistically say yes to more project work.
• Stakeholders have unrealistic expectations of what IT can deliver. Too many projects are approved, and it may be unclear why their project is delayed or in a state of suspended animation.

Complication

• The cycle of competition is making it increasingly difficult to follow a longer-term strategy during project intake, making it unproductive to approve projects for any horizon longer than one to two years.
• As project portfolios become more aligned to “transformative” projects, resourcing for smaller, department-level projects becomes increasingly opaque.

Resolution

• Establish an effective scorecard to create transparency into IT’s capacity and processes. This will help set realistic expectations for stakeholders, eliminate “squeaky wheel” prioritization, and give primacy to the highest value requests.
• Build a centralized process that funnels requests into a single intake channel to eliminate confusion and doubt for stakeholders and staff while also reducing off-the-grid initiatives.
• Clearly define a series of project approval steps, and communicate requirements for passing them.
• Developing practices that incorporate the constraint of resource capacity to cap the amount of project approvals to that which is realistic will help improve the throughput of projects through the portfolio.

Info-Tech Insight

1. Approve only the right projects… Counterbalance stakeholder needs with strategic objectives of the business and that of IT, in order to maintain the value of your project portfolio at a high level.
2. …that you have capacity to deliver. Resource capacity-informed project approval process enables you to avoid biting off more than you can chew and, over time, build a track record of fulfilling promises to deliver on projects.

Most organizations are good at approving projects, but bad at starting them – and even worse at finishing them

Establishing project intake discipline should be a top priority from a long-term strategy and near-term tactical perspective.

Most organizations approve more projects than they can finish. In fact, many approve more than they can even start, leading to an ever-growing backlog where project ideas – often good ones – are never heard from again.

The appetite to approve more runs directly counter to the shortage of resources that plagues most IT departments. This tension of wanting more from less suggests that IT departments need to be more disciplined in choosing what to take on.

Info-Tech’s data shows that most IT organizations struggle with their project backlog (Source: N=397 organizations, Info-Tech Research Group PPM Current State Scorecard, 2017).

“There is a minimal list of pending projects”

“Last year we delivered the number of projects we anticipated at the start of the year”

The concept of fiduciary duty demonstrates the need for better discipline in choosing what projects to take on

Unless someone is accountable for making the right investment of resource capacity for the right projects, project intake discipline cannot be established effectively.

What is fiduciary duty?

Officers and directors owe their corporation the duty of acting in the corporation’s best interests over their own. They may delegate the responsibility of implementing the actions, but accountability can't be delegated; that is, they have the authority to make choices and are ultimately answerable for them.

No question is more important to the organization’s bottom line. Projects directly impact the bottom line because they require investment of resource time and money for the purposes of realizing benefits. The scarcity of resources requires that choices be made by those who have the right authority.

Who approves your projects?

Historically, the answer would have been the executive layer of the organization. However, in the 1990s management largely abdicated its obligation to control resources and expenditures via “employee empowerment.”

Controls on approvals became less rigid, and accountability for choosing what to do (and not do) shifted onto the shoulders of the individual worker. This creates a current paradigm where no one is accountable for the malinvestment…

…of resources that comes from approving too many projects. Instead, it’s up to individual workers to sink or swim as they attempt to reconcile, day after day, seemingly infinite organizational demand with their finite supply of working hours.

Ad hoc project selection schemes do not work

Without active management, reconciling the imbalance between demand with available work hours is a struggle that results largely in one of these two scenarios:

“Squeaky wheel”: Projects with the most vocal stakeholders behind them are worked on first.

• IT is seen to favor certain lines of business, leading to disenfranchisement of other stakeholders.
• Everything becomes the highest priority, which reinforces IT’s image as a firefighter, rather than a business value contributor
• High-value projects without vocal support never get resourced; opportunities are missed.

“First in, first out”: Projects are approved and executed in the order they are requested.

• Urgent or important projects for the business languish in the project backlog; opportunities are missed.
• Low-value projects dominate the project portfolio.
• Stakeholders leave IT out of the loop and resort to “underground economy” for getting their needs addressed.

80% of organizations feel that their portfolios are dominated by low-value initiatives that do not deliver value to the business (Source: Cooper).

Approve the right projects that you have capacity to deliver by actively managing the intake of projects

Project intake, approval, and prioritization (collectively “project intake”) reconciles the appetite for new projects with available resource capacity and strategic goals.

Project intake is a key process of project portfolio management (PPM). The Project Management Institute (PMI) describes PPM as:

"Interrelated organizational processes by which an organization evaluates, selects, prioritizes, and allocates its limited internal resources to best accomplish organizational strategies consistent with its vision, mission, and values."

(PMI, Standard for Portfolio Management, 3rd ed.)

Triple Constraint Model of the Project Portfolio

Project Intake:

• Stakeholder Need
• Strategic Objectives
• Resource Capacity

All three components are required for the Project Portfolio

Organizations practicing PPM recognize available resource capacity as a constraint and aim to select projects – and commit the said capacity – to projects that:

1. Best satisfy the stakeholder needs that constantly change with the market
2. Best align to the strategic objectives and contribute the most to business
3. Have sufficient resource capacity available to best ensure consistent project throughput

92% vs. 74%: 92% of high-performing organizations in PPM report that projects are well aligned to strategic initiatives vs. 74% of low performers (PMI, 2015).

82% vs. 55%: 82% of high-performing organizations in PPM report that resources are effectively reallocated across projects vs. 55% of low performers (PMI, 2015)

Info-Tech’s data demonstrates that optimizing project intake can also improve business leaders’ satisfaction of IT

CEOs today perceive IT to be poorly aligned to business’ strategic goals:

43% of CEOs believe that business goals are going unsupported by IT (Source: Info-Tech’s CEO-CIO Alignment Survey (N=124)).

60% of CEOs believe that improvement is required around IT’s understanding of business goals (Source: Info-Tech’s CEO-CIO Alignment Survey (N=124)).

Business leaders today are generally dissatisfied with IT:

30% of business stakeholders are supporters of their IT departments (Source: Info-Tech’s CIO Business Vision Survey (N=21,367)).

The key to improving business satisfaction with IT is to deliver on projects that help the business achieve its strategic goals:

Source: Info-Tech’s CIO Business Vision Survey (N=21,367)

Optimized project intake not only improves the project portfolio’s alignment to business goals, but provides the most effective way to improve relationships with IT’s key stakeholders.

Benchmark your own current state with overall & industry-specific data using Info-Tech’s Diagnostic Program.

However, establishing organizational discipline for project intake, approval, and prioritization is difficult

Capacity awareness

Many IT departments struggle to realistically estimate available project capacity in a credible way. Stakeholders question the validity of your endeavor to install capacity-constrained intake process, and mistake it for unwillingness to cooperate instead.

Many moving parts

Project intake, approval, and prioritization involve the coordination of various departments. Therefore, they require a great deal of buy-in and compliance from multiple stakeholders and senior executives.

Lack of authority

Many PMOs and IT departments simply lack the ability to decline or defer new projects.

Unclear definition of value

Defining the project value is difficult because there are so many different and conflicting ways that are all valid in their own right. However, without it, it's impossible to fairly compare among projects to select what's "best."

Establishing intake discipline requires a great degree of cooperation and conformity among stakeholders that can be cultivated through strong processes.

Info-Tech’s intake, approval, and prioritization methodology systemically fits the project portfolio to its triple constraint

Info-Tech’s Methodology

Info-Tech’s methodology for optimizing project intake delivers extraordinary value, fast

In the first step of the blueprint, you will prototype a set of scorecard criteria for determining project value.

Our methodology is designed to tackle your hardest challenge first to deliver the highest-value part of the deliverable. Since the overarching goal of optimizing project intake, approval, and prioritization process is to maximize the throughput of the best projects, one must define how “the best projects” are determined.

In nearly all instances…a key challenge for the PPM team is reaching agreement over how projects should rank.

– Merkhofer

A Project Value Scorecard will help you:

• Evolve the discussions on project and portfolio value beyond a theoretical concept
• Enable apples-to-apples comparisons amongst many different kinds of projects

The Project Value Scorecard Development Tool is designed to help you develop the project valuation scheme iteratively. Download the pre-filled tool with content that represents a common case, and then, customize it with your data.

This blueprint provides a clear path to maximizing your chance of success in optimizing project intake

Info-Tech’s practical, tactical research is accompanied by a suite of tools and templates to accelerate your process optimization efforts.

Organizational change and stakeholder management are critical elements of optimizing project intake, approval, and prioritization processes because they require a great degree of cooperation and conformity among stakeholders, and the list of key stakeholders are long and far-reaching.

This blueprint will provide a clear path to not only optimize the processes themselves, but also for the optimization effort itself. This research is organized into three phases, each requiring a few weeks of work at your team’s own pace – or all in one week, through a workshop facilitated by Info-Tech analysts.

Set Realistic Goals for Optimizing Project Intake, Approval, and Prioritization

Tools and Templates:

• Project Value Scorecard Development Tool (.xlsx)
• PPM Assessment Report (Info-Tech Diagnostics)
• Standard Operating Procedure Template (.docx)

Build Optimized Project Intake, Approval, and Prioritization Processes

Tools and Templates:

• Project Request Forms (.docx)
• Project Classification Matrix (.xlsx)
• Benefits Commitment Form (.xlsx)
• Proposed Project Technology Assessment Tool (.xlsx)
• Business Case Templates (.docx)
• Intake and Prioritization Tool (.xlsx)

Integrate the Newly Optimized Processes into Practice

Tools and Templates:

• Process Pilot Plan Template (.docx)
• Impact Assessment and Communication Planning Tool (.xlsx)

Info-Tech’s approach to PPM is informed by industry best practices and rooted in practical insider research

Info-Tech uses PMI and ISACA frameworks for areas of this research.

PMI’s Standard for Portfolio Management, 3rd ed. is the leading industry framework, proving project portfolio management best practices and process guidelines.

COBIT 5 is the leading framework for the governance and management of enterprise IT.

In addition to industry-leading frameworks, our best-practice approach is enhanced by the insights and guidance from our analysts, industry experts, and our clients.

33,000+

Our peer network of over 33,000 happy clients proves the effectiveness of our research.

1,000+

Our team conducts 1,000+ hours of primary and secondary research to ensure that our approach is enhanced by best practices.

Deliver measurable project intake success for your organization with this blueprint

Measure the value of your effort to track your success quantitatively and demonstrate the proposed benefits, as you aim to do so with other projects through improved PPM.

Optimized project intake, approval, and prioritization processes lead to a high PPM maturity, which will improve the successful delivery and throughput of your projects, resource utilization, business alignment, and stakeholder satisfaction ((Source: BCG/PMI).

Measure your success through the following metrics:

• Reduced turnaround time between project requests and initial scoping
• Number of project proposals with articulated benefits
• Reduction in “off-the-grid” projects
• Team satisfaction and workplace engagement
• PPM stakeholder satisfaction score from business stakeholders: see Info-Tech’s PPM Customer Satisfaction Diagnostics

$44,700: In the past 12 months, Info-Tech clients have reported an average measured value of $44,700 from undertaking a guided implementation of this research.

Add your own organization-specific goals, success criteria, and metrics by following the steps in the blueprint.

Case Study: Financial Services PMO prepares annual planning process with Project Value Scorecard Development Tool

CASE STUDY

Industry: Financial Services

Source: Info-Tech Client

Challenge

PMO plays a diverse set of roles, including project management for enterprise projects (i.e. PMI’s “Directive” PMO), standards management for department-level projects (i.e. PMI’s “Supportive” PMO), process governance of strategic projects (i.e. PMI’s “Controlling” PMO), and facilitation / planning / reporting for the corporate business strategy efforts (i.e. Enterprise PMO).

To facilitate the annual planning process, the PMO needed to develop a more data-driven and objective project intake process that implicitly aligned with the corporate strategy.

Solution

Info-Tech’s Project Value Scorecard tool was incorporated into the strategic planning process.

Results

The scorecard provided a simple way to list the competing strategic initiatives, objectively score them, and re-sort the results on demand as the leadership chooses to switch between ranking by overall score, project value, ability to execute, strategic alignment, operational alignment, and feasibility.

The Project Value Scorecard provided early value with multiple options for prioritized rankings.

Info-Tech offers various levels of support to best suit your needs

DIY Toolkit

“Our team has already made this critical project a priority, and we have the time and capability, but some guidance along the way would be helpful.”

Guided Implementation

“Our team knows that we need to fix a process, but we need assistance to determine where to focus. Some check-ins along the way would help keep us on track.”

Workshop

“We need to hit the ground running and get this project kicked off immediately. Our team has the ability to take this over once we get a framework and strategy in place.”

Consulting

“Our team does not have the time or the knowledge to take this project on. We need assistance through the entirety of this project.”

Diagnostics and consistent frameworks used throughout all four options

Optimize Project Intake, Approval, and Prioritization – project overview

Workshop overview

Contact your account representative or email Workshops@InfoTech.com for more information.

Phase 1

Set Realistic Goals for Optimizing Project Intake, Approval, and Prioritization Process

Phase 1 outline

Call 1-888-670-8889 or email GuidedImplementations@InfoTech.com for more information.

Complete these steps on your own, or call us to complete a guided implementation. A guided implementation is a series of 2-3 advisory calls that help you execute each phase of a project. They are included in most advisory memberships.

Get to value early with Step 1.1 of this blueprint

Define how to determine a project’s value and set the stage for maximizing the value of your project portfolio using Info-Tech’s Project Value Scorecard Development Tool.

Where traditional models of consulting can take considerable amounts of time before delivering value to clients, Info-Tech’s methodology for optimizing project intake, approval, and prioritization process gets you to value fast.

The overarching goal of optimizing project intake, approval, and prioritization process is to maximize the throughput of the best projects. To achieve this goal, one must have a clear way to determine what are “the best” projects.

In the first step of this blueprint, you will pilot a multiple-criteria scorecard for determining project value that will help answer that question. Info-Tech’s Project Value Scorecard Development Tool is pre-populated with a ready-to-use, real-life example that you can leverage as a starting point for tailoring it to your organization – or adopt as is.

Introduce objectivity and clarity to your discussion of maximizing the value of your project portfolio with Info-Tech’s practical IT research that drives measurable results.

Download Info-Tech’s Project Value Scorecard Development Tool.

Step 1.1: Define the criteria with which to determine project value

This step will walk you through the following activities:

• Learn how to use the Project Value Scorecard Development Tool
• Create a first-draft version of a project value-driven prioritized list of projects

This step involves the following participants:

• PMO Director/ Portfolio Manager
• Project Managers
• Business Analysts
• CIO (optional)

Outcomes of this step

• Understand the importance of devising a consensus criteria for project valuation.
• Try a project value scorecard-driven prioritization process with your currently proposed.
• Set the stage for optimizing project intake, approval, and prioritization processes.

Intake, Approval, and Prioritization is a core process in Info-Tech’s project portfolio management (PPM) framework

PPM is an infrastructure around projects that aims to ensure that the best projects are worked on at the right time with the right people.

PPM’s goal is to maximize the throughput of projects that provide strategic and operational value to the organization. To do this, a PPM strategy must help to:

1. Select the best projects
2. Pick the right time and people to execute the projects
3. Make sure the projects are okay
4. Make sure the projects get done
5. Make sure they were worth doing

If you don’t yet have a PPM strategy in place, or would like to revisit your existing PPM strategy before optimizing your project intake, approval, and prioritization practices, see Info-Tech’s blueprint, Develop a Project Portfolio Management Strategy.

“Too many projects, not enough resources” is the reality of most IT environments

A profound imbalance between demand (i.e. approved project work and service delivery commitments) and supply (i.e. people’s time) is the top challenge IT departments face today.

In today’s organizations, the desires of business units for new products and enhancements, and the appetites of senior leadership to approve more and more projects for those products and services, far outstrip IT’s ability to realistically deliver on everything.

The vast majority of IT departments lack the resourcing to meet project demand – especially given the fact that day-to-day operational demands frequently trump project work.

As a result, project throughput suffers – and with it, IT’s reputation within the organization.

Info-Tech Insight

Where does the time go? The portfolio manager (or equivalent) should function as the accounting department for time, showing what’s available in IT’s human resources budget for projects and providing ongoing visibility into how that budget of time is being spent.

Don’t weigh your portfolio down by starting more than you can finish

Focus on what will deliver value to the organization and what you can realistically deliver.

Most of the problems that arise during the lifecycle of a project can be traced back to issues that could have been mitigated during the initiation phase.

More than simply a means of early problem detection at the project level, optimizing your initiation processes is also the best way to ensure the success of your portfolio. With optimized intake processes you can better guarantee:

• The projects you are working on are of high value
• Your project list aligns with available resource capacity
• Stakeholder needs are addressed, but stakeholders do not determine the direction of the portfolio

80% of organizations feel their portfolios are dominated by low-value initiatives that do not deliver value to the business (Source: Cooper).

"(S)uccessful organizations select projects on the basis of desirability and their capability to deliver them, not just desirability" (Source: John Ward, Delivering Value from Information Systems and Technology Investments).

Establishing project value is the first – and difficult – step for optimizing project intake, approval, and prioritization

What is the best way to “deliver value to the organization”?

Every organization needs to explicitly define how to determine project value that will fairly represent all projects and provide a basis of comparison among them during approval and prioritization. Without it, any discussions on reducing “low-value initiatives” from the previous slide cannot yield any actionable plan.

However, defining the project value is difficult, because there are so many different and conflicting ways that are all valid in their own right and worth considering. For example:

• Strategic growth vs. operational stability
• Important work vs. urgent work
• Return on investment vs. cost containment
• Needs of a specific line of business vs. business-wide needs
• Financial vs. intangible benefits

This challenge is further complicated by the difficulty of identifying the right criteria for determining project value:

Managers fail to identify around 50% of the important criteria when making decisions (Source: Transparent Choice).

Info-Tech Insight

Sometimes it can be challenging to show the value of IT-centric, operational-type projects that maintain critical infrastructure since they don’t yield net-new benefits. Remember that benefits are only half the equation; you must also consider the costs of not undertaking the said project.

Find the right mix of criteria for project valuation with Info-Tech’s Project Value Scorecard Development Tool

Scorecard-driven approach is an easy-to-understand, time-tested solution to a multiple-criteria decision-making problem, such as project valuation.

This approach is effective for capturing benefits and costs that are not directly quantifiable in financial terms. Projects are evaluated on multiple specific questions, or criteria, that each yield a score on a point scale. The overall score is calculated as a weighted sum of the scores.

Info-Tech’s Project Value Scorecard is pre-populated with a best-practice example of eight criteria, two for each category (see box at bottom right). This example helps your effort to develop your own project scorecard by providing a solid starting point:

60%: On their own, decision makers could only identify around 6 of their 10 most important criteria for making decisions (Source: Transparent Choice).

Finally, in addition, the overall scores of approved projects can be used as a metric on which success of the process can be measured over time.

Download Info-Tech’s Project Value Scorecard Development Tool.

Categories of project valuation criteria

• Strategic alignment: projects must be aligned with the strategic goals of the business and IT.
• Operational alignment: projects must be aligned with the operational goals of the business and IT.
• Feasibility: practical considerations for projects must be taken into account in selecting projects.
• Financial: projects must realize monetary benefits, in increased revenue or decreased costs, while posing as little risk of cost overrun as possible.

Review the example criteria and score description in the Project Value Scorecard Development Tool

1.1.1 Project Value Scorecard Development Tool, Tab 2: Evaluation Criteria

This tab lists eight criteria that cover strategic alignment, operational alignment, feasibility, and financial benefits/risks. Each criteria is accompanied by a qualitative score description to standardize the analysis across all projects and analysts. While this tool supports up to 15 different criteria, it’s better to minimize the number of criteria and introduce additional ones as the organization grows in PPM maturity.

Type: It is useful to break down projects with similar overall scores by their proposed values versus ease of execution.

Scale: Five-point scale is not required for this tool. Use more or less granularity of description as appropriate for each criteria.

Blank Criteria: Rows with blank criteria are greyed out. Enter a new criteria to turn on the row.

Score projects and search for the right mix of criteria weighting using the scorecard tab

1.1.1 Project Value Scorecard Development Tool, Tab 3: Project Scorecard

In this tab, you can see how projects are prioritized when they are scored according to the criteria from the previous tab. You can enter the scores of up to 30 projects in the scorecard table (see screenshot to the right).

Value (V) or Execution (E) & Relative Weight: Change the relative weights of each criteria and review any changes to the prioritized list of projects change, whose rankings are updated automatically. This helps you iterate on the weights to find the right mix.

Feasibility: Custom criteria category labels will be automatically updated.

Overall: Choose the groupings of criteria by which you want to see the prioritized list. Available groupings are:

• Overall score
• By value or by execution
• By category

Ranks and weighted scores for each project is shown.

For example, click on the drop-down and choose “Execution.”

Project ranks are based only on execution criteria.

Create a first-draft version of a project value-driven prioritized list of projects

1.1.1 Estimated Time: 60 minutes

Follow the steps below to test Info-Tech’s example Project Value Scorecard and examine the prioritized list of projects.

1. Using your list of proposed, ongoing, and completed projects, identify a representative sample of projects in your project portfolio, varying in size, scope, and perceived value – about 10-20 of them.
2. Arrange these projects in the order of priority using any processes or prioritization paradigm currently in place in your organization.

• In the absence of formal process, use your intuition, as well as knowledge of organizational priorities, and your stakeholders.

• Avoid spending too much time at this step. Prioritization criteria will be refined in the subsequent parts of the blueprint.
• If multiple scorers are involved, allow some overlap to benchmark for consistency.

INPUT

• Knowledge of proposed, ongoing, and completed projects in your project portfolio

OUTPUT

• Prioritized project lists

Materials

• Project Value Scorecard Development Tool

Participants

• PMO Director/ Portfolio Manager
• Project Managers
• Business Analysts
• CIO (optional)

Iterate on the scorecard to set the stage for optimizing project intake, approval, and prioritization

1.1.2 Estimated Time: 60 minutes

Conduct a retrospective of the previous activity by asking these questions:

• How smooth was the overall scoring experience (Step 3 of Activity 1.1.1)?
• Did you experience challenges in interpreting and applying the example project valuation criteria? Why? (e.g. lack of information, absence of formalized business strategic goals, too much room for interpretation in scoring description)
• Did the prioritized project list agree with your intuition?

Iterate on the project valuation criteria:

• Manipulate the relatives weights of valuation criteria to fine-tune them.
• Revise the scoring descriptions to provide clarity or customize them to better fit your organization’s needs, then update the project scores accordingly.
• For projects that did not score well, will this cause concern from any stakeholders? Are the concerns legitimate? If so, this may indicate the need for inclusion of new criteria.
• For projects that score too well, this may indicate a bias toward a specific type of project or group of stakeholders. Try adjusting the relative weights of existing criteria.

INPUT

• Activity 1.1.1

OUTPUT

• Retrospective on project valuation
• Review of project valuation criteria

Materials

• Project Value Scorecard Development Tool

Participants

• PMO Director/ Portfolio Manager
• Project Managers
• Business Analysts
• CIO (optional)

Next steps: engage key PPM stakeholders to reach a consensus when establishing how to determine project value

Engage these key players to create the evaluation criteria that all stakeholders will support:

• Business units: Projects are undertaken to provide value to the business. Senior management from business units must help define how project will be valued.
• IT: IT must ensure that technical/practical considerations are taken into account when determining project value.
• Finance: The CFO or designated representative will ensure that estimated project costs and benefits can be used to manage the budget.
• PMO: PMO is the administrator of the project portfolio. PMO must provide coordination and support to ensure the process operates smoothly and its goals are realized.
• Business analysts: BAs carry out the evaluation of project value. Therefore, their understanding of the evaluation criteria and the process as a whole are critical to the success of the process.
• Project sponsors: Project sponsors are accountable for the realization of benefits for which projects are undertaken.

Optimize the process with the new project value definition to focus your discussion with stakeholders

This blueprint will help you not only optimize the process, but also help you work with your stakeholders to realize the benefits of the optimized process.

In this step, you’ve begun improving the definition of project value. Getting it right will require several more iterations and will require a series of discussions with your key stakeholders.

The optimized intake process built around the new definition of project value will help evolve a conceptual discussion about project value into a more practical one. The new process will paint a picture of what the future state will look like for your stakeholders’ requested projects getting approved and prioritized for execution, so that they can provide feedback that’s concrete and actionable. To help you with that process, you will be taken through a series of activities to analyze the impact of change on your stakeholders and create a communication plan in the last phase of the blueprint.

For now, in the next step of this blueprint, you will undergo a series of activities to assess your current state to identify the specific areas for process optimization.

"To find the right intersection of someone’s personal interest with the company’s interest on projects isn’t always easy. I always try to look for the basic premise that you can get everybody to agree on it and build from there… But it’s sometimes hard to make sure that things stick. You may have to go back three or four times to the core agreement."

-Eric Newcomer

Step 1.2: Envision your target state for your optimized project intake, approval, and prioritization process

This step will walk you through the following activities:

• Map your current project intake, approval, and prioritization workflow, and document it in a flowchart
• Enumerate and prioritize your key process stakeholders
• Determine your process capability level within Info-Tech’s Framework
• Establish your current and target states for project intake, approval, and prioritization process

This step involves the following participants:

• CIO
• PMO Director/Portfolio Manager
• Project Managers
• Business Analysts
• Other PPM stakeholders

Outcomes of this step

• Current project intake, approval, and prioritization process is mapped out and documented in a flowchart
• Key process stakeholders are enumerated and prioritized to inform future discussion on optimizing processes
• Current and target organizational process capability levels are determined
• Success criteria and key performance indicators for process optimization are defined

Use Info-Tech’s Diagnostic Program for an initial assessment of your current PPM processes

This step is highly recommended but not required. Call 1-888-670-8889 to inquire about or request the PPM Diagnostics.

Info-Tech's Project Portfolio Management Assessmentprovides you with a data-driven view of the current state of your portfolio, including your intake processes. Our PPM Assessment measures and communicates success in terms of Info-Tech’s best practices for PPM.

Use the diagnostic program to:

• Assess resource utilization across the portfolio.
• Determine project portfolio reporting completeness.
• Solicit feedback from your customers on the clarity of your portfolio’s business goals.
• Rate the overall quality of your project management practices and benchmark your rating over time.

Scope your process optimization efforts with Info-Tech’s high-level intake, approval, and prioritization workflow

Info-Tech recommends the following workflow at a high level for a capacity-constrained intake process that aligns to strategic goals and stakeholder need.

• Intake (Step 2.1)*
• Receive project requests
• Triage project requests and assign a liaison
• High-level scoping & set stakeholder expectations
• Approval (Step 2.2)*
• Concept approval by project sponsor
• High-level technical solution approval by IT
• Business case approval by business
• Resource allocation & greenlight projects
• Prioritization (Step 2.3)*
• Update project priority scores & available project capacity
• Identify high-scoring and “on-the-bubble” projects
• Recommend projects to greenlight or deliberate

* Steps denote the place in the blueprint where the steps are discussed in more detail.

Use this workflow as a baseline to examine your current state of the process in the next slide.

Map your current project intake, approval, and prioritization workflow

1.2.1 Estimated Time: 60-90 minutes

Conduct a table-top planning exercise to map out the processes currently in place for project intake, approval, and prioritization.

1. Use white 4”x6” recipe cards / large sticky notes to write out unique steps of a process. Use the high-level process workflow from the previous slides as a guide.
2. Arrange the steps into chronological order. Benchmark the arrangement through a group discussion.
3. Use green cards to identify artifacts or deliverables that result from a step.
4. Use yellow cards to identify who does the work (i.e. responsible parties), and who makes the decisions (i.e. accountable party). Keep in mind that while multiple parties may be responsible, accountability cannot be shared and only a single party can be accountable for a process.
5. Use red cards to identify issues, problems, or risks. These are opportunities for optimization.

INPUT

• Documentation describing the current process (e.g. standard operating procedures)
• Info-Tech’s high-level intake workflow

OUTPUT

• Current process, mapped out

Materials

• 4x6” recipe cards
• Whiteboard

Participants

• PMO Director/ Portfolio Manager
• Project Managers
• Business Analysts
• Other PPM stakeholders

Document the current project intake, approval, and prioritization workflow in a flowchart

1.2.2 Estimated Time: 60 minutes

Document the results of the previous table-top exercise (Activity 1.1.1) into a flow chart. Flowcharts provide a bird’s-eye view of process steps that highlight the decision points and deliverables. In addition, swim lanes can be used to indicate process stages, task ownership, or responsibilities (example below).

Review and customize section 1.2, “Overall Process Workflow” in Info-Tech’s Project Intake, Approval, and Prioritization SOP Template.

"Flowcharts are more effective when you have to explain status and next steps to upper management."

– Assistant Director-IT Operations, Healthcare Industry

Browser-based flowchart tool examples

• draw.io (https://www.draw.io/)
• Gliffy (https://www.gliffy.com/)
• Lucidchart (https://www.lucidchart.com/)
• Smartdraw (https://cloud.smartdraw.com/

INPUT

• Mapped-out project intake process (Activity 1.2.1)

OUTPUT

• Flowchart representation of current project intake workflow

Materials

• Microsoft Visio, flowchart software, or Microsoft PowerPoint

Participants

• PMO Director/ Portfolio Manager
• Project Managers
• Business Analysts

Example of a project intake, approval, and prioritization flow chart – without swim lanes

Example of a project intake, approval, and prioritization flow chart – with swim lanes

Download Info-Tech’s Project Intake Workflow Template (Visio and PDF)

Enumerate your key stakeholders for optimizing intake, approval, and prioritization process

1.2.3 30-45 minutes

In the previous activity, accountable and responsible stakeholders for each of the steps in the current intake, approval, and prioritization process were identified.

1. Based on your knowledge and insight of your organization, ensure that all key stakeholders with accountable and responsible stakeholders are accounted for in the mapped-out process. Note any omissions: it may indicate a missing step, or that the stakeholder ought to be, but are not currently, involved.
2. For each step, identify any stakeholders that are currently consulted or informed. Then, examine the whole map and identify any other stakeholders that ought to be consulted or informed.
3. Compile a list of stakeholders from steps 1-2, and write each of their names in two sticky notes.
4. Put both sets of sticky notes on a wall. Use the wisdom-of-the-crowd approach to arrange one set in a descending order of influence. Record their ranked influence from 1 (least) to 10 (most).
5. Rearrange the other set in a descending order of interest in seeing the project intake process optimized. Record their ranked interest from 1 (least) to 10 (most).

INPUT

• Mapped-out project intake process (Activity 1.2.1)
• Insight on organizational culture

OUTPUT

• List of stakeholders in project intake
• Ranked list in their influence and interest

Materials

• Sticky notes
• Walls

Participants

• PMO Director/ Portfolio Manager
• Project Managers
• Business Analysts
• Other PPM stakeholders

Prioritize your stakeholders for project intake, approval, and prioritization process

There are three dimensions for stakeholder prioritization: influence, interest, and support.

1. Map your stakeholders in a 2D stakeholder power map (top right) according to their relative influence and interest.
2. Rate their level of support by asking the following question: how likely is it that your stakeholder would welcome an improved process for project intake?

These parameters will inform how to prioritize your stakeholders according to the stakeholder priority heatmap (bottom right). This priority should inform how to focus your attention during the subsequent optimization efforts.

Info-Tech Insight

There may be too many stakeholders to be able to achieve complete satisfaction. Focus your attention on the stakeholders that matter the most.

Most organizations have low to medium capabilities around intake, approval, and prioritization

1.2.4 Estimated Time: 15 minutes

Use Info-Tech’s Intake Capability Framework to help define your current and target states for intake, approval, and prioritization.

Refer to the subsequent slides for more detail on these capability levels.

Level 1: Unmanaged

Use these descriptions to place your organization at the appropriate level of intake capability.

Symptoms

• Poorly defined – or a complete absence of – PPM processes.
• No formal approval committee.
• No processes in place to balance proactive and reactive demands.

Long Term

PMOs at this level should work to have all requests funneled through a proper request form within six months. Decision rights for approval should be defined, and a scorecard should be in place within the year.

Quick Win

To get a handle on your backlog, start tracking all project requests using the “Project Data” tab in Info-Tech’s Project Intake and Prioritization Tool.

Level 2: Defined

Use these descriptions to place your organization at the appropriate level of intake capability.

Symptoms

• Organization does not have clear concept of project capacity.
• There is a lack of discipline enforced on stakeholders.
• Immature PPM processes in general.

Long Term

PMOs at this level should strive for greater visibility into the portfolio to help make the case for declining (or at least deferring) requests. Within the year, have a formal PPM strategy up and running.

Quick Win

Something PMOs at this level can accomplish quickly without any formal approval is to spend more time with stakeholders during the ideation phase to better define scope and requirements.

Level 3: Engaged

Use these descriptions to place your organization at the appropriate level of intake capability.

Challenges

• Senior executives’ “best judgement” is frequently fallible or influenced. Pet projects still enter the portfolio and deplete resources.
• While approval processes “occasionally” filter out some low-value projects, many still get approved.

Long Term

PMOs at this level should advocate for a more formal cadence for prioritization and, within the year, establish a formal steering committee that will be responsible for prioritizing and re-prioritizing quarterly or monthly.

Quick Win

At the PMO level, employ Info-Tech’s Project Intake and Prioritization Tool to start re-evaluating projects in the backlog. Make this data available to senior executives when prioritization occurs.

Level 4: Aligned

Use these descriptions to place your organization at the appropriate level of intake capability.

Challenges

• The process of developing business cases can be too cumbersome, distracting resources from actual project work.
• “Future” resource capacity predictions are unreliable. Reactive support work and other factors frequently change actual resource availability.

Long Term

PMOs at this level can strive for more accurate and frequent resource forecasting, establishing a more accurate picture of project vs. non-project work within the year.

Quick Win

PMOs at this level can start using Info-Tech’s Business Case Template (Comprehensive or Fast Track) to help simplify the business case process.

Level 5: Optimizing

Use these descriptions to place your organization at the appropriate level of intake capability.

Challenges

• Establishing a reliable forecast for resource capacity remains a concern at this level as well.
• Organizations at this level may experience an increasing clash between Agile practices and traditional Waterfall methodologies.

PMOs at this level should look at Info-Tech’s Manage an Agile Portfolio for comprehensive tools and guidance on maintaining greater visibility at the portfolio level into work in progress and committed work.

Establish your current and target states for process intake, approval, and prioritization

1.2.5 Estimated Time: 20 minutes

• Having reviewed the intake capability framework, you should be able to quickly identify where you currently reside in the model. Document this in the “Current State” box below.
• Next, spend some time as a group discussing your target state. Make sure to set a realistic target as well as a realistic timeframe for meeting this target. Level 1s will not be able to become Level 5s overnight and certainly not without passing through the other levels on the way.
• A realistic goal for a Level 1 to become a Level 2 is within six to eight months.

INPUT

• Intake, approval, and prioritization capability framework (Activity 1.2.4)

OUTPUT

• Current and target state, with stated time goals

Materials

• Whiteboard

Participants

• CIO
• PMO Director/ Portfolio Manager
• Project Managers
• Business Analysts

Align your intake success with the strategic expectations of overall project portfolio management

A successful project intake, approval, and prioritization process puts your leadership in a position to best steer the portfolio, like a conductor of an orchestra.

To frame the discussion on deciding what intake success will look like, review Info-Tech’s PPM strategic expectations:

• Project Throughput: Maximize throughput of the best projects.
• Portfolio Visibility: Ensure visibility of current and pending projects.
• Portfolio Responsiveness: Make the portfolio responsive to executive steering when new projects and changing priorities need rapid action.
• Resource Utilization: Minimize resource waste and optimize the alignment of skills to assignments.
• Benefits Realization: Clarify accountability for post-project benefits attainment for each project, and facilitate the process of tracking/reporting those benefits.

For a more detailed discussion and insight on PPM strategic expectations see Info-Tech’s blueprint, Develop a Project Portfolio Management Strategy.

Decide what successful project intake, approval, prioritization process will look like

1.2.6 Estimated Time: 60 minutes

While assessing your current state, it is important to discuss and determine as a team how success will be defined.

• During this process, it is important to consider tentative timelines for success milestones and to ask the question: what will success look like and when should it occur by?
• Use the below table to help document success factors and timeliness. Follow the lead of our example in row 1.

Review and customize section 1.5, “Process Success Criteria” in Info-Tech’s Project Intake, Approval, and Prioritization SOP Template.

Info-Tech Insight

Establish realistic short-term goals. Even with optimized intake procedures, you may not be able to eliminate underground project economies immediately. Make your initial goals realistic, leaving room for those walk-up requests that may still appear via informal channels.

Prepare to optimize project intake and capture the results in the Intake, Approval, and Prioritization SOP

Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) is the reference document to get all PPM stakeholders on the same page with the new optimized process.

The current state explored and documented in this step will serve as a starting point for each step of the next phase of the blueprint. The next phase will take a deeper dive into each of the three components of Info-Tech’s project intake methodology, so that they can achieve the success criteria you’ve defined in the previous activity.

Info-Tech’s Project Intake, Approval, and Prioritization SOP Template is intended to capture the outcome of your process optimization efforts. This blueprint guides you through numerous activities designed for your core project portfolio management team to customize each section.

To maximize the chances of success, it is important that the team makes a concerted effort to participate. Schedule a series of working sessions over the course of several weeks for your team to work through it – or get through it in one week, with onsite Info-Tech analyst-facilitated workshops.

Download Info-Tech’s Project Intake, Approval, and Prioritization SOP.

Contact your account representative or email Workshops@InfoTech.com for more information.

Case study: PMO develops mature intake and prioritization processes by slowly evolving its capability level

CASE STUDY

Industry: Not-for-Profit

Source: Info-Tech Interview

Challenge

• A PMO for a large not-for-profit benefits provider had relatively high project management maturity, but the enterprise had low PPM maturity.
• There were strong intake processes in place for following up on requests. For small projects, project managers would assist as liaisons to help control scope. For corporate initiates, PMs were assigned to work with a sponsor to define scope and write a charter.

Solution

Prioritization was a challenge. Initially, the organization had ad hoc prioritization practices, but they had developed a scoring criteria to give more formality and direction to the portfolio. However, the activity of formally prioritizing proved to be too time consuming.

Off-the-grid projects were a common problem, with initiatives consuming resources with no portfolio oversight.

Results

After trying “heavy” prioritization, the PMO loosened up the process. PMO staff now go through and quickly rank projects, with two senior managers making the final decisions. They re-prioritize quarterly to have discussions around resource availability and to make sure stakeholders are in tune to what IT is doing on a daily basis. IT has a monthly meeting to go over projects consuming resources and to catch anything that has fallen between the cracks.

"Everything isn't a number one, which is what we were dealing with initially. We went through a formal prioritization period, where we painstakingly scored everything. Now we have evolved: a couple of senior managers have stepped up to make decisions, which was a natural evolution from us being able to assign a formal ranking. Now we are able to prioritize more easily and effectively without having to painstakingly score everything."

– PMO Director, Benefits Provider

If you want additional support, have our analysts guide you through this phase as part of an Info-Tech workshop

Book a workshop with our Info-Tech analysts:

• To accelerate this project, engage your IT team in an Info-Tech workshop with an Info-Tech analyst team.
• Info-Tech analysts will join you and your team onsite at your location or welcome you to Info-Tech’s historic Toronto office to participate in an innovative onsite workshop.
• Contact your account manager (www.infotech.com/account), or email Workshops@InfoTech.com for more information.

The following are sample activities that will be conducted by Info-Tech analysts with your team:

1.1.1-2

Pilot Info-Tech’s Project Value Scorecard-driven prioritization method

Use Info-Tech’s example to prioritize your current project backlog to pilot a project value-driven prioritization, which will be used to guide the entire optimization process.

1.2.1-3

Map out and document current project intake, approval, and prioritization process, and the involved key stakeholders

A table-top planning exercise helps you visualize the current process in place and identify opportunities for optimization.

Phase 2

Build an Optimized Project Intake, Approval, and Prioritization Process

Phase 2 outline

Call 1-888-670-8889 or email GuidedImplementations@InfoTech.com for more information.

Complete these steps on your own, or call us to complete a guided implementation. A guided implementation is a series of 2-3 advisory calls that help you execute each phase of a project. They are included in most advisory memberships.

Step 2.1: Streamline intake to manage stakeholder expectations

This step will walk you through the following activities:

• Perform a deeper retrospective on current project intake process
• Optimize your process to receive project requests
• Revisit the definition of a project for triaging requests
• Optimize your process to triage project requests
• Optimize your process to follow up on project requests

This step involves the following participants:

• PMO Director / Portfolio Manager
• Project Managers
• Business Analysts
• PMO Administrative Staff

Outcomes of this Step

• Retrospective of the current project intake process: to continue doing, to start doing, and to stop doing
• A streamlined, single-funnel intake channel with the right procedural friction to receive project requests
• A refined definition of what constitutes a project, and project levels that will determine the necessary standard of rigor with which project requests should be scoped and developed into a proposal throughout the process
• An optimized process for triaging and following up on project requests to prepare them for the steps of project approval
• Documentation of the optimized process in the SOP document

Understand the risks of poor intake practices

Too much red tape could result in your portfolio falling victim to underground economies. Too little intake formality could lead to the Wild West.

Off-the-grid projects, i.e. projects that circumvent formal intake processes, lead to underground economies that can deplete resource capacity and hijack your portfolio.

These underground economies are typically the result of too much intake red tape. When the request process is made too complex or cumbersome, project sponsors may unsurprisingly seek alternative means to get their projects done.

While the most obvious line of defence against the appearance of underground economies is an easy-to-use and access request form, one must be cautious. Too little intake formality could lead to a Wild West of project intake where everyone gets their initiatives approved regardless of their business merit and feasibility.

Info-Tech Insight

Intake is intimately bound to stakeholder management. Finding the right balance of friction for your team is the key to successfully walking the line between asking for too much and not asking for enough. If your intake process is strong, stakeholders will no longer have any reason to circumvent formal process.

An excess number of intake channels is the telltale sign of a low capability level for intake

Excess intake channels are also a symptom of a portfolio in turmoil.

If you relate to the graphic below in any way, your first priority needs to be limiting the means by which projects get requested. A single, centralized channel with review and approval done in batches is the goal. Otherwise, with IT’s limited capacity, most requests will simply get added to the backlog.

Info-Tech Insight

The PMO needs to have the authority – and needs to exercise the authority – to enforce discipline on stakeholders. Organizations that solicit in verbal requests (by phone, in person, or during scrum) lack the orderliness required for PPM success. In these cases, it needs to be the mission of the PMO to demand proper documentation and accountability from stakeholders before proceeding with requests.

"The golden rule for the project documentation is that if anything during the project life cycle is not documented, it is the same as if it does not exist or never happened…since management or clients will never remember their undocumented requests or their consent to do something."

– Dan Epstein, “Project Initiation Process: Part Two”

Develop an intake workflow

Info-Tech recommends following a four-step process for managing intake.

1. Requestor fills out form and submits the request.

Project Request Form Templates

2. Requests are triaged into the proper queue.

1. Divert non-project request
2. Quickly assess value and urgency
3. Assign specialist to follow up on request
4. Inform the requestor

Project Intake Classification Matrix

3. BA or PM prepares to develop requests into a project proposal.

1. Follow up with requestor and SMEs to refine project scope, benefits, and risks
2. Estimate size of project and determine the required level of detail for proposal
3. Prepare for concept approval

Benefits Commitment Form Template

4. Requestor is given realistic expectations for approval process.

Perform a start-stop-continue exercise to help determine what is working and what is not working

2.1.1 Estimated Time: 45 minutes

Optimizing project intake may not require a complete overhaul of your existing processes. You may only need to tweak certain templates or policies. Perhaps you started out with a strong process and simply lost resolve over time – in which case you will need to focus on establishing motivation and discipline, rather than rework your entire process.

Perform a start-stop-continue exercise with your team to help determine what should be salvaged, what should be abandoned, and what should be introduced:

INPUT

• Current project intake workflow (Activity 1.2.2)
• Project intake success criteria (Activity 1.2.6)

OUTPUT

• Retrospective review of current intake process

Materials

• Whiteboard
• Sticky notes/markers

Participants

• PMO Director/ Portfolio Manager
• Project Managers
• Business Analysts
• PMO Admin Staff

Streamline project requests into a single funnel

It is important to identify all of the ways through which projects currently get requested and initiated, especially if you have various streams of intake competing with each other for resources and a place in the portfolio. Directing multiple channels into a single, centralized funnel is step number one in optimizing intake.

To help you identify project sources within your organization, we’ve broken project requests into three archetypes: the good, the bad, and the ugly.

1. The Good – Proper Requests: written formal requests that come in through one appropriate channel.

The Bad – Walk-Ups: requests that do not follow the appropriate intake channel(s), but nevertheless make an effort to get into the proper queue. The most common instance of this is a portfolio manager or CIO filling out the proper project request form on behalf of, and under direction from, a senior executive.

The Ugly – Guerilla Tactics: initiatives that make their way into the portfolio through informal methods or that consume portfolio resources without formal approval, authority, or oversight. This typically involves a key resource getting ambushed to work on a stakeholder’s “side project” without any formal approval from, or knowledge of, the PMO.

Funnel requests through a single portal to streamline intake

Decide how you would funnel project requests on a single portal for submitting project requests. Determining the right portal for your organization will depend on your current infrastructure options, as well as your current and target state capability levels.

Below are examples of a platform for your project request portal.

Increasing intake capability and infrastructure availability

Introduce the right amount of friction into your intake process

The key to an effective intake process is determining the right amount of friction to include for your organization. In this context, friction comes from the level of granularity within your project request form and the demands or level of accountability your intake processes place on requestors. You will want to have more or less friction on your intake form, depending on your current intake pain points.

If you are inundated with a high volume of requests:

• Make your intake form more detailed to deter “half-baked” requests.
• Have more managerial oversight into the process. Require approval for each request.

If you want to encourage the use of a formal channel:

• Make your intake form more concise and lightweight.
• Have less managerial oversight into the process. Inform managers of each request rather than requiring approval.

Download Info-Tech’s Detailed Project Request Form.

Download Info-Tech’s Light Project Request Form.

Info-Tech Insight

Optimizing a process should not automatically mean reducing friction. Blindly reducing friction could generate a tidal wave of poorly thought-out requests, which only drives up unrealistic expectations. Mitigate the risk of unrealistic stakeholder expectations by carefully managing the message: optimize friction.

Document your process to receive project requests

2.1.2 Estimated Time: 30-60 minutes

Review and customize section 2.2, “Receive project requests” in Info-Tech’s Project Intake, Approval, and Prioritization SOP Template.

The goal of optimizing this process is to consolidate multiple intake channels into a single funnel with the right amount of friction to improve visibility and manageability of incoming project requests.

The important decisions to document for this step include:

1. What data will be collected, and from whom? For example, Info-Tech’s Light Project Request Form Template will be used to collect project requests from everyone.
2. How will requests be collected, and from where? For example, the template will be available as a fillable form on a SharePoint site.
3. Who will be informed of the requests? For example, the PMO Director and the BA team will be notified with a hyperlink to the completed request form.
4. Who will handle exceptions? For example, PMO will maintain this process and will handle any questions or issues that pertain to this part of the process.

INPUT

• Retrospective of current process (Activity 2.1.1)

OUTPUT

• Customized Project Request Form
• Method of implementation

Materials

• Project Request Form Templates

Participants

• PMO Director/ Portfolio Manager
• Business Analysts

Info-Tech Best Practice

Whatever method of request collection you choose, ensure there is no doubt about how requesters can access the intake form.

Establish a triage process to improve portfolio success

Once a request has been submitted, it will need to be triaged. Triage begins as soon as the request is received. The end goal of the triage process is to set appropriate expectations for stakeholders and to ensure that all requests going forward for approval are valid requests.

PPM Triage Process

1. Divert non-project requests by validating that what is described on the request form qualifies as a “project.” Make sure requests are in the appropriate queue – for example, service desk request queue, change and release management queue, etc.
2. Quickly assess value and urgency to determine whether the request requires fast-tracking or any other special consideration.
3. Assign a specialist to follow up on the request. Match the request to the most suitable BA, PM, or equivalent. This person will become the Request Liaison (“RL”) for the request and will work with the requestor to define preliminary requirements.
4. Inform the requestor that the request has been received and provide clear direction on what will happen with the request next, such as who will follow up on it and when. See the next slide for some examples of this follow-up.

The PMO Triage Team

• Portfolio Manager, or equivalent
• Request Liaisons (business analysts, project managers, or equivalent)

“Request Liaison” Role

The BAs and PMs who follow up on requests play an especially important role in the triage process. They serve as the main point of contact to the requestor as the request evolves into a business case. In this capacity they perform a valuable stakeholder management function, helping to increase confidence and enhance trust in IT.

To properly triage project requests, define exactly what a project is

Bring color to the grey area that can exist in IT between those initiatives that fall somewhere in between “clearly a service ticket” and “clearly a project.”

What constitutes a project?

Another way of asking this question that gets more to the point for this blueprint – for what types of initiatives is project intake, approval, and prioritization rigor required?

This is especially true in IT where, for some smaller initiatives, there can be uncertainty in many organizations during the intake and initiation phase about what should be included on the formal project list and what should go to help desk’s queue.

As the definitions in the table below show, formal project management frameworks each have similar definitions of “a project.”

For each, a project is a temporary endeavor planned around producing a specific organizational/business outcome. The challenge of those small initiatives in IT is knowing when those endeavors require a business case, formal resource tracking, and project management rigor, and when they don’t.

Separating small projects from non-projects requires a consideration of approval rights

While conventional wisdom says to base your project definition on an estimation of cost, risk, etc., you also need to ask, “does this initiative require formal approval?”

In the next step, we will define a suggested minimum threshold for a small “level 1” project. While these level thresholds are good and necessary for a number of reasons – including triaging your project requests – you may still often need to exercise some critical judgment in separating the tickets from the projects. In addition to the level criteria that we will develop in this step, use the checklist below to help with your differentiating.

Info-Tech Insight

Guard the value of the portfolio. Because tickets carry with them an implicit approval, you need to be wary at the portfolio level of those that might possess a larger scope than their status of ticket implies. Sponsors that, for whatever reason, resist the formal intake process may use the ticketing process to sneak projects in through the backdoor. When assessing tickets and small projects at the portfolio level, you need to ask: is it possible that someone at an executive level might want to get updates on this because of its duration, scope, risk, cost, etc.? Could someone at the management level get upset that the initiative came in as a ticket and is burning up time and driving costs without any visibility?

Sample Project/Non-Project Separation Criteria

"If you worked for the help desk, over time you would begin to master your job since there is a certain rhythm and pattern to the work…On the other hand, projects are unique. This characteristic makes them hard to estimate and hard to manage. Even if the project is similar to one you have done before, new events and circumstances will occur. Each project typically holds its own challenges and opportunities"

– Jeffrey and Thomas Mochal

Define the minimum-threshold criteria for small projects

2.1.3 Estimated Time: 30 minutes

Follow the steps below to define the specifics of a “level 1” project for your organization.

1. Using your project list and/or ticketing system, identify a handful of small projects, large service desk tickets, and especially those items that fall somewhere in the grey area in between (anywhere between 10 to 20 of each). Then, determine the organizationally appropriate considerations for defining your project levels. Options include:

• Duration
• Budget/Cost
• Technology requirements
• Customer involvement
• Integration
• Organizational impact
• Complexity
• Number of cross-functional workgroups and teams involved

INPUT

• Data concerning small projects and service desk tickets, including size, duration, etc.

OUTPUT

• Clarity around how to define your level 1 projects

Materials

• Whiteboard

Participants

• PMO Director/ Portfolio Manager
• Project Managers
• Business Analysts

Remove room for stakeholder doubt and confusion by informing requests forward in a timely manner

During triaging, requestors should be notified as quickly as possible (a) that their request has been received and (b) what to expect next for the request. Make this forum as productive and informative as possible, providing clear direction and structure for the future of the request. Be sure to include the following:

• A request ID or ticket number.
• Some direction on who will be following up on the request –provide an individual’s name when possible.
• An estimated timeframe of when they can expect to hear from the individual following up.

The logistic of this follow-up will depend on a number of different factors.

• The number of requests you receive.
• Your ability to automate the responses.
• The amount of detail you would like to, or need to, provide stakeholders with.

Info-Tech Best Practice

Assign an official request number or project ID to all requests during this initial response. An official request number anchors the request to a specific and traceable dataset that will accompany the project throughout its lifecycle.

Sample “request received” emails

If you receive a high volume of requests or need a quick win for improving stakeholder relations:

Sample #1: Less detailed, automatic response

Hello Emma,

Thank you. Your project request has been received. Requests are reviewed and assigned every Monday. A business analyst will follow up with you in the next 5-10 business days. Should you have any questions in the meantime, please reply to this email.

Best regards,

Information Technology Services

If stakeholder management is a priority, and you want to emphasize the customer-facing focus:

Sample #2: More detailed, tailored response

Hi Darren,

Your project request has been received and reviewed. Your project ID number is #556. Business analyst Alpertti Attar has been assigned to follow up on your request. You can expect to hear from him in the next 5-10 business days to set up a meeting for preliminary requirements gathering.

If you have any questions in the meantime, please contact Alpertti at aattar@projectco.com. Please include the Project ID provided in this email in all future correspondences regarding this request.

Thank you for your request. We look forward to helping you bring this initiative to fruition.

Sincerely,

Jim Fraser

PMO Director, Information Technology Services

Info-Tech Insight

A simple request response will go a long way in terms of stakeholder management. It will not only help assure stakeholders that their requests are in progress but the request confirmation will also help to set expectations and take some of the mystery out of IT’s processes.

Document your process to triage project requests

2.1.4 Estimated Time: 30-60 minutes

Review and customize section 2.3, “Triage project requests” in Info-Tech’s Project Intake, Approval, and Prioritization SOP Template.

The goal of optimizing this process is to divert non-project requests and set an appropriate initial set of stakeholder expectations for next steps. The important decisions to document for this step include:

1. What defines a project? Record the outcomes of Activities 2.1.3 into the SOP.
2. Who triages the requests and assign request liaisons? Who are they? For example, a lead BA can assign a set roster of BAs to project requests.
3. What are the steps to follow for sending the initial response? See the previous slides on automated responses vs. detailed, tailored responses.
4. How will you account for the consumption of resource capacity? For example, impose a maximum of four hours per week per analyst, and track the hours worked for each request to establish a pattern for capacity consumption.
5. Who will handle exceptions? For example, PMO will maintain this process and will handle any questions or issues that pertain to this part of the process.

INPUT

• Results of activity 2.1.3

OUTPUT

• SOP for triaging project requests

Materials

• SOP Template

Participants

• PMO Director/ Portfolio Manager
• Business Analysts

Info-Tech Best Practice

Whatever method of request collection you choose, ensure there is no doubt about how requesters can access the intake form.

Follow up on requests to define project scope and set realistic expectations

The purpose of this follow-up is to foster communication among the requestor, IT, and the sponsor to scope the project at a high level. The follow-up should:

• Clarify the goals and value of the request.
• Begin to manage expectations based on initial assessment of feasibility.
• Ensure the right information is available for evaluating project proposals downstream. Every project should have the below key pieces of scope defined before any further commitments are made.

Focus on Defining Key Pieces of Scope

• Budget (funding, source)
• Business outcome
• Completion criteria
• Timeframes (start date and duration)
• Milestones/deliverables

Structure the Follow-Up Process to Enhance Alignment Between IT and the Business

Once a Request Liaison (RL) has been assigned to a request, it is their responsibility to schedule time (if necessary) with the requestor to perform a scoping exercise that will help define preliminary requirements. Ideally, this follow-up should occur no later than a week of the initial request.

Structure the follow-up for each request based on your preliminary estimates of project size (next slide). Use the “Key Pieces of Scope” to the left as a guide.

It may also be helpful for RLs and stakeholders to work together to produce a rough diagram or mock-up of the final deliverable. This will ensure that the stakeholder’s idea has been properly communicated, and it could also help refine or broaden this idea based on IT’s capabilities.

After the scoping exercise, it is the RL’s responsibility to inform the requestor of next steps.

Info-Tech Insight

More time spent with stakeholders defining high-level requirements during the ideation phase is key to project success. It will not only improve the throughput of projects, but it will enhance the transparency of IT’s capacity and enable IT to more effectively support business processes.

Perform a preliminary estimation of project size

Project estimation is a common pain point felt by many organizations. At this stage, a range-of-magnitude (ROM) estimate is sufficient for the purposes of sizing the effort required for developing project proposals with appropriate detail.

A way to structure ROM estimates is to define a set of standard project levels. It will help you estimate 80% of projects with sufficient accuracy over time with little effort. The remaining 20% of projects that don’t meet their standard target dates can be managed as exceptions.

The increased consistency of most projects will enable you to focus more on managing the exceptions.

Example of standard project sizes:

* Target completion date is simply that – a target, not a service level agreement (SLA). Some exceptions will far exceed the target date, e.g. projects that depend heavily on external or uncontrollable factors.

Info-Tech Best Practice

Project levelling is useful for right-sizing many downstream processes; it sets appropriate levels of detail and scrutiny expected for project approval and prioritization steps, as well as the appropriate extent of requirements gathering, project management, and reporting requirements afterwards.

Set your thresholds for level 2 and level 3 projects

2.1.5 Estimated Time: 30 minutes

Now that the minimum threshold for your smallest projects has been identified, it’s time to identify the maximum threshold in order to better apply project intake, approval, and prioritization rigor where it’s needed.

1. Looking at your project list (e.g. Activity 1.1.1, or your current project backlog), isolate the medium and large projects. Examine the two categories in turn.
2. Start with the medium projects. Using the criteria identified in Activity 2.1.3, identify where your level one category ends.

• What are the commonly recurring thresholds that distinguish medium-sized projects from smaller initiatives?
• Are there any criteria that would need to take on a greater importance when making the distinction? For instance, will cost or duration take on a greater weighting when determining level thresholds?
• Once you have reached consensus, record these in the table on the next slide.

• What are the commonly recurring thresholds that distinguish large and extra-large projects from medium-sized initiatives?
• Once you have reached consensus, records these in the table on the next slide.

INPUT

• Leveling criteria from Activity 2.1.3
• Project backlog, or list of projects from Activity 1.1.1

OUTPUT

• Clarity around how to define your level two and three projects

Materials

• Whiteboard
• The project level table on the next slide

Participants

• PMO Director/ Portfolio Manager
• Project Managers
• Business Analysts
• PMO Admin Staff

Sample Project Levels Table

Apply a computation decision-making method for project levelling

2.1.5 Project Intake Classification Matrix

Capture the project levels in Info-Tech’s Project Intake Classification Matrix Tool to benchmark your levelling criteria and to determine project levels for proposed projects.

Download Info-Tech’s Project Intake Classification Matrix tool.

1. Pick a category to define project levels.
2. Enter the descriptions for each project level.
3. Assign a relative weight for each category.

4. Enter a project name.
5. Choose the description that best fits the project. If unknown, leave it blank.
6. Suggested project levels are displayed.

Get tentative buy-in and support from an executive sponsor for project requests

In most organizations a project requires sponsorship from the executive layer, especially for strategic initiatives. The executive sponsor provides several vital factors for projects:

• Funding and resources
• Direct support and oversight of the project leadership
• Accountability, acting as the ultimate decision maker for the project
• Ownership of, and commitment to, project benefits

Sometimes a project request may be made directly by a sponsor; in other times, the Request Liaison may need to connect the project request to a project sponsor.

In either case, project request has a tentative buy-in and support of an executive sponsor before a project request is developed into a proposal and examined for approval – the subject of this blueprint’s next step.

PMs and Sponsors: The Disconnect

A study in project sponsorship revealed a large gap between the perception of the project managers and the perception of sponsors relative to the sponsor capability. The widest gaps appear in the areas of:

• Motivation: 34% of PMs say sponsors frequently motivate the team, compared to 82% of executive sponsors who say they do so.
• Active listening: 42% of PMs say that sponsors frequently listen actively, compared to 88% of executive sponsors who say they do so.
• Effective communication: 47% of PMs say sponsors communicate effectively and frequently, compared to 92% of executive sponsors who say they do so.
• Managing change: 37% of PMs say sponsors manage change, compared to 82% of executive sponsors who say they do so.

Source: Boston Consulting Group/PMI, 2014

Actively engaged executive sponsors continue to be the top driver of whether projects meet their original goals and business intent.

– PMI Pulse of the Profession, 2017

76% of respondents [organizations] agree that the role of the executive sponsor has grown in importance over the past five years.

– Boston Consulting Group/PMI, 2014

Document your process to follow up on project requests

2.1.6 45 minutes

Review and customize section 2.4, “Follow up on project requests” in Info-Tech’s Project Intake, Approval, and Prioritization SOP Template.

The goal of optimizing this process is to initiate communication among the requestor, IT, and the sponsor to scope the project requests at a high level. The important decisions to document for this step include:

1. How will you perform a scoping exercise with the requestor? Leverage existing organizational processes (e.g. high-level requirements gathering). Look to the previous slides for suggested outcomes of the exercise.
2. How will you determine project levels? Record the outcomes of activities 2.1.5 into the SOP.
3. How will the RL follow up on the scoped project request with a project sponsor? For example, project requests scoped at a high level will be presented to senior leadership whose lines of business are affected by the proposed project to gauge their initial interest.
4. How will you account for the consumption of resource capacity? For example, impose a maximum of 8 hours per week per analyst, and track the hours worked for each request to establish a pattern for capacity consumption.
5. Who will handle exceptions? For example, PMO will maintain this process and will handle any questions or issues that pertain to this part of the process.

INPUT

• Activity 2.1.5
• Existing processes for scoping exercises

OUTPUT

• SOP for following up on project requests

Materials

• SOP Template

Participants

• PMO Director/ Portfolio Manager
• Project Managers
• Business Analysts
• PMO Admin Staff

Examine the new project intake workflow as a whole and document it in a flow chart

2.1.7 Estimated Time: 30-60 minutes

Review and customize section 2.1, “Project Intake Workflow” in Info-Tech’s Project Intake, Approval, and Prioritization SOP Template.

In Step 1.2 of the blueprint, you mapped out the current project intake, approval, and prioritization workflow and documented it in a flow chart. In this step, take the time to examine the new project intake process as a whole, and document the new workflow in the form of a flow chart.

1. Requestor fills out form and submits the request.
2. Requests are triaged into the proper queue.
3. BA or PM prepares to develop requests into a project proposal.
4. Requestor is given realistic expectations for approval process.

Consider the following points:

1. Are the inputs and outputs of each step clear? Who’s doing the work? How long will each step take, on average?
2. Is the ownership of each step clear? How will we ensure a smooth handoff between each step and prevent requests from falling through the cracks?

INPUT

• New process steps for project intake (Activities 2.1.2-6)

OUTPUT

• Flowchart representation of new project intake workflow

Materials

• Microsoft Visio, flowchart software, or Microsoft PowerPoint

Participants

• PMO Director/ Portfolio Manager
• Project Managers
• Business Analysts
• PMO Admin Staff

Case study: Portfolio manager achieves intake and project success through detailed request follow-up

Case Study

Industry: Municipal Government

Source: Info-Tech Client

Challenge

• There is an IT department with a relatively high level of project management maturity.
• They have approximately 30 projects on the go, ranging from small to large.
• To help with intake, IT assembled a project initiation team. It was made up of managers from throughout the county. This group “owned the talent” and met once a month to assess requests. As a group, they were able to assemble project teams quickly.

Solution

• Project initiation processes kept failing. A lot of time was spent within IT getting estimations precise, only to have sponsors reject business cases because they did not align with what those sponsors had in mind.
• Off-the-grid projects were a challenge. Directors did not follow intake process and IT talent was torn in multiple directions. There was nothing in place for protecting the talent and enforcing processes on stakeholders.

Results

• IT dedicated a group of PMs and BAs to follow up on requests.
• Working with stakeholders, this group collects specific pieces of information that allows IT to get to work on requests faster. Through this process, requests reach the charter stage more quickly and with greater success.
• An intake ticketing system was established to protect IT talent. Workers are now better equipped to redirect stakeholders through to the proper channels.

Step 2.2: Set up steps of project approval to maximize strategic alignment while right-sizing the required effort

This step will walk you through the following activities:

• Perform a deeper retrospective on current project approval process
• Define the approval steps, their accountabilities, and the corresponding terminologies for approval
• Right-size effort and documentation required for each project level through the approval steps

This step involves the following participants:

• PMO Director / Portfolio Manager
• Project Managers
• Business Analysts
• PMO Administrative Staff

Outcomes of this step

• Retrospective of the current project intake process: to continue doing, to start doing, and to stop doing
• A series of approval steps are defined, in which their accountabilities, responsibilities, and the nomenclature for what is approved at each steps are clarified and documented
• A toolbox of deliverables for proposed projects that captures key information developed to inform project approval decisions at each step of the approval process, and the organizational standard for what to use for which project level
• Documentation of the optimized process in the SOP document

Set up an incremental series of approval stage-gates to tackle common challenges in project approval

This section will help you address key challenges IT leaders face around project approval.

Develop a project approval workflow

Clearly define a series of approval steps, and communicate requirements for passing them. “Approval” can be a dangerous word in project and portfolio management, so it is important to clarify what is required to pass each step, and how long the process will take.

Identify the decision-making paradigm at each step

In general, there are three different, mutually exclusive decision-making paradigms for approving projects:

Info-Tech Insight

The individual or party who has the authority to make choices, and who is ultimately answerable for those decisions, is said to be accountable. Understanding the needs of the accountable party is critical to the success of the project approval process optimization efforts.

Perform a start-stop-continue exercise to help determine what is working and what is not working

2.2.1 Estimated Time: 45 minutes

Optimizing project approval may not require a complete overhaul of your existing processes. You may only need to tweak certain templates or policies. Perhaps you started out with a strong process and simply lost resolve over time – in which case you will need to focus on establishing motivation and discipline, rather than rework your entire process.

Perform a start-stop-continue exercise with your team to help determine what should be salvaged, what should be abandoned, and what should be introduced:

INPUT

• Current project approval workflow (Activity 1.2.2)
• Project approval success criteria (Activity 1.2.6)

OUTPUT

• Retrospective review of current approval process

Materials

• Whiteboard
• Sticky notes/markers

Participants

• PMO Director/ Portfolio Manager
• Project Managers
• Business Analysts
• PMO Admin Staff

Customize the approval steps and describe them at a high level

2.2.2 Estimated Time: 30-60 minutes

Review and customize section 3.2, “Project Approval Steps” in Info-Tech’s Project Intake, Approval, and Prioritization SOP Template.

The goal of this activity is to customize the definition of the approval steps for your organization, so that it makes sense for the existing organizational governance structure, culture, and need. Use the results of the start-stop-continue to inform what to customize. Consider the following factors:

1. Order of steps: given the current decision-making paradigm, does it make sense to reorder the steps?
2. Dispositions at each step: what are the possible dispositions, and who is accountable for making the dispositions?
3. Project levels: do all projects require three-step approval before they’re up for prioritization? For example, IT steering committee may wish to be involved only for Level 3 projects and Level 2 projects with significant business impact, and not for Level 1 projects and IT-centric Level 2 projects.
4. Accountability at each step: who makes the decisions?
5. Who will handle exceptions? Aim to prevent the new process from being circumvented by vocal stakeholders, but also allow for very urgent requests. A quick win to strike this balance is to clarify who will exercise this discretion.

INPUT

• Retrospective of current process (Activity 2.2.1)
• Project level definition
• Approval steps in the previous slide

OUTPUT

• Customized project approval steps for each project level

Materials

• Whiteboard

Participants

• PMO Director/ Portfolio Manager
• Project Managers
• Business Analysts
• PMO Admin Staff

Specify what “approval” really means to manage expectations for what project work can be done and when

2.2.3 Estimated Time: 15 minutes

Review and customize section 3.2, “Project Approval Steps” in Info-Tech’s Project Intake, Approval, and Prioritization SOP Template.

In the old reality, projects were approved and never heard back from again, which effectively gave your stakeholders a blanket default expectation of “declined.” With the new approval process, manage your stakeholder expectations more explicitly by refining your vocabulary around approval.

Within this, decision makers should view their role in approval as approving that which can and should be done. When a project is approved and slated to backlog, the intention should be to allocate resources to it within the current intake cycle.

Customize the table to the right with organizationally appropriate definitions, and update your SOP.

Info-Tech Insight

Refine the nomenclature. Add context to “approved” and “declined.” Speak in terms of “not now” or “you can have it when these conditions are met.” With clear expectations of the resources required to support each request, you can place accountability for keeping the request alive back on the sponsors.

Continuously work out a balance between disciplined decision making and “analysis paralysis"

Info-Tech Insight

Estimates that form the basis of business cases are often based on flawed assumptions. Use early project phases or sprints to build working prototypes to test the assumptions on which business cases are built, rather than investing time improving precision of estimates without improving accuracy.

Right-size project approval process with Info-Tech’s toolbox of deliverables

Don’t paint every project with the same brush. Choose the right set of information needed for each project level to maximize the throughput of project approval process.

The next several slides will take you through a series of tools and templates that help guide the production of deliverables. Each deliverable wireframes the required analysis of the proposed project for one step of the approval process, and captures that information in a document. This breaks down the overall work for proposal development into digestible chunks.

As previously discussed, aim to right-size the approval process rigor for project levels. Not all project levels may call for all steps of approval, or the extent of required analysis within an approval step may differ. This section will conclude by customizing the requirement for deliverables for each project level.

Tools and Templates for the Project Approval Toolbox

• Benefits Commitment Form Template (.xlsx) Document the project sponsor’s buy-in and commitment to proposed benefits in a lightweight fashion.
• Proposed Technology Assessment Tool (.xlsx) Determine the proposed project’s readiness for adoption from a technological perspective.
• Business Case Templates (.docx) Guide the analysis process for the overall project proposal development in varying levels of detail.

Use Info-Tech’s lightweight Benefits Commitment Form Template to document the sponsor buy-in and support

2.2.4 Benefits Commitment Form Template

Project sponsors are accountable for the realization of project benefits. Therefore, for a project to be approved by a project sponsor, they must buy-in and commit to the proposed benefits.

Defining project benefits and obtaining project sponsor commitment has been demonstrated to improve the project outcome by providing the focal point of the project up-front. This will help reduce wasted efforts to develop parts of the proposals that are not ultimately needed.

Download Info-Tech’s Benefits Commitment Form Template.

Contents of a Benefits Commitment Form

• One-sentence highlight of benefits and risks
• Primary benefit, hard (quantitative) and soft (qualitative)
• Proposed measurements for metrics
• Responsible and accountable parties for benefits

For further discussion on benefits realization, use Info-Tech’s blueprint, Establish the Benefits Realization Process.

Use Info-Tech’s Proposed Project Technology Assessment Tool to analyze a technology’s readiness for adoption

2.2.4 Proposed Project Technology Assessment Tool

In some projects, there needs to be an initial idea of what the project might look like. Develop a high-level solution for projects that:

• Are very different from previous projects.
• Are fairly complex, or not business as usual.
• Require adoption of new technology or skill set.

IT should advise and provide subject matter expertise on the technology requirements to those that ultimately approve the proposed projects, so that they can take into account additional costs or risks that may be borne from it.

Info-Tech’s Proposed Project Technology Assessment Tool has a series of questions to address eight categories of considerations to determine the project’s technological readiness for adoption. Use this tool to ensure that you cover all the bases, and help you devise alternate solutions if necessary – which will factor into the overall business case development.

Download Info-Tech’s Proposed Project Technology Assessment Tool.

Enable project valuation beyond financial metrics with Info-Tech’s Business Case Templates

2.2.4 Business Case Template (Comprehensive and Fast Track)

Traditionally, a business case is centered around financial metrics. While monetary benefits and costs are matters of bottom line and important, financial metrics are only part of a project’s value. As the project approval decisions must be based on the holistic comparison of project value, the business case document must capture all the necessary – and only those that are necessary – information to enable it.

However, completeness of information does not always require comprehensiveness. Allow for flexibility to speed up the process of developing business plan by making a “fast-track” business case template available. This enables the application of the project valuation criteria with all other projects, with right-sized effort.

Alarming business case statistics

• Only one-third of companies always prepare a business case for new projects.
• Nearly 45% of project managers admit they are unclear on the business objectives of their IT projects.

(Source: Wrike)

Download Info-Tech’s Comprehensive Business Case Template.

Download Info-Tech’s Fast Track Business Case Template.

Info-Tech Insight

Pass on that which is known. Valuable information about projects is lost due to a disconnect between project intake and project initiation, as project managers are typically not brought on board until project is actually approved. This will be discussed more in Phase 3 of this blueprint.

Document the right-sized effort and documentation required for each project level

2.2.4 Estimated Time:60-90 minutes

Review and customize section 3.3, “Project Proposal Deliverables” in Info-Tech’s Project Intake, Approval, and Prioritization SOP Template.

The goal of this activity is to customize the requirements for project proposal deliverables, so that it properly informs each of the approval steps discussed in the previous activity. The deliverables will also shape the work effort required for projects of various levels. Consider the following factors:

1. Project levels: what deliverables should be required, recommended, or suggested for each of the project levels? How will exceptions be handled, and who will be accountable?
2. Existing project proposal documents: what existing proposal documents, tools and templates can we leverage for the newly optimized approval steps?
3. Skills availability: do these tools and templates represent a significant departure from the current state? If so, is there capacity (time and skill) to achieve the desired target state?
4. How will you account for the consumption of resource capacity? Do a rough order of estimate for the resource capacity consumed the new deliverable standard.
5. Who will handle exceptions? For example, PMO will maintain this process and will handle any questions or issues that pertain to this part of the process.

INPUT

• Process steps (Activity 2.2.2)
• Current approval workflow(Activity 1.2.1)
• Artifacts introduced in the previous slides

OUTPUT

• Requirement for artifacts and effort for each approval step

Materials

• Whiteboard

Participants

• PMO Director/ Portfolio Manager
• Project Managers
• Business Analysts
• PMO Admin Staff

Examine the new project approval workflow as a whole and document it in a flow chart

2.2.5 Estimated Time: 30-60 minutes

Review and customize section 3.1, “Project Approval Workflow” in Info-Tech’s Project Intake, Approval, and Prioritization SOP Template.

In Step 1.2 of the blueprint, you mapped out the current project intake, approval, and prioritization workflow and documented it in a flow chart. In this step, take the time to examine the new project intake process as a whole, and document the new workflow in the form of a flow chart.

Consider the following points:

1. Are the inputs and outputs of each step clear? Who’s doing the work? How long will each step take, on average?
2. Is the ownership of each step clear? How will we ensure a smooth hand-off between each step and prevent requests from falling through the cracks?

INPUT

• New process steps for project approval (Activities 2.2.2-4)

OUTPUT

• Flowchart representation of new project approval workflow

Materials

• Microsoft Visio, flowchart software, or Microsoft PowerPoint

Participants

• PMO Director/ Portfolio Manager
• Project Managers
• Business Analysts
• PMO Admin Staff

Step 2.3: Prioritize projects to maximize the value of the project portfolio within the constraint of resource capacity

This step will walk you through the following activities:

• Perform a deeper retrospective on current project prioritization process
• Optimize your process to maintain resource capacity supply and project demand data
• Optimize your process to formally make disposition recommendations to appropriate decision makers

This step involves the following participants:

• PMO Director / Portfolio Manager
• Project Managers
• Business Analysts
• PMO Administrative Staff

Outcomes of this step

• Retrospective of the current project prioritization process: to continue doing, to start doing, and to stop doing
• Realistic estimate of available resource capacity, in the absence of a resource management practice
• Optimized process for presenting the decision makers with recommendations and facilitating capacity-constrained steering of the project portfolio
• Project Intake and Prioritization Tool for facilitating the prioritization process
• Documentation of the optimized process in the SOP document

The availability of staff time is rarely factored into IT project and service delivery commitments

A lot gets promised and worked on, and staff are always busy, but very little actually gets done – at least not within given timelines or to expected levels of quality.

Organizations tend to bite off more than they can chew when it comes to project and service delivery commitments involving IT resources.

While the need for businesses to make an excess of IT commitments is understandable, the impacts of systemically over-allocating IT are clearly negative:

• Stakeholder relations suffer. Promises are made to the business that can’t be met by IT.
• IT delivery suffers. Project timelines and quality frequently suffer, and service support regularly lags.
• Employee engagement suffers. Anxiety and stress levels are consistently high among IT staff, while morale and engagement levels are low.

76%: 76% of organizations say they have too many projects on the go and an unmanageable and ever-growing backlog of things to get to.

– Cooper, 2014

70%: Almost 70% of workers feel as though they have too much work on their plates and not enough time to do it.

– Reynolds, 2016

Unconstrained, unmanaged demand leads to prioritization of work based on consequences rather than value

Problems caused by the organizational tendency to make unrealistic delivery commitments is further complicated by the reality of the matrix environment.

Today, many IT departments use matrix organization. In this system, demands on a resource’s time come from many directions. While resources are expected to prioritize their work, they lack the authority to formally reject any demand. As a result, unconstrained, unmanaged demand frequently outstrips the supply of work-hours the resource can deliver.

When this happens, the resource has three options:

1. Work more hours, typically without compensation.
2. Choose tasks not to do in a way that minimizes personal consequences.
3. Diminish work quality to meet quantity demands.

The result is an unsustainable system for all those involved:

1. Individual workers cannot meet expectations, leading to frustration and disengagement.
2. Managers cannot deliver on the projects or services they manage and struggle to retain skilled resources who are looking elsewhere for “greener pastures.”
3. Executives cannot execute strategic plans as they lose decision-making power over their resources.

Prioritize project demand by project value to get the most out of constrained project capacity – but practicing it is difficult

The theory may be simple and intuitive, but the practice is extremely challenging. There are three practical challenges to making project prioritization effective.

Unclear definition of value

In Step 1.1 of the blueprint, we took the first step toward resolving this challenge by prototyping a project valuation scorecard.

"Prioritization is a huge issue for us. We face the simultaneous challenges of not having enough resources but also not having a good way to say no. "

– CIO, governmental health agency

Address the challenges of capacity awareness and authority with a project prioritization workflow

Info-Tech recommends following a four-step process for managing project prioritization.

1. Collect and update supply and demand data
1. Re-evaluate project value for all proposed, on-hold and ongoing projects
2. Estimate available resource capacity for projects
2. Prioritize project demand by value
1. Identify highest-value, “slam-dunk” projects
2. Identify medium-value, “on-the-bubble” projects
3. Identify lower-value projects that lie beyond the available capacity
3. Approve projects for initiation or continuation
1. Submit recommendations for review
2. Adjust prioritized list with business judgment
3. Steering committee approves projects to work on
4. Manage a realistically defined project portfolio

• Stakeholder Need
• Strategic Objectives
• Resource Capacity

Intake and Prioritization Tool

Perform a start-stop-continue exercise to help determine what is working and what is not working

2.3.1 Estimated Time: 60 minutes

Optimizing project prioritization may not require a complete overhaul of your existing processes. You may only need to tweak certain templates or policies. Perhaps you started out with a strong process and simply lost resolve over time – in which case you will need to focus on establishing motivation and discipline, rather than rework your entire process.

Perform a start-stop-continue exercise with your team to help determine what should be salvaged, what should be abandoned, and what should be introduced:

INPUT

• Current project prioritization workflow (Activity 1.2.2)
• Project prioritization success criteria (Activity 1.2.6)

OUTPUT

• Retrospective review of current prioritization process

Materials

• Whiteboard
• Sticky notes/markers

Participants

• PMO Director/ Portfolio Manager
• Project Managers
• Business Analysts
• PMO Admin Staff

Use Info-Tech’s lightweight Intake and Prioritization Tool to get started on capacity-constrained project prioritization

Use Info-Tech’s Project Intake and Prioritization Tool to facilitate the scorecard-driven prioritization and ensure effective flow of data.

This tool builds on the Project Valuation Scorecard Tool to address the challenges in project prioritization:

1. Lack of capacity awareness: quickly estimate a realistic supply of available work hours for projects for a given prioritization period, in the absence of a reliable and well-maintained resource utilization and capacity data.

Using standard project sizing, quickly estimate the size of the demand for proposed and ongoing projects and produce a report that recommends the list of projects to greenlight – and highlight the projects within that list that are at risk of being short-charged of resources – that will aim to help you tackle:

2. Lack of authority to say “no” or “not yet” to projects: save time and effort in presenting the results of project prioritization analysis that will enable the decision makers to make well-informed, high-quality portfolio decisions.

The next several slides will walk you through the tool and present activities to facilitate its use for your organization.

Download Info-Tech’s Project Intake and Prioritization Tool.

Create a high-level estimate of available project capacity to inform how many projects can be greenlighted

2.3.2 Project Intake and Prioritization Tool, Tab 2: Project Capacity

Estimate how many work-hours are at your disposal for projects using Info-Tech’s resource calculator.

1. Compile a list of each role within your department, the number of staff, and the hours in a typical work week.

2. Enter the foreseeable out-of-office time (vacation, sick time, etc.). Typically, this value is 12-16% depending on the region.

3. Enter how much working time is spent on non-projects for each role: administrative duties and “keep the lights on” work.

4. Select a period of time for breaking down available resource capacity in hours.

Project Work (%): Percentage of your working time that goes toward project work is calculated as what’s left after your non-project working time allocations have been subtracted.

Project (h) Total Percentage: Take a note of this percentage as your project capacity. This number will put the estimated project demand in context for the rest of the tool.

Example for a five-day work week:

• 2 weeks (10 days) of statutory holidays
• 3 weeks of vacation
• 1.4 weeks (7 days) of sick days on average
• 1 week (5 days) for company holidays

Result: 7.4/52 weeks’ absence = 14%

Estimate your available project capacity for the next quarter, half-year, or year

2.3.2 Estimated Time: 30 minutes

Discover how many work-hours are at your disposal for project work.

1. Use the wisdom-of-the-crowd approach or resource utilization data to fill out Tab 2 of the tool. This is intended to be somewhat of a rough estimate; avoid the pitfall of being too granular in role or in time split.
2. Choose a time period that corresponds to your project prioritization period: monthly, quarterly, 4 months, semi-annually (6 months), or annually.
3. Examine the pie graph representation of your overall capacity breakdown, like the one shown below.

INPUT

• Knowledge of organization’s personnel and their distribution of time

OUTPUT

• Estimate of available project capacity

Materials

• Project Intake and Prioritization Tool

Participants

• PMO Director/ Portfolio Manager
• Project Managers
• Business Analysts
• PMO Admin Staff

On average, only about half of the available project capacity results in productive project work

Place realistic expectations on your resources’ productivity.

Info-Tech’s PPM Current State Scorecard diagnostic provides a comprehensive view of your portfolio management strengths and weaknesses, including project portfolio management, project management, customer management, and resource utilization.

Use the wisdom of the crowd to estimate resource waste in:

• Cancelled projects
• Inefficiency
• Suboptimal assignment of resources
• Unassigned resources

Analyzing, fixing, and redeploying

50% of PPM resource is wasted on average, effectively halving your available project capacity.

Source: Info-Tech PPM Current State Scorecard

Define project capacity and project t-shirt sizes

2.3.3 Project Intake and Prioritization Tool, Tab 3: Settings

The resource capacity calculator in the previous tab yields a likely optimistic estimate for how much project capacity is available. Based on this estimate as a guide, enter your optimistic (maximum) and pessimistic (minimum) estimates of project capacity as a percentage of total capacity:

Info-Tech’s data shows that only about 50% of time spent on project work is wasted: cancelled projects, inefficiency, rework, etc. As a general rule, enter half of your maximum estimate of your project capacity.

Capacity in work hours is shown here from the previous tab, to put the percentages in context. This example shows a quarterly breakdown (Step 4 from the previous slide; cell N5 in Tab 2.).

Next, estimate the percentage of your maximum estimated project capacity that a single project would typically consume in the given period for prioritization.

These project sizes might not line up with the standard project levels from Step 2.1 of the blueprint: for example, an urgent mid-sized project that requires all hands on deck may need to consume almost 100% of maximum available project capacity.

Estimate available project capacity and standard project demand sizes for prioritizing project demand

2.3.3 Estimated Time: 30 minutes

Refine your estimates of project capacity supply and demand as it applies to a prioritization period.

1. The estimated project capacity from Activity 2.3.2 represents a theoretical limit. It is most likely an overestimation (see box below). As a group, discuss and decide on a more realistic available project capacity:
1. Optimistic estimate, assuming sustained peak productivity from everyone in your organization;
2. Pessimistic estimate, taking into account the necessary human downtime and the PPM resource waste (see previous slide).
2. Refine the choices of standard project effort sizes, expressed as percentages of maximum project capacity. As a reminder, this sizing is for the chosen prioritization period, and is independent from the project levels set previously in Activity 2.1.4 and 2.1.5.

Dedicated work needs dedicated break time

In a study conducted by the Draugiem Group, the ideal work-to-break ratio for maximizing focus and productivity was 52 minutes of work, followed by 17 minutes of rest (Evans). This translates to 75% of resource capacity yielding productive work, which could inform your optimistic estimate of project capacity.

INPUT

• Project capacity (Activity 2.3.2)
• PPM Current State Scorecard (optional)

OUTPUT

• Capacity and demand estimate data for tool use

Materials

• Project Intake and Prioritization Tool

Participants

• PMO Director/ Portfolio Manager
• Project Managers
• Business Analysts
• PMO Admin Staff

Finish setting up the Project Intake and Prioritization Tool

2.3.4 Project Intake and Prioritization Tool, Tab 3: Settings

Enter the scoring criteria, which was worked out from Step 1.1 of the blueprint. This workbook supports up to ten scoring criteria; use of more than ten may make the prioritization step unwieldy.

Leave unused criteria rows blank.

Choose “value” or “execution” from a drop-down.

Score does not need to add up to 100.

Finally, set up the rest of the drop-downs used in the next tab, Project Data. These can be customized to fit your unique project portfolio needs.

Enter project data into the Project Intake and Prioritization Tool

2.3.4 Project Intake and Prioritization Tool, Tab 4: Project Data

Ensure that each project has a unique name.

Completed (or cancelled) projects will not be included in prioritization.

Choose the standard project size defined in the previous tab.

Change the heading when you customize the workbook.

Days in Backlog is calculated from the Date Added column.

Overall weighted project prioritization score is calculated as a sum of value and execution scores.

Weighted value and execution scores are calculated according to the scoring criteria table in the 2. Settings tab.

Enter the raw scores. Weights will be taken into calculation behind the scenes.

Spaces for unused intake scores will be greyed out. You can enter data, but they will not affect the calculated scores.

Document your process to maintain resource capacity supply and project demand data

2.3.4 Estimated Time: 30 minutes

Review and customize section 4.2, “Maintain Supply and Demand Data” in Info-Tech’s Project Intake, Approval, and Prioritization SOP Template.

The goal of this activity is to document the process with which the supply and demand information will be updated for projects. Consider the following factors:

1. Estimates of resource supply: how often will the resource supply be updated? How are you estimating the range (maximum vs. minimum, optimistic vs. pessimistic)? Leverage your existing organizational process assets for resource management.
2. Updating project data for proposed projects: when and how often will the project valuation scores be updated? Do you have sufficient inputs? Examine the overall project approval process from Step 2.2 of the blueprint, and ensure that sufficient information is available for project valuation (Activity 2.2.3).
3. Updating project data for ongoing projects: will you prioritize ongoing projects along with proposed projects? When and how often will the project valuation scores be updated? Do you have sufficient inputs?
4. How will you account for the consumption of resource capacity? Do a rough order of estimate for the resource capacity consumed in this process.
5. Who will handle exceptions? For example, PMO will maintain this process and will handle any questions or issues that pertain to this part of the process.

INPUT

• Organizational process assets for resource management, strategic planning, etc.
• Activity 2.3.3
• Activity 2.2.3

OUTPUT

• Process steps for refreshing supply and demand data

Materials

• SOP Template
• Project Intake and Prioritization Tool

Participants

• PMO Director/ Portfolio Manager
• Project Managers
• Business Analysts
• PMO Admin Staff

Prioritized list of projects shows what fits under available project capacity for realizing maximum value

2.3.5 Project Intake and Prioritization Tool, Tab 5: Results

The output of the Project Intake and Prioritization Tool is a prioritized list of projects with indicators to show that their demand on project capacity will fit within the estimated available project capacity for the prioritization period.

Status indicates whether the project is proposed or ongoing; completed projects are excluded.

Disposition indicates the course of recommended action based on prioritization.

Proposed projects display how long they have been sitting in the backlog.

Projects highlighted yellow are marked as “deliberate” for their dispositions. These projects pose risks of not getting properly resourced. One must proceed with caution if they are to be initiated or continued.

Provide better support to decision makers with the prioritized list, and be prepared for their steering

It is the portfolio manager’s responsibility to provide the project portfolio owners with reliable data and enable them to make well-informed decisions for the portfolio.

The prioritized list of proposed and ongoing projects, and an approximate indication for how they fill out the estimated available resource capacity, provide a meaningful starting ground for discussion on which projects to continue or initiate, to hold, or to proceed with caution.

However, it is important to recognize the limitation of the prioritization methodology. There may be legitimate reasons why some projects should be prioritized over another that the project valuation method does not successfully capture. At the end of the day, it’s the prerogative of the portfolio owners who carry on the accountabilities to steer the portfolio.

The portfolio manager has a responsibility to be prepared for reconciling the said steering with the unchanged available resource capacity for project work. What comes off the list of projects to continue or initiate? Or, will we outsource capacity if we must meet irreconcilable demand? The next slide will show how Info-Tech’s tool helps you with this process.

Info-Tech Best Practice

Strive to become the best co-pilot. Constantly iterate on the scoring criteria to better adapt to the portfolio owners’ preference in steering the project portfolio.

Manipulate the prioritized list with the Force Disposition list

2.3.5 Project Intake and Prioritization Tool, Tab 5: Results

The Force Disposition list enables you to inject subjective judgment in project prioritization. Force include and outsource override project prioritization scores and include the projects for approval:

• Force include counts the project demand against capacity.
• Outsource, on the other hand, does not count the project demand.
• Force exclude removes a project from prioritized list altogether, without deleting the row and losing its data.

Choose a project name and a disposition using a drop-down.

Use this list to test out various scenarios, useful for what-if analysis.

Document your process to formally make disposition recommendations to appropriate decision-making party

2.3.5 Estimated Time: 60 minutes

Review and customize section 4.3, “Approve projects for initiation or continuation” in Info-Tech’s Project Intake, Approval, and Prioritization SOP Template.

The goal of this activity is to formalize the process of presenting the prioritized list of projects for review, modify the list based on steering decisions, and obtain the portfolio owners’ approval for projects to initiate or continue, hold, or terminate. Consider the following factors:

1. Existing final approval process: what are the new injections to the current decision-making process for final approval?
2. Meeting prep, agenda, and follow-up: what are the activities that must be carried out by PMO / portfolio manager to support the portfolio decision makers and obtain final approval?
3. “Deliberate” projects: what additional information should portfolio owners be presented with, in order to deliberate on the projects at risk of being not properly resourced? For example, consider a value-execution plot (right).

INPUT

• Approval process steps (Activity 2.2.2)
• Steering Committee process documentation

OUTPUT

• Activities for supporting the decision-making body

Materials

• SOP Template
• Project Intake and Prioritization Tool

Participants

• CIO
• PMO Director/ Portfolio Manager
• Project Managers
• Business Analysts

Once a project is approved, pass that which is known on to those responsible for downstream processes

Aim to be responsible stewards of important and costly information developed throughout project intake, approval, and prioritization processes.

Once the proposed project is given a green light, the project enters an initiation phase.

No matter what project management methodology is employed, it is absolutely vital to pass on the knowledge gained and insights developed through the intake, approval, and prioritization processes. This ensures that the project managers and team are informed of the project’s purpose, business benefits, rationale for the project approval, etc. and be able to focus their efforts in realizing the project’s business goals.

Recognize that this does not aim to create any new artifacts. It is simply a procedural safeguard against the loss of important and costly information assets for your organization.

Information from the intake process directly feeds into, for example, developing a project charter.

Source: PMBOK, 6th edition

"If the project manager can connect strategy to the project they are leading (and therefore the value that the organization desires by sanctioning the project), they can ensure that the project is appropriately planned and managed to realize those benefits."

– Randall T. Black, P.Eng., PMP; source: PMI Today

Examine the new project intake workflow as a whole and document it in a flow chart

2.3.6 Estimated Time: 30-60 minutes

Review and customize section 4.1, “Project Prioritization Workflow” in Info-Tech’s Project Intake, Approval, and Prioritization SOP Template.

In Step 1.2 of the blueprint, you mapped out the current project intake, approval, and prioritization workflow and documented it in a flow chart. In this step, take the time to examine the new project intake process as a whole, and document the new workflow in the form of a flow chart.

1. Collect and update supply and demand data
2. Prioritize project demand by value
3. Approve projects for initiation or continuation
4. Manage a realistically defined project portfolio

Consider the following points:

1. Are the inputs and outputs of each step clear? Who’s doing the work? How long will each step take, on average?
2. Is the ownership of each step clear? How will we ensure a smooth handoff between each step and prevent requests from falling through the cracks?

INPUT

• New process steps for project prioritization (Activities 2.3.x-y)

OUTPUT

• Flowchart representation of new project prioritization workflow

Materials

• Microsoft Visio, flowchart software, or Microsoft PowerPoint

Participants

• CIO
• PMO Director/ Portfolio Manager
• Project Managers
• Business Analysts

Leverage Info-Tech’s other blueprints to complement your project prioritization processes

The project capacity estimates overlook a critical piece of the resourcing puzzle for the sake of simplicity: skills. You need the right skills at the right time for the right project. Use Info-Tech’s Balance Supply and Demand with Realistic Resource Management Practices blueprint to enhance the quality of information on your project supply.	There is more to organizing your project portfolio than a strict prioritization by project value. For example, as with a financial investment portfolio, project portfolio must achieve the right investment mix to balance your risks and leverage opportunities. Use Info-Tech’s Maintain an Organized Portfolio blueprint to refine the makeup of your project portfolio.
Continuous prioritization of projects allow organizations to achieve portfolio responsiveness. Use Info-Tech’s Manage an Agile Portfolio blueprint to take prioritization of your project portfolio to the next level.	46% of organizations use a homegrown PPM solution. Info-Tech’s Grow Your Own PPM Solution blueprint debuts a spreadsheet-based Portfolio Manager tool that provides key functionalities that integrates those of the Intake and Prioritization Tool with resource management, allocation and portfolio reporting capabilities.

If you want additional support, have our analysts guide you through this phase as part of an Info-Tech workshop

Book a workshop with our Info-Tech analysts:

• To accelerate this project, engage your IT team in an Info-Tech workshop with an Info-Tech analyst team.
• Info-Tech analysts will join you and your team onsite at your location or welcome you to Info-Tech’s historic Toronto office to participate in an innovative onsite workshop.
• Contact your account manager (www.infotech.com/account), or email Workshops@InfoTech.com for more information.

The following are sample activities that will be conducted by Info-Tech analysts with your team:

2.1.2-6

Optimize your process to receive, triage, and follow up on project requests

Discussion on decision points and topics of consideration will be facilitated to leverage the diverse viewpoints amongst the workshop participants.

2.3.2-5

Set up a capacity-informed project prioritization process using Info-Tech’s Project Intake and Prioritization Tool

A table-top planning exercise helps you visualize the current process in place and identify opportunities for optimization.

Phase 3

Integrate the New Optimized Processes into Practice

Phase 3 outline

Call 1-888-670-8889 or email GuidedImplementations@InfoTech.com for more information.

Complete these steps on your own, or call us to complete a guided implementation. A guided implementation is a series of 2-3 advisory calls that help you execute each phase of a project. They are included in most advisory memberships.

Step 3.1: Pilot your intake, approval, and prioritization process to refine it before rollout

This step will walk you through the following activities:

• Select receptive managers to work with during your pilot
• Define the scope of your pilot and determine logistics
• Plan to obtain feedback, document lessons learned, and create an action plan for any changes
• Finalize Project Intake, Approval, and Prioritization SOP

This step involves the following participants:

• PMO Director / Portfolio Manager
• Project Managers
• Business Analysts

Outcomes of this step

• A pilot team
• A process pilot plan that defines the scope, logistics, and process for retrospection
• Project Backlog Manager job description
• Finalized Project Intake, Approval, and Prioritization SOP for rollout

Pilot your new processes to test feasibility and address issues before a full deployment

Adopting the right set of practices requires a significant degree of change that necessitates buy-in from varied stakeholders throughout IT and the business.

Rome wasn’t built in a day. Similarly, benefits of optimized project intake, approval, and prioritization process will not be realized overnight.

Resist the urge to deploy a big-bang roll out of your new intake practices. The approach is ill advised for two main reasons:

• It will put more of a strain on the implementation team in the near term, with a larger pool of end users to train and collect data from.
• Putting untested practices in a department-wide spotlight could lead to mass confusion in the near-term and color the new processes in a negative light, leading to a loss of stakeholder trust and engagement right out-of-the-gate.

Start with a pilot phase. Identify receptive lines of business and IT resources to work with, and leverage their insights to help iron out the kinks in your process before unveiling your practices to IT and all business users at large.

This step will help you to:

• Plan and execute a pilot of the processes we developed in Phase 2.
• Incorporate the lessons learned from that pilot to strengthen your SOP and ease the communication process.

Info-Tech Insight

Engagement paves the way for smoother adoption. An “engagement” approach (rather than simply “communication”) turns stakeholders into advocates who can help boost your message, sustain the change, and realize benefits without constant intervention or process command-and-control.

Plan your pilot like you would any project to ensure it’s well defined and its goals are clearly articulated

Use Info-Tech’s Intake Process Pilot Plan Template to help define the scope of your pilot and set appropriate goals for the test-run of your new processes.

A process pilot is a limited scope of an implementation (constrained by time and resources involved) in order to test the viability and effectiveness of the process as it has been designed.

• Investing time and energy into a pilot phase can help to lower implementation risk, enhance the details and steps within a process, and improve stakeholder relations prior to a full scale rollout.
• More than a dry run, however, a pilot should be approached strategically, and planned out to limit the scope of it and achieve specific outcomes.
• Leverage a planning document to ensure your process pilot is grounded in a common set of definitions, that the pilot is delivering value and insight, and that ultimately the pilot can serve as a starting point for a full-scale process implementation.

Download Info-Tech’s Process Pilot Plan Template

"The advantages to a pilot are several. First, risk is constrained. Pilots are closely monitored so if a problem does occur, it can be fixed immediately. Second, the people working in the pilot can become trainers as you roll the process out to the rest of the organization. Third, the pilot is another opportunity for skeptics to visit the pilot process and learn from those working in it. There’s nothing like seeing a new process working for people to change their minds."

– Daniel Madison

Select receptive stakeholders to work with during your pilot

3.1.1 Estimated Time: 20-60 minutes

Info-Tech recommends selecting PPM stakeholders who are aware of your role and some of the challenges in project intake, approval, and prioritization to assist in the implementation process.

1. If receptive PPM stakeholders are known, schedule a 15-minute meeting with them to inquire if they would be willing to be part of the pilot process.
2. If receptive project managers are not known, use Info-Tech’s Stakeholder Engagement Workbook to conduct a formal selection process.
1. Enter a list of potential participants for pilot in tab 3.
2. Rate project managers in terms of influence, pilot interest, and potential deployment contribution within tab 4.
3. Review tab 5 in the workbook. Receptive PPM stakeholders will appear in the top quadrants. Ideal PPM stakeholders for the pilot are located in the top right quadrant of the graph.

INPUT

• Project portfolio management stakeholders (Activity 1.2.3)

OUTPUT

• Pilot project team

Materials

• Stakeholder Engagement Workbook
• Process Pilot Plan Template

Participants

• PMO Director/ Portfolio Manager
• CIO (optional)

Document the PPM stakeholders involved in your pilot in Section 3 of Info-Tech’s Process Pilot Plan Template.

Define the scope of your pilot and determine logistics

3.1.2 Estimated Time: 60-90 minutes

Use Info-Tech’s Process Pilot Plan Template to design the details of your pilot.

Investing time into planning your pilot phase strategically will ensure a clear scope, better communications for those piloting the processes, and – overall – better, more actionable results for the pilot phase. The Pilot Plan Template is broken into five sections to assist in these goals:

• Pilot Overview and Scope
• Success and Risk Factors
• Stakeholders Involved and Communications Plan
• Pilot Retrospective and Feedback Protocol

The duration of your pilot should go at least one prioritization period, e.g. one to two quarters.

Estimates of time commitments should be captured for each stakeholder. During the retrospective at the end of the pilot you should capture actuals to help determine the time-cost of the process itself and measure its sustainability.

Once the Plan Template is completed, schedule time to share and communicate it with the pilot team and executive sponsors of the process.

While you should invest time in this planning document, continue to lean on the Intake, Approval, and Prioritization SOP throughout the pilot phase.

INPUT

• Sections 1 through 4 of the Process Pilot Plan Template

OUTPUT

• A process pilot plan

Materials

• Process Pilot Plan Template

Participants

• PMO Director / Portfolio Manager
• Project Managers
• Business Analysts
• CIO (optional)

Execute your pilot and prepare to make process revisions before the full rollout

Hit play! Begin the process pilot and get familiar with the work routine and resource management solution.

Some things to keep in mind during the pilot include:

• Depending on the solution you are using, you will likely need to spend one day or less to populate the tool. During the pilot, measure the time and effort required to manage the data within the tool. Determine whether time and effort required is viable on an ongoing basis (i.e. can you do it every month or quarter) and has value.
• Meet with the pilot team and other stakeholders regularly during the pilot, at least biweekly. Allow the team (and yourself) to speak honestly and openly about what isn’t working. The pilot is your chance to make things better.
• Keep notes about what will need to change in the SOP. For major changes, you may have to tweak the process during the pilot itself. Update the process documents as needed and communicate the changes and why they’re being made. If required, update the scope of the pilot in the Pilot Plan Template.

Obtain feedback from the pilot group to improve your processes before a wider rollout

3.1.3 Estimated Time: 30 minutes

Pilot projects allow you to validate your assumptions and leverage lessons learned. During the planning of the pilot, you should have scheduled a retrospective meeting with the pilot team to formally assess strengths and weaknesses in the process you have drafted.

• Schedule the retrospective shortly after the pilot is completed. Info-Tech recommends performing a Stop/Start/Continue meeting with pilot participants to obtain and capture feedback.
• Have members of the meeting record any processes/activities on sticky notes that should:
• Stop: because they are ineffective or not useful
• Start: because they would be useful for the tool and have not been incorporated into current processes
• Continue: because they are useful and positively contribute to intended process outcomes.

An example of how to structure a Stop/Start/Continue activity on a whiteboard using sticky notes.

INPUT

• What’s working and what isn’t in the process

OUTPUT

• Ideas to improve process

Materials

• Whiteboard
• Sticky notes
• Process Pilot Plan Template

Participants

• Process owner (PMO director or portfolio owner)
• Pilot team

See the following slide for additional instructions.

Document lessons learned and create an action plan for any changes to the processes

3.1.4 Estimated Time: 30 minutes

As a group, discuss everyone’s responses and organize according to top priority (mark with a 1) and lower priority/next steps (mark with a 2). At this point, you can also remove any sticky notes that are repetitive or no longer relevant.

Once you have organized based on priority, be sure to come to a consensus with the group regarding which actions to take. For example, if the group agrees that they should “stop holding meetings weekly,” come to a consensus regarding how often meetings will be held, i.e. monthly.

Create an action plan for the top priority items that require changes (the Stops and Starts). Record in this slide, or your preferred medium. Be sure to include who is responsible for the action and the date that it will be implemented.

Document the outcomes of the start/stop/continue and your action plan in Section 6 of Info-Tech’s Process Pilot Plan Template.

Use Info-Tech’s Backlog Manager Job Description Template to help fill any staffing needs around data maintenance

3.1 Project Backlog Manager Job Description

You will need to determine responsibilities and accountabilities for portfolio management functions within your team.

If you do not have a clearly identifiable portfolio manager at this time, you will need to clarify who will wear which hats in terms of facilitating intake and prioritization, high-level capacity awareness, and portfolio reporting.

• Use Info-Tech’s Project Backlog Manager job description template to help clarify some of the required responsibilities to support your intake, approval, and prioritization strategy.
• If you need to bring in an additional staff member to help support the strategy, you can customize the job description template to help advertise the position. Simply edit the text in grey within the template.
• If you have other PPM tasks that you need to define responsibilities for, you can use the RASCI chart on the final tab of the PPM Strategy Development Tool.

Download Info-Tech’s Project Backlog Manager job description template.

Finalize the Intake, Approval, and Prioritization SOP and prepare to communicate your processes

Once you’ve completed the pilot process and made the necessary tweaks, you should finalize your Intake, Approval, and Prioritization SOP and prepare to communicate it.

Update section 1.2, “Overall Process Workflow” in Info-Tech’s Project Intake, Approval, and Prioritization SOP Template with the new process flow.

Revisit your SOP from Phase 2 and ensure it has been updated to reflect the process changes that were identified in activity 3.1.4.

• If during the pilot process the data was too difficult or time consuming to maintain, revisit the dimensions you have chosen and choose dimensions that are easier to accurately maintain. Tweak your process steps in the SOP accordingly.
• In the long term, if you are not observing any progress toward achieving your success criteria, revisit the impact analysis that we’ll prepare in step 3.2 and address some of these inhibitors to organizational change.

Download Info-Tech’s Project Intake, Approval, and Prioritization SOP template.

Info-Tech Best Practice

Make your SOP high impact. SOPs are often at risk of being left unmaintained and languishing in disuse. Improve the SOP’s succinctness and usability by making it visual; consult Info-Tech’s blueprint, Create Visual SOP Documents that Drive Process Optimization, Not Just Peace of Mind.

Step 3.2: Analyze the impact of organizational change through the eyes of PPM stakeholders to gain their buy-in

This step will walk you through the following activities:

• Analyze the stakeholder impact and responses to impending organizational change
• Create message canvases for at-risk change impacts and stakeholders
• Set the course of action for communicating changes to your stakeholders

This step involves the following participants:

• PMO Director / Portfolio Manager
• Project Managers
• Business Analysts

Outcomes of this step

• A thorough organizational change impact analysis, based on Info-Tech’s expertise in organizational change management
• Message canvases and communication plan for your stakeholders
• Go-live for the new intake, approval, and prioritization process

Manage key PPM stakeholders and communicate changes

• Business units: Projects are undertaken to provide value to the business. Senior management from business units must help define how project will be valued.
• IT: IT must ensure that technical/practical considerations are taken into account when determining project value.
• Finance: The CFO or designated representative will ensure that estimated project costs and benefits can be used to manage the budget.
• PMO: PMO is the administrator of the project portfolio. PMO must provide coordination and support to ensure the process operates smoothly and its goals are realized.
• Business analysts: BAs carry out the evaluation of project value. Therefore, their understanding of the evaluation criteria and the process as a whole are critical to the success of the process.
• Project sponsors: Project sponsors are accountable for the realization of benefits for which projects are undertaken.

Impacts will be felt differently by different stakeholders and stakeholder groups

As you assess change impacts, keep in mind that no impact will be felt the same across the organization. Depth of impact can vary depending on the frequency (will the impact be felt daily, weekly, monthly?), the actions necessitated by it (e.g. will it change the way the job is done or is it simply a minor process tweak?), and the anticipated response of the stakeholder (support, resistance, indifference?).

Use the Organizational Change Depth Scale below to help visualize various depths of impact. The deeper the impact, the tougher the job of managing change will be.

Perform a change impact analysis to maximize the chances of adoption for the new intake process

Invest time and effort to analyze the impact of change to create an actionable stakeholder communication plan that yields the desirable result: adoption.

Info-Tech’s Drive Organizational Change from the PMO blueprint offers the OCM Impact Analysis Tool to helps document the change impact across multiple dimensions, enabling the project team to review the analysis with others to ensure that the most important impacts are captured.

This tool has been customized for optimizing project intake, approval, and prioritization process to deliver the same result in a more streamlined way. The next several slides will take you through the activities to ultimately create an OCM message canvas and a communication plan for your key stakeholders.

Download Info-Tech’s Intake and Prioritization Impact Analysis Tool.

"As a general principle, project teams should always treat every stakeholder initially as a recipient of change. Every stakeholder management plan should have, as an end goal, to change recipients’ habits or behaviors."

-PMI, 2015

Set up the Intake Process and Prioritization Impact Analysis Tool

3.2.1 Intake and Prioritization Impact Analysis Tool, Tab 2-3

In Tab 2, enter your stakeholders’ names. Represent stakeholders as a group if you expect the impact of change on them to be reasonably uniform, as well as their anticipated responses. Otherwise, consider adding them as individuals or subgroups.

In Tab 3, enter whether you agree or disagree with each statement that represents an element of organizational change that be introduced as the newly optimized intake process is implemented.

As a result of the change initiative in question:

Analyze the impact and the anticipated stakeholder responses of each change

3.2.1 Intake and Prioritization Impact Analysis Tool, Tab 4: Impact Analysis Inputs

Each change statement that you agreed with in Tab 3 are listed here in Tab 4 of the Intake and Prioritization Impact Analysis Tool. For each stakeholder, estimate and enter the following data:

1. Frequency of the Impact: how often will the impact of the change be felt?
2. Effort Associated with Impact: what is the demand on a stakeholder’s effort to implement the change?
3. Anticipated Response: rate from enthusiastic response to active subversion. Honest and realistic estimates of anticipated responses are critical to the rest of the impact analysis.

Analyze the stakeholder impact and responses to impending organizational change as a group

3.2.1 Estimated Time: 60-90 minutes

Divide and conquer. Leverage the group to get through the seemingly daunting amount of work involved with impact analysis.

1. Divide the activity participants into subgroups and assign a section of the impact analysis. It may be helpful to do one section together as a group to make sure everyone is roughly on the same page for assessing impact.

Suggested ways to divide up the impact analysis include:

• By change impact. This would be suitable when the process owners (or would-be process owners) are available and participating.
• By stakeholders. This would be suitable for large organizations where the activity participants know some stakeholders better than others.

Tip: use a spreadsheet tool that supports multi-user editing (e.g. Google Sheets, Excel Online).

INPUT

• Organizational and stakeholder knowledge
• Optimized intake process

OUTPUT

• Estimates of stakeholder-specific impact and response

Materials

• Intake and Prioritization Impact Analysis Tool

Participants

• PMO Director/ Portfolio Manager
• Project Managers
• Business Analysts

Info-Tech Insight

Beware of bias. Groups are just as susceptible to producing overly optimistic or pessimistic analysis as individuals, just in different ways. Unrealistic change impact analysis will compromise your chances of arriving at a reasonable, tactful stakeholder communication plan.

Examine your impact analysis report

3.2.2 Intake and Prioritization Impact Analysis Tool, Tab 5: Impact Analysis Outputs

These outputs are based on the impacts you analyzed in Tab 4 of the tool (Activity 3.2.1). They are organized in seven sections:

1. Top Five Highest Risk Impacts, based on the frequency and effort inputs across all impacts.
2. Overall Process Adoption Rating (top right), showing the overall difficulty of this change given likelihood/risk that the stakeholders involved will absorb the anticipated change impacts.
3. Top Five Most Impacted Stakeholders, based on the frequency and effort inputs across all impacts.
4. Top Five Process Supporters and;
5. Top Five Process Resistors, based on the anticipated response inputs across all impacts.
6. Impact Register (bottom right): this list breaks down each change’s likelihood of adoption.
7. Potential Impacts to Watch Out For: this list compiles all of the "Don't Know" responses from Tab 3.

Tailor messages for at-risk change impacts and stakeholders with Info-Tech’s Message Canvas

3.2.2 Intake and Prioritization Impact Analysis Tool, Tab 6: Message Canvas

Use Info-Tech’s Message Canvas on this tab to help rationalize and elaborate the change vision for each group.

Elements of a Message Canvas

• Why is there a need for this process change?
• What will be new for this audience?
• What will go away for this audience?
• What will be meaningfully unchanged for this audience?
• How will this change benefit this audience?
• When and how will the benefits be realized for this audience?
• What does this audience have to do for this change to succeed?
• What does this audience have to stop doing for this change to succeed?
• What should this audience continue doing?
• What support will this audience receive to help manage the transition?
• What should this audience expect to do/happen next?

Info-Tech Insight

Change thy language, change thyself.

Jargon, acronyms, and technical terms represent deeply entrenched cultural habits and assumptions.

Continuing to use jargon or acronyms after a transition tends to drag people back to old ways of thinking and working.

You don’t need to invent a new batch of buzzwords for every change (nor should you), but every change is an opportunity to listen for words and phrases that have lost their meaning through overuse and abuse.

Create message canvases for at-risk change impacts and stakeholders as a group

3.2.2 Estimated Time: 90-120 minutes

1. Decide on the number of message canvases to complete. This will be based on the number of at-risk change impacts and stakeholders.
2. Divide the activity participants into subgroups and assign a section of the message canvas. It may be helpful to do one section together as a group to make sure everyone is roughly on the same page for assessing impact.
3. Aggregate the completed work and benchmark the message canvases amongst subgroups.

Remember these guidelines to help your messages resonate:

• People are busy and easily distracted. Tell people what they really need to know first, before you lose their attention.
• Repetition is good. Remember the Aristotelian triptych: “Tell them what you’re going to tell them, then tell them, then tell them what you told them.”
• Don’t use technical terms, jargon, or acronyms. Different groups in organizations tend to develop specialized vocabularies. Everybody grows so accustomed to using acronyms and jargon every day that it becomes difficult to notice how strange it sounds to outsiders. This is especially important when IT communicates with non-technical audiences. Don’t alienate your audience by talking at them in a strange language.
• Test your message. Run focus groups or deliver communications to a test audience (which could be as simple as asking 2–3 people to read a draft) before delivering messages more broadly.

– Info-Tech Blueprint, Drive Organizational Change from the PMO

INPUT

• Impact Analysis Outputs
• Organizational and stakeholder knowledge

OUTPUT

• Estimates of stakeholder-specific impact and response

Materials

• Intake and Prioritization Impact Analysis Tool

Participants

• PMO Director/ Portfolio Manager
• Project Managers
• Business Analysts

Distill the message canvases into a comprehensive communication plan

3.2.3 Intake and Prioritization Impact Analysis Tool, Tab 7: Communication Plan

The communication plan creates an action plan around the message canvases to coordinate the responsibilities of delivering them, so the risks of “dropping the ball” on your stakeholders are minimized.

1. Choose a change impact from a drop-down menu.

2. Choose an intended audience...

… and the message canvas to reference.

3. Choose the method of delivery. It will influence how to craft the message for the stakeholder.

4. Indicate who is responsible for creating and communicating the message.

5. Briefly indicate goal of the communication and the likelihood of success.

6. Record the dates to plan and track the communications that take place.

Set the course of action for communicating changes to your stakeholders

3.2.2 Estimated Time: 90-120 minutes

1. Divide the activity participants into subgroups and assign communication topics to each group. There should be one communication topic for each change impact. Based on the message canvas, create a communication plan draft.
2. Aggregate the completed work and benchmark the communication topic amongst subgroups.
3. Share the finished communication plan with the rest of the working group. Do not share this file widely, but keep it private within the group.

Identify critical points in the change curve:

1. Honeymoon of “Uninformed Optimism”: There is usually tentative support and even enthusiasm for change before people have really felt or understood what it involves.
2. Backlash of “Informed Pessimism” (leading to “Valley of Despair”): As change approaches or begins, people realize they’ve overestimated the benefits (or the speed at which benefits will be achieved) and underestimated the difficulty of change.
3. Valley of Despair and beginning of “Hopeful Realism”: Eventually, sentiment bottoms out and people begin to accept the difficulty (or inevitability) of change.
4. Bounce of “Informed Optimism”: People become more optimistic and supportive when they begin to see bright spots and early successes.
5. Contentment of “Completion”: Change has been successfully adopted and benefits are being realized.

Based on Don Kelley and Daryl Conner’s Emotional Cycle of Change.

INPUT

• Change impact analysis results
• Message canvases
• List of stakeholders

OUTPUT

• Communication Plan

Materials

• Intake and Prioritization Impact Analysis Tool

Participants

• PMO Director/ Portfolio Manager
• Project Managers
• Business Analysts

Roll out the optimized intake, approval, and prioritization process, and continually monitor adoption and success

As you implement your new project intake process, familiarize yourself with common barriers and challenges.

There will be challenges to watch for in evaluating the effectiveness of your intake processes. These may include circumvention of process by key stakeholders, re-emergence of off-the-grid projects and low-value initiatives.

As a quick and easy way to periodically assess your processes, consider the following questions:

• Are you confident that all work in progress is being tracked via the project list?
• Are your resources all currently working on high-value initiatives?
• Since optimizing, have you been able to deliver (or are you on target to deliver) all that has been approved, with no initiatives in states of suspended animation for long periods of time?
• Thanks to sufficient portfolio visibility and transparency into your capacity, have you been able to successfully decline requests that did not add value or that did not align with resourcing?

If you answer “no” to any of these questions after a sufficient post-implementation period (approximately six to nine months, depending on the scope of your optimizing), you may need to tweak certain aspects of your processes or seek to align your optimization with a lower capability level in the short term.

Small IT department struggles to optimize intake and to communicate new processes to stakeholders

CASE STUDY

Industry: Government

Source: Info-Tech Client

Challenge

There is an IT department for a large municipal government. Possessing a relatively low level of PPM maturity, IT is in the process of establishing more formal intake practices in order to better track, and respond to, project requests. New processes include a minimalist request form (sent via email) coupled with more thorough follow-up from BAs and PMs to determine business value, ROI, and timeframes.

Solution

Even with new user-friendly processes in place, IT struggles to get stakeholders to adopt, especially with smaller initiatives. These smaller requests frequently continue to come in outside of the formal process and, because of this, are often executed outside of portfolio oversight. Without good, reliable data around where staff time is spent, IT lacks the authority to decline new requests.

Results

IT is seeking further optimization through better communication. They are enforcing discipline on stakeholders and reiterating that all initiatives, regardless of size, need to be directed through the process. IT is also training its staff to be more critical. “Don’t just start working on an initiative because a stakeholder asks.” With staff being more critical and directing requests through the proper queues, IT is getting better at tracking and prioritizing requests.

"The biggest challenge when implementing the intake process was change management. We needed to shift our focus from responding to requests to strategically thinking about how requests should be managed. The intake process allows the IT Department to be transparent to customers and enables decision makers."

If you want additional support, have our analysts guide you through this phase as part of an Info-Tech workshop

Book a workshop with our Info-Tech analysts:

• To accelerate this project, engage your IT team in an Info-Tech workshop with an Info-Tech analyst team.
• Info-Tech analysts will join you and your team onsite at your location or welcome you to Info-Tech’s historic Toronto office to participate in an innovative onsite workshop.
• Contact your account manager (www.infotech.com/account), or email Workshops@InfoTech.com for more information.

The following are sample activities that will be conducted by Info-Tech analysts with your team:

3.1.1

Select receptive stakeholders to work with during your pilot

Identify the right team of supportive PPM stakeholders to carry out the process pilot. Strategies to recruit the right people outside the workshop will be discussed if appropriate.

3.2.1

Analyze the stakeholder impact and responses to impending organizational change

Carry out a thorough analysis of change impact in order to maximize the effectiveness of the communication strategy in support of the implementation of the optimized process.

Insight breakdown

Insight 1

• The overarching goal of optimizing project intake, approval, and prioritization process is to maximize the throughput of the best projects. To achieve this goal, one must have a clear way to determine what are “the best” projects.

Insight 2

• Info-Tech’s methodology systemically fits the project portfolio into its triple constraint of stakeholder needs, strategic objectives, and resource capacity to effectively address the challenges of establishing organizational discipline for project intake.

Insight 3

• Engagement paves the way for smoother adoption. An “engagement” approach (rather than simply “communication”) turns stakeholders into advocates who can help boost your message, sustain the change, and realize benefits without constant intervention or process command-and-control.

Summary of accomplishment

Knowledge Gained

• Triple constraint model of project portfolio: stakeholder needs, strategic objectives, and resource capacity
• Benefits of optimizing project intake, approval, and prioritization for managing a well-behaved project portfolio
• Challenges of installing well-run project intake
• Importance of piloting the process and communicating impacts to stakeholders

Processes Optimized

• Project valuation process: scorecard, weights
• Project intake process: reception, triaging, follow-up
• Project approval process: steps, accountabilities, deliverables
• Project prioritization process: estimation of resource capacity for projects, project demand
• Communication for organizational change

Deliverables Completed

• Optimized Project Intake, Approval, and Prioritization Process
• Documentation of the optimized process in the form of a Standard Operating Procedure
• Project valuation criteria, developed with Project Value Scorecard Development Tool and implemented through the Project Intake and Prioritization Tool
• Standardized project request form with right-sized procedural friction
• Standard for project level classification, implemented through the Project Intake Classification Matrix
• Toolbox of deliverables for capturing information developed to inform decision makers for approval: Benefits Commitment Form, Technology Assessment Tool, Business Case Templates
• Process pilot plan
• Communication plan for organizational change, driven by a thorough analysis of change impacts on key stakeholders using the Intake and Prioritization Impact Analysis Tool

Research contributors and experts

Kiron D. Bondale, PMP, PMI - RMP

Senior Project Portfolio & Change Management Professional

Scot Ganshert, Portfolio Group Manager

Larimer County, CO

Garrett McDaniel, Business Analyst II – Information Technology

City of Boulder, CO

Joanne Pandya, IT Project Manager

New York Property Insurance Underwriters

Jim Tom, CIO

Public Health Ontario

Related Info-Tech research

Develop a Project Portfolio Management Strategy blueprint"

Grow Your Own PPM Solution

Balance Supply and Demand with Realistic Resource Management Practices

Maintain an Organized Portfolio

Manage a Minimum Viable PMO

Establish the Benefits Realization Process

Manage an Agile Portfolio

Tailor Project Management Processes to Fit Your Projects

Project Portfolio Management Diagnostic Program

The Project Portfolio Management Diagnostic Program is a low-effort, high-impact program designed to help project owners assess and improve their PPM practices. Gather and report on all aspects of your PPM environment to understand where you stand and how you can improve.

Bibliography

Boston Consulting Group. “Executive Sponsor Engagement: Top Driver of Project and Program Success.” PMI, 2014. Web.

Boston Consulting Group. “Winning Through Project Portfolio Management: the Practitioners’ Perspective.” PMI, 2015. Web.

Bradberry, Travis. “Why The 8-Hour workday Doesn’t Work.” Forbes, 7 Jun 2016. Web.

Cook, Scott. Playbook: Best Practices. Business Week

Cooper, Robert, G. “Effective Gating: Make product innovation more productive by using gates with teeth.” Stage-Gate International and Product Development Institute. March/April 2009. Web.

Epstein, Dan. “Project Initiation Process: Part Two.” PM World Journal. Vol. IV, Issue III. March 2015. Web.

Evans, Lisa. “The Exact Amount of Time You Should Work Every Day.” Fast Company, 15 Sep. 2014. Web.

Madison, Daniel. “The Five Implementation Options to Manage the Risk in a New Process.” BPMInstitute.org. n.d. Web.

Merkhofer, Lee. “Improve the Prioritization Process.” Priority Systems, n.d. Web.

Miller, David, and Mike Oliver. “Engaging Stakeholder for Project Success.” PMI, 2015. Web.

Mind Tools. “Kelley and Conner’s Emotional Cycle of Change.” Mind Tools, n.d. Web.

Mochal, Jeffrey and Thomas Mochal. Lessons in Project Management. Appress: September 2011. Page 6.

Newcomer, Eric. “Getting Decisions to Stick.” Standish Group PM2go, 20 Oct 2017. Web.

“PMI Today.” Newtown Square, PA: PMI, Oct 2017. Web.

Project Management Institute. “Standard for Portfolio Management, 3rd ed.” Newtown Square, PA: PMI, 2013.

Project Management Institute. “Pulse of the Profession 2017: Success Rates Rise.” PMI, 2017. Web.

Transparent Choice. “Criteria for Project Prioritization.” n.p., n.d. Web.

University of New Hampshire (UNH) Project Management Office. “University of New Hampshire IT Intake and Selection Process Map.” UNH, n.d. Web.

Ward, John. “Delivering Value from Information Systems and Technology Investments: Learning from Success.” Information Systems Research Centre. August 2006. Web.

Define Service Desk Metrics That Matter

Look beyond benchmarks and rely on internal metrics to drive success.

Analyst Perspective

Don’t get paralyzed by benchmarks when establishing metrics

When establishing a suite of metrics to track, it’s tempting to start with the metrics measured by other organizations. Naturally, benchmarking will enter the conversation. While benchmarking is useful, measuring you organization against others with a lack of context will only highlight your failures. Furthermore, benchmarks will highlight the norm or common practice. It does not necessarily highlight best practice.

Keeping the limitations of benchmarking in mind, establish your own metrics suite with action-based metrics. Define the audience, cadence, and actions for each metric you track and pair them with business goals. Measure only what you need to.

Slowly improve your metrics process over time and analyze your environment using your own data as your benchmark.

Benedict Chang

Research Analyst, Infrastructure & Operations

Info-Tech Research Group

Executive Summary

Your Challenge

• Measure the business value provided by the service desk.
• Consolidate your metrics and assign context and actions to ones currently tracked.
• Establish tension metrics to see and tell the whole story.
• Split your metrics for each stakeholder group. Assign proper cadences for measurements as a first step to building an effective dashboard or effective dashboards.

Common Obstacles

• Becoming too focused on benchmarks or unidimensional metrics (e.g. cost, first-contact resolution, time to resolve) can lead to misinterpretation of the data and poorly informed actions.
• Sifting through the many sources of data post hoc can lead to stalling in data analysis or slow reaction times to poor metrics.
• Dashboards can quickly become cluttered with uninformative metrics, thus reducing the signal-to-noise ratio of meaningful data.

Info-Tech's Approach

• Use metrics that drive productive change and improvement. Track only what you need to report on.
• Ensure each metric aligns with the desired business goal, is action-based, and includes the answers to what, why, how, and who.
• Establish internal benchmarks by analyzing the trends from your own data to set baselines.
• Act on the results of your metrics by adjusting targets and measuring success.

Info-Tech Insight

Identify the metrics that serve a real purpose and eliminate the rest. Establish a formal review process to ensure metrics are still valid, continue to provide the answers needed, and are at a manageable and usable level.

Improve your metrics to align IT with strategic business goals

The right metrics can tell the business how hard IT works and how well they perform.

• Only 19% of CXOs feel that their organization is effective at measuring the success of IT projects with their current metrics.
• Implementing the proper metrics can facilitate communication between the business division and IT practice.
• The proper metrics can help IT know what issues the business has and how the CEO and CIO should tackle them.
• If the goals above resonate with your organization, our blueprint Take Control of Infrastructure and Operations Metrics will take you through the right steps.

Current Metrics Suite

19% Effective

36% Some Improvement Necessary

45% Significant Improvement Necessary

Source: Info-Tech Research Group’s CEO/CIO Alignment Diagnostic, 2019; N=622

CXOs stress that value is the most critical area for IT to improve in reporting

• You most likely have to improve your metrics suite by addressing business value.
• Over 80% of organizations say they need improvement to their business value metrics, with 32% of organizations reporting that significant improvement is needed.
• Of course, measuring metrics for service desk operations is important, but don’t forget business-oriented metrics such as measuring knowledgebase articles written for shift-left enablement, cost (time and money) of service desk tickets, and overall end-user satisfaction.

Source: Info-Tech Research Group’s CEO/CIO Alignment Diagnostic, 2019; N=622

Benchmarking used in isolation will not tell the whole story

Benchmarks can be used as a step in the metrics process

They can be the first step to reach an end goal, but if benchmarks are observed in isolation, it will only highlight your failures.

Benchmarking relies on standardized models

This does not account for all the unique variables that make up an IT organization.

For example, benchmarks that include cost and revenue may include organizations that prioritize first-call resolution (FCR), but the variables that make up this benchmark model will be quite different within your own organization.

Info-Tech Insight

Benchmarks reflect the norm and common practice, not best practice.

Benchmarks are open to interpretation

Taking the time to establish proper metrics is often more valuable time spent than going down the benchmark rabbit hole.

Being above or below the norm is neither a good nor a bad thing.

Determining what the results mean for you depends on what’s being measured and the unique factors, characteristics, and priorities in your organization.

If benchmark data is a priority within your IT organization, you may look up organizations like MetricNet, but keep the following in mind:

Review the collected benchmark data

See where IT organizations in your industry typically stand in relation to the overall benchmark.

Assess the gaps

Large gaps between yourself and the overall benchmark could indicate areas for improvement or celebration. Use the data to focus your analysis, develop deeper self-awareness, and prioritize areas for potential concern.

Benchmarks are only guidelines

The benchmark source data may not come from true peers in every sense. Each organization is different, so always explore your unique context when interpreting any findings.

Rely on internal metrics to measure and improve performance

Measure internal metrics over time to define goals and drive real improvement

• Internally measured metrics are more reliable because they provide information about your actual performance over time. This allows for targeted improvements and objective measurements of your milestones.
• Whether a given metric is the right one for your service desk will depend on several different factors, including:
  • The maturity and capability of your service desk processes
  • The volume of service requests and incidents
  • The complexity of your environment when resolving tickets
  • The degree to which your end users are comfortable with self-service

Take Info-Tech’s approach to metrics management

Use metrics that drive productive change and improvement. Track only what you need to report on.

Ensure each metric aligns with the desired business goal, is action-based, and includes the answers to what, why, how, and who.

Establish internal benchmarks by analyzing the trends from your own data to set baselines.

Act on the results of your metrics by adjusting targets and measuring success.

Define action-based metrics to cut down on analysis paralysis

Every metric needs to be backed with the following criteria:

• Defining audience, cadence, goal, and action for each metric allows you to keep your tracked metrics to a minimum while maximizing the value.
• The audience and cadence of each metric may allow you to define targeted dashboards.

Audience - Who is this metric tracked for?

Goal - Why are you tracking this metric? This can be defined along with the CSFs and KPIs.

Cadence - How often are you going to view, analyze, and action this metric?

Action - What will you do if this metric spikes, dips, trends up, or trends down?

Activity 1. Define your critical success factors and key performance indicators

Critical success factors (CSFs) are high-level goals that help you define the direction of your service desk. Key performance indicators (KPIs) can be treated as the trend of metrics that will indicate that you are moving in the direction of your CSFs. These will help narrow the data you have to track and action (metrics).

CSFs, or your overall goals, typically revolve around three aspects of the service desk: time spent on tickets, resources spent on tickets, and the quality of service provided.

1. As a group, brainstorm the CSFs and the KPIs that will help narrow your metrics. Use the Service Desk Metrics Workbook to record the results.
2. Look at the example to the right as a starting point.

Example metrics:

Download the Service Desk Metrics Workbook

Activity 2. Define action-based metrics that align with your KPIs and CSFs

1. Now that you have defined your goals, continue to fill the workbook by choosing metrics that align with those goals.
2. Use the chart below as a guide. For every metric, define the cadence of measurement, audience of the metric, and action associated with the metric. There may be multiple metrics for each KPI.
3. If you find you are unable to define the cadence, audience, or action associated with a metric, you may not need to track the metric in the first place. Alternatively, if you find that you may action a metric in the future, you can decide to start gathering data now.

Example metrics:

Download the Service Desk Metrics Workbook

Activity 3. Define the data ownership, metric viability, and dashboards

1. For each metric, define where the data is housed. Ideally, the data is directly in the ticketing tool or ITSM tool. This will make it easy to pull and analyze.
2. Determine how difficult the metric will be to pull or track. If the effort is high, decide if the value of tracking the metric is worth the hassle of gathering it.
3. Lastly, for each metric, use the cadence and audience to place the metric in a reporting dashboard. This will help divide your metrics and make them easier to report and action.
4. You may use the output of this exercise to add your tracked metrics to your service desk SOP.
5. A full suite of metrics can be found in our Infrastructure & Operations Metrics Library in the Take Control of Infrastructure Metrics Storyboard. The metrics have been categorized by low, medium, and advanced capabilities for you.

Example metrics:

Download the Service Desk Metrics Workbook

Keep the following considerations in mind when defining which metrics matter

Keep the customer in mind

Metrics are typically focused on transactional efficiency and process effectiveness and not what was achieved against the customers’ need and satisfaction.

Understand the relationships between performance and metrics management to provide the end-to-end service delivery picture you are aiming to achieve.

Don’t settle for tool defaults

ITSM solutions offer an abundance of metrics to choose from. The most common ones are typically built into the reporting modules of the tool suite.

Do not start tracking everything. Choose metrics that are specifically aligned to your organization’s desired business outcomes.

Establish tension metrics to achieve balance

Don’t ignore the correlation and context between the suites of metrics chosen and how one interacts and affects the other.

Measuring metrics in isolation may lead to an incomplete picture or undesired technician behavior. Tension metrics help complete the picture and lead to proper actions.

Adjust those targets

An arbitrary target on a metric that is consistently met month over month is useless. Each metric should inform the overall performance by combining capable service level management and customer experience programs to prove the value IT is providing to the organization.

Related Info-Tech Research

Standardize the Service Desk

This project will help you build and improve essential service desk processes, including incident management, request fulfillment, and knowledge management, to create a sustainable service desk.

Take Control of Infrastructure and Operations Metrics

Make faster decisions and improve service delivery by using the right metrics for the job.

Analyze Your Service Desk Ticket Data

Take a data-driven approach to service desk optimization.

IT Diagnostics: Build a Data-Driven IT Strategy

Our data-driven programs ask business and IT stakeholders the right questions to ensure you have the inputs necessary to build an effective IT strategy.

Understand the Difference Between Backups and Archives

They are not the same, and confusing the two concepts could be expensive

Analyst Perspective

Backups and archives are not interchangeable, but they can complement each other.

Backups and archives are two very different operations that are quite often confused or misplaced. IT and business leaders are tasked with protecting corporate data from a variety of threats. They also must conform to industry, geographical, and legal compliance regulations. Backup solutions keep the data safe from destruction. If you have a backup, why do you also need an archive? Archive solutions hold data for a long period of time and can be searched. If you have an archive, why do you also need a backup solution? Backups and archives used to be the same. Remember when you would keep the DAT tape in the same room as the argon gas fire suppression system for seven years? Now that's just not feasible. Some situations require a creative approach or a combination of backups and archives.

Understand the difference between archives and backups and you will understand why the two solutions are necessary and beneficial to the business.

P.J. Ryan
Research Director, Infrastructure & Operations
Info-Tech Research Group

Executive Summary

Info-Tech Insight

Keep in mind that backups are for recovery while archives are for discovery. Backups and archives are often confused but understanding the differences can result in significant savings of time and money. Backing up and archiving may be considered IT tasks but recovery and discovery are capabilities the business wants and is willing to pay for.

Archive

Tips & Tricks – Archiving

• Archiving will move older data to an alternate location. This will free up storage space in the production environment.
• Archiving solutions index the data to allow for easier searchability. This will aid in common business searches as well as assist with any potential legal searches.
• Archiving allows companies to hold onto data for historical purposes as well as for specific retention periods in compliance with industry and regional regulations such as SOX, GDPR, FISMA, as well as others (msp360.com).

Backup

Tips & Tricks – Backups

• Production data should be backed up on a regular basis, ideally once a day or more frequently if possible.
• Backups are intended to restore data when it gets deleted, over-written, or otherwise compromised. Most restore requests are from the last 24 to 48 hours, so it may be advantageous to keep a backup readily available on disk for a quick restore when needed.
• Some vendors and industry subject matter experts advocate the use of a 3-2-1 rule when it comes to backups:
  • Keep three copies of your production data
  • In at least two separate locations (some advocate two different formats), and
  • One copy should be offsite (nakivo.com)

Cold Storage

• Cold storage refers to a storage option offered by some cloud vendors. In the context of the discussion between backups and archives, it can be an option for a dedicated backup solution for a specific period. Cost is low and the data is protected from destruction.
• If an app has been replaced and all data transferred to the replacement solution but for some reason the company wishes to hold onto the data, you want a backup, not an archive. Extract the data, convert it into MongoDB or a similar solution, and drop it into cheap cloud storage (cold storage) for less than $5 per TB/month.

Case Study

Understanding the difference between archives and backups could save you a lot of time and money

INDUSTRY: Manufacturing | SOURCE: Info-Tech Research

Understanding the difference between an archive and a backup was the first step in solving their challenge.

A leading manufacturing company found themselves in a position where they had to decide between archiving or doing nothing.

The company had completed several acquisitions and ended up with multiple legacy applications that had been merged or migrated into replacement solutions. These legacy applications were very important to the original companies and although the data they held had been migrated to a replacement solution, executives felt they should hold onto these applications for a period of time, just in case.

Some of the larger applications were archived using a modern archiving solution, but when it came to the smaller applications, the cost to add them to the archiving solution greatly exceeded the cost to just keep them running and maintain the associated infrastructure.

A research advisor from Info-Tech Research Group joined a call with the manufacturing company and discussed their situation. The difference between archives and backups was explained and through the course of the conversation it was discovered that the solution was a modified backup. The application data had already been preserved through the migration, so data could be accessed in the production environment. The requirement to keep the legacy application up and running was not necessary but in compliance with the request to keep the information, the data could be exported from the legacy application into a non-sequential database, compressed, and stored in cloud-based cold storage for less than five dollars per terabyte per month. The manufacturing company’s staff realized that they could apply this same approach to several of their legacy applications and save tens of thousands of dollars in the process.

Understand the Difference Between Backups and Archives

Info-Tech Insight

Archives and backups are not the same, and there is a use case for each. Sometimes minor adjustments may be required to make the use case work. Understanding the basics of backups and archives can lead to significant savings at a monetary and effort level.

Additional Guidance

Case Study

Using tape backups as an archive solution could result in an expensive discovery and retrieval exercise.

INDUSTRY: Healthcare | SOURCE: Zasio Enterprises Inc.

“Do not commingle archive data with backup or disaster recovery tapes.”

A court case in the United States District Court for the District of Nevada involving Guardiola and Renown Health in 2015 is a good example of why using a backup solution to solve an archiving challenge is a bad idea.

Renown Health used a retention policy that declared any email older than six months of age as inactive and moved that email to a backup tape. Renown Health was ordered by the court to produce emails from a period of time in the past. Renown estimated that it would cost at least $248,000 to produce those emails, based on the effort involved to restore data from each tape and search for the email in question. Renown Health argued that this long and expensive process would result in undue costs.

The court reviewed the situation and ruled against Renown Health and ordered them to comply with the request (Zasio.com).

A proper archiving solution would have provided a quick and low-cost method to retrieve the emails in question.

Backups and archives are complementary to each other

• Archives are still production data, but the data does not change. A backup is recommended for the archived data, but the frequency of the backups can be lowered.
• Backups protect you if a disaster strikes by providing a copy of the production data that was compromised or damaged. Archives allow you to access older data that may have just been forgotten, not destroyed or compromised. Archives could also protect you in a legal court case by providing data that is older but may prove your argument in court.

Archives and backups are not the same.

Backups copy your data. Archives move your data. Backups facilitate recovery. Archives facilitate discovery.

Is it a backup or archive?

• You want to preserve older data for legal and compliance reasons, so you put extra effort into keeping your tape backups safe and secure for seven years. That’s a big mistake that may cost you time and money. You want an archive solution.
• You replace your older application and migrate all data to the new system, but you want to hold onto the old data, just in case. That’s a backup, not an archive.
• A long serving senior executive recently left the company. You want to preserve the contents of the executive's laptop in case it is needed in the future. That’s a backup.

Considerations When Choosing Between Solutions

Related Info-Tech Research

	Establish an Effective Data Protection Plan Give data the attention it deserves by building a strategy that goes beyond backup.
	Modernize Enterprise Storage Current and emerging storage technologies are disrupting the status quo – prepare your infrastructure for the exponential rise in data and its storage requirements.
	Data Archiving Policy

Bibliography

“Backup vs. archiving: Know the difference.” Open-E. Accessed 05 Mar 2022.Web.

G, Denis. “How to build retention policy.” MSP360, Jan 3, 2020. Accessed 10 Mar 2022.

Ipsen, Adam. “Archive vs Backup: What’s the Difference? A Definition Guide.” BackupAssist, 28 Mar 2017. Accessed 04 Mar 2022.

Kang, Soo. “Mitigating the expense of E-discovery; Recognizing the difference between back-ups and archived data.” Zasio Enterprises, 08 Oct 2015. Accessed 3 Mar 2022.

Mayer, Alex. “The 3-2-1 Backup Rule – An Efficient Data Protection Strategy.” Naviko. Accessed 12 Mar 2022.

“What is Data-Archiving?” Proofpoint. Accessed 07 Mar 2022.

Make Sense of Strategic Portfolio Management

Separate what's new and valuable from bloated claims on the hype cycle.

Analyst Perspective

Do you need strategic portfolio management, or do you need to do portfolio management more strategically?

Travis Duncan
Research Director, PPM and CIO Strategy
Info-Tech Research Group

While the market is eager to get users into what they're calling "strategic portfolio management," there's a lot of uncertainty out there about what this market is and how it's different from other, more established portfolio disciplines – most significantly, project portfolio management.

Indeed, if you look at how the space is covered within the industry, you'll encounter a dog's breakfast of players, a comparison of apples and oranges: Jira in the same quadrants as Planisware, Smartsheets in the same profiles as Planview and ServiceNow. While each of the individual players is impressive, their areas of focus are unique and the extent to which they should be compared together under the category of strategic portfolio management is questionable.

It speaks to some of the grey area within the SPM space more generally, which is at a bit of a crossroads: Will it formally shed the guardrails of its antecedents to become its own space, or will it devolve into a bait and switch through which capabilities that struggled to gain much traction beyond IT settings seek to infiltrate the business and grow their market share under a different name?

Part of it is up to the rest of us as users and potential customers. Clarifying what we need before we jump into something simply because our prior attempts failed will help determine whether we need a unique space for strategic portfolio management or whether we simply need to do portfolio management more strategically.

Executive Summary

Info-Tech Insight
In the same way that it took many years for PPM to stabilize as a concept distinct from traditional enterprise project management, strategic portfolio management is experiencing a similar period of formational uncertainty. In a space that can be all things to all users, clarify your actual needs before jumping onto a bandwagon and ending up with something that you don't need, and that the organization can't adopt.

Strategic portfolio management is enterprise portfolio management

Evolved from various other capabilities and vendor solutions, strategic portfolio management (SPM) seeks to connect strategy to execution.

While the concept of 'strategic portfolio management' has been written about within project portfolio management circles for nearly 20 years, SPM, as a distinct organizational competence and software category, is a relatively new and largely vendor-driven capability.

First emerging in the discourse during the mid-to-late 2010s, SPM has evolved from its roots in traditional enterprise project portfolio management. Though, as we will discuss, it has other antecedents not limited to PPM.

In this publication, we'll unpack what SPM is, how it is distinct (and, in turn, how it is not distinct) from PPM and other capabilities, and we will consider the extent to which your organization can and should leverage an SPM application to help drive strategic outcomes.

–The increasing need to deliver value from digital initiatives is giving rise to strategic portfolio management, a digital investment management discipline that enables strategy realization in complex dynamic environments."
– OnePlan, "Is Strategic Portfolio Management the Future of PPM?"

Only 2% of business leaders are confident that they will achieve 80% to 100% of their strategic objectives.
Source: Smith, 2022

Put strategic portfolio management in context

SPM is a new stage in the history of project portfolio management more generally. While it's emerging as a distinct capability, and it borrows from capabilities beyond PPM, unpacking its distinctiveness is best done by first understanding its source.

Understand the recent triggers for strategic portfolio management

Triggers for the emergence of strategic portfolio management in the discourse include the pace of technology-introduced change, the waning of enterprise project management, and challenges around enterprise PPM tool adoption.

Spot the difference?

Scope, focus, and audience are just a few of the factors distinguishing what the market calls "SPM" from traditional PPM.

Info-Tech Insight
The distinction between the two capabilities is not necessarily as black and white as the table above would have it (some "PPM" tools offer what we're identifying above as "SPM" capabilities), but it can be helpful to think in these binaries when trying to distinguish the two capabilities. At the very least, SPM broadens its scope to target more executive and business users, and functions best when it's speaking at a higher level, to a business audience.

Strategic portfolio management offers a more holistic view of the enterprise

At its best, strategic portfolio management can accommodate various paradigms of work management and incorporate different types of portfolio management.

Perhaps the biggest evolution from traditional PPM that strategic portfolio management promises is that it casts a wider net in terms of the types of work it tracks (and how it tracks that work) and the types of portfolios it accommodates.

Not bound to the concepts of "projects" and a "project portfolio" specifically, SPM broadens its scope to encompass capabilities like product and product portfolio management, enterprise architecture management, security and risk management, and more.

• Where a PPM solution only shows one piece of the puzzle, SPM looks at the entire investment ecosystem, tracking strategic goals, the ideas generated to help achieve those goals, and all the various kinds of investments made in the service of those goals.
• what's more, where traditional PPM tools required users to adhere to a certain way of working and managing tasks, SPM is more flexible, relying on integrations across various ways of working to provide higher-level insight on the progress of work and the achievement of goals.

Deliver business strategy and change effectively

"An SPM tool will capture business strategy, business capabilities, operating models, the enterprise architecture and the project portfolio with unmatched visibility into how they all relate. This will give...a robust understanding of the impact of a proposed IT change " and enable IT and business to act like cocreators driving innovation."
– Paula Ziehr

You might need a strategic portfolio management tool if–

If you find yourself facing any of these situations, it might be time to step away from your PPM tool and into an SPM approach:

• Your organization is facing a large implementation that will cross multiple departmental units and requires alignment across senior leadership (e.g. a digital transformation initiative).
• You currently have disparate systems tracking different portfolios (project, product, applications, etc.) and types of investments, but lack insight into the whole in terms of how work efforts and investments tie back to strategy realization.
• You are an ePMO or a strategy realization office that doesn't manage work necessarily, but that rather ensures that the work, assets, and capabilities that are funded connect to strategy and drive the realization of strategy.

Sixty one percent of leaders acknowledge their companies struggle to bridge the gap between creating a strategy and executing on that strategy.
Source: StrategyBlocks, 2020

Get to know your strategic portfolio management stakeholders

In terms of users, SPM's focus is further up the org chart than most applications, relying on high-level but usable outputs to help drive decision making.

What should you look for in a strategic portfolio management tool? (1 of 2)

Standard features for SPM include:

What should you look for in a strategic portfolio management tool? (2 of 2)

Advanced features for SPM can include:

What's promising within the space?

As this space continues to stabilize, the following are some promising associations for business and IT enablement.

What's of concern within the space?

As a progeny from other capabilities, SPM has some risks and connotations potential users should be wary of.

Does your organization need a strategic portfolio management tool?

Use Info-Tech's Strategic Portfolio Management Needs Assessment to gauge your readiness for SPM.

• As noted in previous places in this deck, there is often a grey area in the market between project portfolio management tools and strategic portfolio management tools.
• Some PPM tools offer SPM functionality, while some SPM tools avoid traditional PPM outcomes and stay at a higher, strategic level.
• Depending on the scope of your PMO or portfolio optimization needs, you may need a tool that has just one, or both, of these capabilities.
• Use Info-Tech's Strategic Portfolio Management Needs Assessment to help you assess whether you require a high-level strategy management tool, a more low-level project portfolio management tool, or a mix of both.

Download Info-Tech's Strategic Portfolio Management Needs Assessment

1.1 Assess your needs

10 to 20 minutes

1. The Strategic Portfolio Management Needs Assessment is a 41-question survey broken up into three parts: (1) PMO Type, (2) Features and Functionality, (3) Roles.
2. Go through each section using the provided dropdowns to help identify the orientation of your PMO, the feature and functionality needs of your office, as well as the roles whose needs will need to be serviced through the potential tool implementation.

This screenshot shows a sample output from the assessment. Based upon your inputs, you'll be grouped within three ranges:

1. Green: Based upon your inputs, you will benefit from an SPM tool.
2. Yellow: You may benefit from an SPM tool, but you may also require something more traditional. Clarify your requirements before proceeding.
3. Red: you're unlikely to leverage many of the benefits of an SPM tool at this time. Look for a more tactical solution.

Explore the SPM vendor landscape

Use Info-Tech's application selection resources to help find the right solution for your organization.

If the analysis in the previous slides suggested you can benefit from an SPM tool, you can quick-start your vendor evaluation process with SoftwareReviews.

SoftwareReviews has extensive coverage of not just the SPM space, but of the project portfolio management (pictured to the top right) and project management spaces as well. So, from the tactical to the strategic, SoftwareReviews can help you find the right tools.

Further, as you settle in on a shortlist, you can begin your vendor analysis using our rapid application selection methodology (see framework on bottom right). For more information see our The Rapid Application Selection Framework blueprint.

Info-Tech's Rapid Application Selection Framework (RASF)

Related Info-Tech Research

Develop a Project Portfolio Management Strategy
Drive IT project throughput by throttling resource capacity.

Prepare an Actionable Roadmap for your PMO
Turn planning into action with a realistic PMO timeline.

Maintain an Organized Portfolio
Align portfolio management practices with COBIT (APO05: Manage Portfolio)

Bibliography

Angliss, Katy, and Pete Harpum. Strategic Portfolio Management: In the Multi-Project and Program Organization. Book. Routledge. 30 Dec. 2022.

Anthony, James. "95 Essential Project Management Statistics: 2022 Market Share & Data Analysis." Finance Online. 2022. Web. Accessed 21 March 2022

Banham, Craig. "Integrating strategic planning with portfolio management." Sopheon. Webinar. Accessed 6 Feb. 2023.

Garfein, Stephen J. "Executive Guide to Strategic Portfolio Management: roadmap for closing the gap between strategy and results." PMI. Conference Paper. Oct. 2007. Accessed 6 Feb. 2023.

Garfein, Stephen J. "Strategic Portfolio Management: A smart, realistic and relatively fast way to gain sustainable competitive advantage." PMI. Conference Paper. 2 March 2005. Accessed 6 Feb. 2023.

Hontar, Yulia. "Strategic Portfolio Management." PPM Express. Blog 16 June 2022. Accessed 6 Feb. 2023.

Milsom, James. "6 Strategic Portfolio Management Trends for 2023." i-nexus. Blog. 25 Jan. 2022. Accessed 6 Feb. 2023.

Milsom, James. "Strategic Portfolio Management 101." i-nexus. 8 Dec. 2021. Blog . Accessed 6 Feb. 2023.

OnePlan, "Is Strategic Portfolio Management the Future of PPM?" YouTube. 17 Nov. 2022. Accessed 6 Feb. 2023.

OnePlan. "Strategic Portfolio Management for Enterprise Agile." YouTube. 27 May 2022. Accessed 6 Feb. 2023.

Piechota, Frank. "Strategic Portfolio Management: Enabling Successful Business Outcomes." Shibumi. Blog . 31 May 2022. Accessed 6 Feb. 2023.

ServiceNow. "Strategic Portfolio Management—The Thing You've Been Missing." ServiceNow. Whitepaper. 2021. Accessed 6 Feb. 2023.

Smith, Shepherd, "50+ Eye-Opening Strategic Planning Statistics" ClearPoint Strategy. Blog. 13 Sept. 2022. Accessed 6 Feb. 2023.

SoftwareAG. "What is Strategic Portfolio Management (SPM)?" SoftwareAG. Blog. Accessed 6 Feb. 2023.

Stickel, Robert. "What It Means to be Adaptive." OnePlan. Blog. 24 May 2021. Accessed 6 Feb. 2023.

UMT360. "What is Strategic Portfolio Management?" YouTube. Webinar. 22 Oct. 2020. Accessed 6 Feb. 2023.

Wall, Caroline. "Elevating Strategy Planning through Strategic Portfolio Management." StrategyBlocks. Blog. 26 Feb. 2020. Accessed 6 Feb. 2023.

Westmoreland, Heather. "What is Strategic Portfolio Management." Planview. Blog. 19 Oct 2002. Accessed 6 Feb. 2023.

Wiltshire, Andrew. "Shibumi Included in Gartner Magic Quadrant for Strategic Portfolio Management for the 2nd Straight Year." Shibumi. Blog. 20 Apr. 2022. Accessed 6 Feb. 2023.

Ziehr, Paula. "Keep your eye on the prize: Align your IT investments with business strategy." SoftwareAG. Blog. 5 Jul. 2022. Accessed 6 Feb. 2023.

Assess Infrastructure Readiness for Digital Transformation

Unlock the full potential of your infrastructure with a digital transformation strategy and clear the barriers to success.

Analyst Perspective

It’s not just about the technology!

Many businesses fail in their endeavors to complete a digital transformation, but the reasons are complex, and there are many ways to fail, whether it is people, process, or technology. In fact, according to many surveys, 70% of digital transformations fail, and it’s mainly down to strategy – or the lack thereof.

A lot of organizations think of digital transformation as just an investment in technology, with no vision of what they are trying to achieve or transform. So, out of the gate, many organizations fail to undergo a meaningful transformation, change their business model, or bring about a culture of digital transformation needed to be seriously competitive in their given market.

When it comes to I&O leaders who have been given a mandate to drive digital transformation projects, they still must align to the vision and mission of the organization; they must still train and hire staff that will be experts in their field; they must still drive process improvements and align the right technology to meet the needs of a digital transformation.

John Donovan

Principal Research Director, I&O
Info-Tech Research Group

Insight summary

Overarching insight

Digital transformation requires I&O teams to shift from traditional infrastructure management to becoming a strategic enabler, driving agility, innovation, and operational excellence through effective integration of people, process, and technology.

Insight 1

Collaboration is a key component of I&O – Promote strong collaboration between I&O and other business functions. When doing a digital transformation, it is clear that this is a cross-functional effort. Business leaders and IT teams need to align their objectives, prioritize initiatives, and ensure that you are seamlessly integrating technologies with the new business functions.

Insight 2

Embrace agility and adaptability as core principles – As the digital landscape continues to evolve, it is paramount that I&O leaders are agile and adaptable to changing business needs, adopting new technology and implementing new innovative solutions. The culture of continuous improvement and openness to experimentation and learning will assist the I&O leaders in their journey.

Insight 3

Future-proof your infrastructure and operations – By anticipating emerging technologies and trends, you can proactively plan and organize your team for future needs. By investing in scalable, flexible infrastructure such as cloud services, automation, AI technologies, and continuously upskilling the IT staff, you can stay relevant and forward-looking in the digital space.

Tactical insight

An IT infrastructure maturity assessment is a foundational step in the journey of digital transformation. The demand will be on performance, resilience, and scalability. IT infrastructure must be able to support innovation and rapid deployment of services.

Tactical insight

Having a clear strategy, with leadership commitment along with hiring and training the right people, monitoring and measuring your progress, and ensuring it is a business-led journey will increase your chances of success.

Executive Summary

Info-Tech Insight

By driving a customer-centric approach, delivering a successful transformation can be tailored to the business goals and drive adoption and engagement. Refining your roadmap through data and analytics will drive this change. Use third-party expertise to guide your transformation and help build that vision of the future.

The cost of digital transformation

The challenges that stand in the way of your success, and what is needed to reverse the risk

What CIOs are saying about their challenges

26% of those CIOs surveyed cite resistance to change, with entrenched viewpoints demonstrating a real need for a cultural shift to enhance the digital transformation journey.

Source: Prophet, 2019.

70% of digital transformation projects fall short of their objectives – even when their leadership is aligned, often with serious consequences.

Source: BCG, 2020.

Having a clear strategy and commitment from leadership, hiring and training the right people, monitoring and measuring your progress, and ensuring it is a business-led journey will increase your chances of success.

Cultural change, business alignment, skills training, and setting a clear strategy with KPIs to demonstrate success are all key to being successful in your digital journey.

Small and medium-sized enterprises

What business owners and CEOs are saying about their digital transformation

57% of small business owners feel they must improve their IT infrastructure to optimize their operations.

Source: SMB Story, 2023.

64% of CEOs believe driving digital transformation at a rapid pace is critical to attracting and retaining talent and customers.

Source: KPMG, 2022.

Info-Tech Insight

An IT infrastructure maturity assessment is a foundational step in the journey of digital transformation. The demand will be on performance, resilience, and scalability. IT infrastructure must be able to support innovation and rapid deployments.