Less Really Is More When It Comes to Yogurt — and Project Portfolios
From the Voices on Project Management Blog
by Cameron McGaughy,
Lynda Bourne, Kevin Korterud, Conrado Morlan, Peter Tarhanidis, Mario Trentim, Jen Skrabak, David Wakeman, Wanda Curlee, Christian Bisson, Ramiro Rodrigues, Soma Bhattacharya, Emily Luijbregts, Sree Rao, Yasmina Khelifi, Marat Oyvetsky, Lenka Pincot, Jorge Martin Valdes Garciatorres, cyndee miller
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Date
Anthony Gaytor of HP on stage at PMI's PMO Symposium™ on Tuesday.
By Cyndee Miller
Have you ever stood in the grocery store, staring at 18 different varieties of Greek yogurt, paralyzed by choice? I have. We live in a world of ever-growing choice and complexity — and it’s making me crave simplicity.
Now we’re talking about my measly US$1.50 purchase. So what does that mean for organizations dealing with a whole portfolio of projects?
Well, it seems they face a similar dilemma based on the lively conversations at PMO Symposium™. Much of that discussion centered on the 2015 PMI® Thought Leadership Series: The Power of Project Portfolio Management, produced in partnership with Deloitte, Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and The Economist Intelligence Unit.
“We need to keep things simple,” said Chris Garibaldi of Deloitte. “It’s not about implementing all the capabilities of project portfolio management. You can have too many tools, too many processes.”
Even in these metrics-obsessed, data-drenched times, Garibaldi said a handful of KPIs and just one dashboard view of the project portfolio’s health can provide enough clarity for portfolio managers and the C-suite they support.
Process and technology are critical components of portfolio management, but, he said, “people first—always.”
And those people must go in armed with the courage to kill a project out of whack with strategy.
“We have to create a culture that makes it okay to stop projects and reinvest those resources somewhere else,” said Jennifer Bratton of BCG, who spoke at the symposium’s opening plenary session.
With the business environment changing so fast, organizations can’t afford to waste money and time on the wrong projects.
“You’ve got to invest in individuals that will call out failures because it’s right for the business,” Bratton said.
Anthony Gaytor has been living that at HP Enterprise, as the global organization worked to get its arms around a sprawling portfolio of internal IT projects.
“If you don’t have the strategy at the core of everything you’re doing, you may not be working on the right things,” Gaytor said in his keynote address. Without effective portfolio management, “you’re dead before you start.”
And to keep things moving, you’re going to need exec support — so learn to speak fluently in the language of the C-suite. “If you talk IT speak or project language, they’re never going to listen to you.”
The strategic approached is clearly working for HP’s internal IT portfolio, which the company has sliced from 1,240 to 500 projects in just a few years. On-time delivery has increased by 20 percent and the portion of innovation (rather than support) projects has jumped from 30 percent to 80 percent.
Gaytor attributed those results in part to KISS: the old adage, “keep it simple, stupid.” Every project is now judged on just six KPIs.
Portfolio management is about always keeping an eye out for ways to trim the fat — so all that’s left is “doing the right thing at the right time with the right outcomes,” he said.
Sounds so very simple — and sensible. So why do so few organizations do it?
Posted
by
cyndee miller
on: November 11, 2015 05:52 PM |
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Comments (4)
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rachel town
Kent State University Ashtabula
Ashtabula, Oh, United States
Very well written! Thank you!
Andreia Reis
PMO Coordenator| Adimax Indústria e Comércio de Alimentos
Mairinque, São Paulo, Brazil
Austin Hundley
Senior Consultant| Nordic Consulting
Nashville, Tn, United States
Sometimes because they've been told to use every tool and expand, expand, expand. They want to be cutting edge, trendy, etc and are constantly adding ,etc. A number of different reasons why, but agree, generally simple is better.
Steven Zachary
Director| Alberta Health Services
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Absolutely. This is outstanding and just what needs to be published again and again and again.
If it doesn't line up strategically, lead to value, cancel it. Reallocate scarce resources.
I also loved the focus on simplicity. Back to that firehose example, it's not about the best methods, the finest, the cleverest. It has to get the job done and when talking executives, make it simple, effective, easy to use and understand and nimble. End, done.
Great article.
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