Portfolio Management

The challenge

• Typically your business wants much more than your IT development organization can deliver with the available resources at the requested quality levels.
• Over-damnd has a negative influence on delivery throughput. IT starts many projects (or features) but has trouble delivering most of them within the set parameters of scope, time, budget, and quality. Some requested deliverables may even be of questionable value to the business.
• You may not have the right project portfolio management (PPM) strategy to bring order in IT's delivery activities and to maximize business value.

Our advice

Insight

• Many in IT mix PPM and project management. Your project management playbook does not equate to the holistic view a real PPM practice gives you.
• Some organizations also mistake PPM for a set of processes. Processes are needed, but a real strategy works towards tangible goals.
• PPM works at the strategic level of the company; hence executive buy-in is critical. Without executive support, any effort to reconcile supply and demand will be tough to achieve.

Impact and results 

• PPM is a coherent business-aligned strategy that maximizes business value creation across the entire portfolio, rather than in each project.
• Our methodology tackles the most pressing challenge upfront: get executive buy-in before you start defining your goals. With senior management behind the plan, implementation will become easier.
• Create PPM processes that are a cultural fit for your company. Define your short and long-term goals for your strategy and support them with fully embedded portfolio management processes.

The roadmap

Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

Get started.

Read our executive brief to understand why you should develop a PPM strategy and understand how our methodology can help you. We show you how we can support you.

• Develop a Project Portfolio Management Strategy – Executive Brief (ppt)
• Develop a Project Portfolio Management Strategy – Phases 1-3 (ppt)

Obtain executive buy-in for your strategy

Ensure your strategy is a cultural fit or cultural-add for your company.

• Develop a Project Portfolio Management Strategy – Phase 1: Get Executive Buy-In for Your PPM Strategy (ppt)
• PPM High-Level Supply-Demand Calculator (xls)
• PPM Strategic Plan Template (ppt)
• PPM Strategy-Process Goals Translation Matrix Template (xls)

Align the PPM processes to your company's strategic goals

Use the advice and tools in this stage to align the PPM processes.

• Develop a Project Portfolio Management Strategy – Phase 2: Align PPM Processes to Your Strategic Goals (ppt)
• PPM Strategy Development Tool (xls)

Refine and complete your plan

Use the inputs from the previous stages and add a cost-benefit analysis and tool recommendation.

• Streamline Application Maintenance – Phase 3: Optimize Maintenance Capabilities (ppt)

Streamline your maintenance delivery

Define quality standards in maintenance practices. Enforce these in alignment with the governance you have set up. Show a high degree of transparency and open discussions on development challenges.

• Develop a Project Portfolio Management Strategy – Phase 3: Complete Your PPM Strategic Plan (ppt)
• Project Portfolio Analyst / PMO Analyst (doc)