PwC’s 2017 Portfolio Management Trends and Insights
I've updated the post on Portfolio Management Maturity, I received the link below highlighting PwC's 2017 global project management report which includes key survey results on Portfolio Management insights collected from over 1500 IT leaders in 38 countries.
In the spirit of sharing, I have provided a list of lessons learned or takeaways I gleaned from reading the report along with a link to the document.
Here's what I learned:
- To stay competitive organizations must adopt project and portfolio management as a core part of the business processes.
- Poor project estimating is the number one culprit for project failure.
- Project Portfolio Management adoption has not increased but organizations that have implemented PPM are seeing an increase in performance improvements in the areas of project quality, scope, schedule, cost and benefits realization.
- Organizations that have adopted PPM are seeing significant performance improvements due to the enabling of better IT alignment with the organization's business objectives, increase oversight from an enterprise program management office and a monthly cadence of PPM review meetings.
- PPM software has increasingly matured in the past few years and organizations that have implemented an enterprise PPM solution are reaping the results with greater stakeholder satisfaction from increase project performance.
- Project management maturity has increased and higher PM maturity means higher business performance.
To learn more click on the link below to access the full report.
https://www.pwc.com/gx/en/advisory-services/assets/ppm-service-catalogue-june-2017.pdf
Enhance Workplace Productivity using project portfolio management
In August 2013, I spoke at the Project Management Institute (PMI), and the International Legal Technical Association (ILTA) conference in Las Vegas. The audience and a panel I was on debated about the value of the PMO. We were discussing how the PMO helps organizations enhance workplace productivity. And, as the conversation went on, we began to realize that people were confused about which PMO we were discussing. Was it the project PMO, was the program PMO, or the portfolio PMO? Because those three are very different environments in which to operate, and they all have different governance processes.
Regardless of which PMO we were discussing, we all agreed on one thing, all of these environments enhance workforce productivity. The value of project portfolio management is in its ability to move the needle with accomplishing goals and objectives in a consistent, reliable, and predictable manner. It's how value gets delivered to an organization.
No matter which role you play, we all leverage these processes to deliver value to our companies and improve workplace productivity. So, the ideal audience for mastering the concepts of project, program, and portfolio management should include:
- Decision-makers and other executives who participate in the selection of products and services that will enhance the capabilities of their organization.
- Consultants and strategic planners who are responsible for the development of the organization's strategic roadmap, long-range planning, business planning, or short-term goal development will have a repeatable and consistent process that will align to strategic objectives.
- Business owners who need to understand how to allocate limited resources to achieve their organization's strategic objectives and goals will have the visibility to address project synchronization and reduce resource bottlenecks.
- Project and program managers who need a foundational understanding of the principles, processes, and procedures of project portfolio management.
So, if portfolio management is the apex of the project management ladder, then project management, is like starting at the base camp. And, as you ascend the mountain to the summit, it requires multiple activities which encompasses program management. Below are three comprehensive definitions for each of these areas, starting with portfolio management, program management, and then project management.
Portfolio Management
- Business processes, usually conducted at the highest level within an organization that decides; which projects, programs, and other initiatives will be undertaken in a given period. The criteria for selecting their actions; and the active management of these initiatives through then life cycle to ensure that benefits will be realized, including their termination as required.
Program Management
- Coordinated management of a related series of projects over time, to accomplish broad business goals to which the individual projects contribute, including benefits realization, stakeholder management, and program governance.
Project Management
- Application of knowledge, skills, tools, and techniques to project activities to meet or exceed stakeholder needs and expectations from a project.
Dictionary of Project Management Terms, 3rd edition.
In summary, the value of project programs and portfolios is that they provide the structure which enhances the workplace productivity and align with your overall goals and objectives.
To learn more, click here.
Sincerely,
The APEX of the Project Management Ladder
Dear Reader,
Welcome to “Ascending to the APEX of the project management ladder, demystifying project portfolio management, and building a winning game plan for becoming a project portfolio management expert.”
Project management and project portfolio management offer a set of business practices that enables an organization to identify its most critical activities, and investments that will create the most value for the organization, while managing the allocation of its most constrained resources. The goal of this course is to provide you with a foundation of principles, processes, and procedures that will enable you to demystify project portfolio management and become a project portfolio management expert and use the tools and techniques to manage and support your organization’s project portfolio solutions.
Peter Drucker stated, “Quality in a product or service is not what the supplier puts in. It is what the customer gets out and is willing to pay for, a product is not quality because it is hard to make, or costs a lot of money, as manufacturers typically believe. This is incompetence. Customers pay only for what is of use to them and give them value. Nothing else constitutes quality.”
True Business Values
Project portfolio management is about giving our customers, executive stakeholders, and colleagues, true business values, quality products, and services that can be reflected on the bottom-line profits and allow customer satisfaction and retention.
This foundational course will equip you to provide the building blocks for using these principles of project portfolio management and allow you to ascend to the apex of the project management ladder while demystifying project portfolio management.
Course Objectives
So, this course is designed for Project, Program, and Portfolio Managers who are responsible for implementing an organization’s portfolio management capability, and who need to:
- Align a company’s or organization’s project investments with its strategic goals and objectives.
- Implement a portfolio management governance program that provides guidance and stewardship over the project ideation, selection, calibration, and execution processes, while establishing policies and procedures to manage the company’s portfolio assets effectively.
- Monitor the organization’s portfolio performance.
- Track the performance of the portfolio management against risk and monitoring them while optimizing the portfolio to mitigate the risks that have been identified.
- Help you engage stakeholders at all levels of the organization and execute a comprehensive communication strategy.
So, this course is designed for those who have been tasked with the responsibility to create value for their organization. It’s also open to anyone who wants to learn and have an impact on the project management office within their organization.
To learn more, click here.
Sincerely,
Voted #44 on the 130 Top Project Management Influencers Of 2019 List
If you want to stay top of the latest in project management and related topics like change management, business strategy, and leadership, make sure you’re following these movers and shakers: the top project management influencers of 2019.
How Are Projects, Programs, and Portfolios Different?
As a certified project manager and portfolio manager, I am often asked, what is the difference between project, program and portfolio management? The way I explained it is to use the metaphor of a musical concert series, and it goes like this.
If you are a fan of opera, orchestra music or love a Jazz series program, then this analogy should make sense. When I think of projects, programs and portfolios I think of them in terms of musical concerts. The entire season of musical concerts would be the portfolio, each event or concert in the season would be the program and each song within a concert or program would be a project. So, you would equate a portfolio to a concert series, you would think of the concert event with multiple songs as a program and each song as a project.
To read the complete article click here.
5 Secrets for Strategic Growth
Have you ever gone to a concert and heard a band that you didn’t know performing one of your favorite songs? All the notes are correct, and the singers are singing in tune, but the performance is just okay, it does not move you. Then, you go and hear the same song from a different group, and you immediately rise to your feet and started grooving? The difference is talent plus passion and not talent alone, and that is the secret. In this article, I will share what I believe are the five secrets to strategic growth which are much like listening to a band that makes you want to groove.
1. Align your organization with its value proposition.
What is your organization’s value proposition? Your value proposition is the promise that you are making to your customers that your products or services will address and meet their needs for the jobs they need to complete, the pains they need to alleviate, and the gains they want to achieve.
To read the complete article click here.
