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PPM 101: Identifying Projects
Tom Mochal, PgMP, PMP, TSPM is the president of TenStep, Inc., a methodology development, consulting and training company. Tom won the Distinguished Contribution Award from the Project Management Institute for his work spreading knowledge of project management around the world. He is a speaker, lecturer, instructor and consultant to companies and organizations around the world.
During the business planning process, each department must determine the project work they think is important for execution within the portfolio. Identification of these medium and large projects will come from carryover projects, mandatory projects and tactical or strategic projects.
Done right, project portfolio management can do a lot of good for any organization. But it’s not easy, as many companies, large and small, have discovered. In PPM 101, an ongoing series by veteran project management consultant and author Tom Mochal, we focus on the fundamentals for organizations that are just getting started on the PPM path.
Projects can be large or small — in fact, they can be an hour or so. However, from a practical standpoint, organizations need to establish a threshold that separates project work from discretionary work.
Small projects (less than 250 hours) are defined as non-complex work involving a relatively small number of man-hours with some discretion for prioritization. It probably does not make sense to prioritize these projects individually at the portfolio level, but you may establish an overall budget for small projects and let each department prioritize work that falls within this threshold.
Medium projects (250 to 2,500 hours) may be where most projects fit. These projects need managing but not necessarily full-scale …
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