Programs & Portfolios: Striking Strategic Balance

  Portfolio Management   ProjectsAtWork  

Though programs and portfolios are too often used interchangeably, there are important distinctions that should determine how you organize and report on the projects within them. Here are seven questions that can help your organization better structure and align its project groups.

A kid squeezes a couple lemons, mixes it with some sugar and water and sets up a table on their front step. After a few hours of minding the lemonade stand, they have a fistful of quarters and dollars to show for the efforts.

Your company is a little more complicated. You develop, market and sell products and services that number in the hundreds or thousands. Your clients’ needs are as complex and sophisticated as the environment you compete in. Your teams in different business functions are working to prioritize demand and try to launch the project that is the most strategic and valuable, while considering risk, complexity and time. How does anyone balance it all? The answer: programs and portfolios.

While the two terms are used interchangeably, there is a distinction between them:

   > A program is a grouping of projects aligned by a common theme from an organizational standpoint. Examples can be seen as aligned by a product launch or a corporate strategy. Typically all projects in a program are aligned with that program exclusively – projects tend not …

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