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.
Proper portfolio management requires a staffing plan that describes how and by whom the authorized work will be delivered. This plan will match available skills with requirements, identify the need to hire or train new skills, and make sure resources are neither idle or overwhelmed.
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.
Prior to implementing a portfolio management system in your organization, individual managers might have determined the staffing needs for their own particular groups. However, with portfolio management, all of the resources should be considered as a common pool. In this way, resources can be balanced and used most effectively across the portfolio.
Once the work of the portfolio has been authorized, the portfolio management team must create a Staffing Plan for the year. This plan provides the following guidance:
> Shows how authorized work will be staffed.
> Describes when additional people need to be hired and what specific positions they will fill.
> Maps people's skills to the work requirements of the portfolio…
