Portfolios, Programs & Projects: Oh My!
Mark Mullaly is president of Interthink Consulting Incorporated, an organizational development and change firm specializing in the creation of effective organizational project management solutions. Since 1990, it has worked with companies throughout North America to develop, enhance and implement effective project management tools, processes, structures and capabilities. Mark was most recently co-lead investigator of the Value of Project Management research project sponsored by PMI. You can read more of his writing at markmullaly.com.
Alignment. It's a thing. To many, it's a very, very big thing. Processes, frameworks, methodologies and portfolio management software are all sold with glowing, enthusiastic promises of creating alignment, improving alignment and enhancing alignment. The word is used with such abandon and enthusiasm that certain salespeople sound like nothing so much as manic, slightly demented chiropractors.
But how much alignment do you need? How much is possible, and just when have you jumped the shark in this particular enterprise?
I have argued elsewhere that in the absence of good strategic management, portfolio management typically struggles to deliver value, and where good strategic management exists the relevance of portfolio management is more questionable. Yet the drive to implement portfolio management is often a response to an absence of clarity and strategic focus within the organization.
In an attempt to get control over their world, an organizational unit (very often IT) tries to establish portfolio management as a way of commanding their resource capacity and priorities. In the absence of guidance from elsewhere, this is a bid to impose structure and direct decisions.
In the absence of real strategic direction, however, these efforts often fail. Expectations continue to exceed capacity to deliver them, resources continue to be over-allocated (or …
Please log in or sign up below to read the rest of the article.
|
"More than any time in history mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness, the other to total extinction. Let us pray that we have the wisdom to choose correctly." - Woody Allen |
