Guessing is not a strategy: How to build decision velocity with AI and real-time data
June 10, 2026 | Live Webinar
Project and Portfolio Managers: What's the Big Difference?
Categories:
Portfolio Management
Categories: Portfolio Management
| Frequently, I hear stakeholders confuse "project managers" and "portfolio managers." The misunderstanding may stem from the fact that although portfolio managers may seem to be higher in the organizational hierarchy, it doesn't necessarily mean that they supervise project managers. Also adding to the confusion is that today's project managers have more business acumen than their predecessors to compete in a global economy. To determine the difference, remember one thing: Portfolio managers help translate an organization's business strategy into a portfolio of projects' benefits and results, which are delivered by project managers and their teams. Therefore, the portfolio manager works in a synergic way with project managers to realize business objectives through projects. A portfolio manager has to answer three questions about every project: 1. Is it interesting? All projects have to create business value. Consequently, alignment between project deliverables and business strategy is essential. By answering if projects are interesting from the point of view of the organization, we are assuring that we have a portfolio aligned with the strategic plan. 2. Is it viable? It is common to have many interesting project possibilities. However, we may not be capable of carrying them out. Therefore, a portfolio manager must determine a project's viability. Do we have the resources? Do we have the technical skills? 3. Should we do it? We may end up with a list of projects that are interesting and viable, but we cannot execute all of them at once. Portfolio managers use scoreboards and other methods such as the analytic hierarchy process to select and prioritize the best projects. To answer these questions, portfolio managers analyze business cases, project proposals and viability studies. Once there is an approved project charter, a project manager takes over to drive the completion of the project on time and in budget and to ensure that the project stays aligned with the business strategy. By the end of the project, the project manager's performance depends on how well he or she planned and managed the project (time, cost, and scope and quality). That is, a successful project would have satisfied stakeholders by delivering what was promised according to the project plan. Considering the performance of a portfolio depends on achieving business objectives through projects, portfolio managers use other metrics to measure success. These include:
Learn more about portfolio management in PMI's Pulse of the ProfessionTM In-Depth Report: Portfolio Management. |
The Making of "Life of Pi" and Program Management
Categories:
Program Management
Categories: Program Management
| "This film has its own fate, and it chooses me." Director Ang Lee said this not out of arrogance, but out of recognition he had been given a unique opportunity to make "Life of Pi" with people who could help him produce a film from Yann Martel's "unfilmable" novel. Based on interviews, the production involved the most difficult demands you can place on filmmakers: children, water and animals. Previous directors had failed to see the film through due to artistic or budgetary problems. Like the best program managers out there, Mr. Lee succeeded by combining two approaches: one creative (by incorporating pre-visualizations), the other pragmatic (by inspiring others in controlling costs). To tackle the visual special effects, the director and the producers settled on Rhythm & Hues Studios. In the year leading up to actual production, Mr. Lee worked on pre-visualizations -- a storyboarding technique that emulates scenes with music, sound and stunts -- of the most difficult parts of the film and shared them with the studio. This allowed both the director and the studio's artists to plan how to best create the shots. These pre-visualizations were like a feasibility study in program management. It enabled Mr. Lee to focus the studio on the development of special effects. Via this process, the different types of visual effects professionals -- from physical props people to computer modelers -- could be properly integrated into the film's production plan and schedule. Being able to see who was working on what helped the director bring to life the characters and events in the novel -- and ensure that it was done in a style that remained faithful to the novel's spiritual themes. The second challenge was the budget. Mr. Lee's original budget was US$70 million -- cheap, considering the production's challenges. Mr. Lee had persuaded the producers to make most of the film in Taiwan, which dramatically reduced costs. But it was still a big-budget film, and as actual costs looked as though they might climb over estimates, production halted. Mr. Lee met with studio executives and showed them finished shots. Although the execs were impressed, they were also honest: Film production could only resume if Mr. Lee kept down the budget. He agreed. Rhythm & Hue Studios' cooperation helped cut the costs, and Mr. Lee was grateful. He also knew the California, U.S.-based studio was trying to expand internationally -- and that the Taiwanese government was trying to attract investment to the creative industries. So as film production ended, he suggested a mutually beneficial deal between the studio and the government. The result was the building of a new Rhythm & Hue Studios facility in Taiwan and the creation of in-studio training and internships, a partnership between the studio and a Taiwanese telecom company to provide cloud computing services for local creative industries, and an investment company for film production. In the end, all stakeholders -- Fox Studios, Rhythm & Hues Studios, the Taiwanese government and Mr. Lee -- recognized the mutual benefits of working together. Key to this was Mr. Lee showing the professionalism we should expect from a program manager, and recognizing and then creatively combining benefits. Do you think creativity combined with pragmatism can drive project success? |
How to Build Ethics into Your Team Culture
Categories:
Leadership
Categories: Leadership
| Ethical behavior is just as crucial as effective leadership in persuading stakeholders to cooperate and support the work of the project manager — and therefore contributes to successful project outcomes. Ethical behavior has been a hallmark of PMI's drive to establish the profession of project management, supported by the PMI Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct. What is less well understood is the crucial role leaders play in establishing the ethical culture of their organizations. One key direction ethical leadership takes is indirectly — across the hierarchy, to peers of the leader. There is also a cascading effect, with the ethics of a senior leader influencing a subordinate leader's behaviors. In turn, ethical conduct trickles down to the subordinate leader's team culture, and so on down the hierarchy. As with any cascade, figuratively speaking, the flow is always downhill. An October 2012 study among more than 2,500 serving military personnel published in the Academy of Management journal supports two key findings from various business studies, including one published in the Harvard Business Review and one by Boston University professor Tamar Frankel:
In short, the ethical framework of an organization is set at the top and standards can be expected to be similar or deteriorate as you move down the hierarchy and out into the teams. Note that these studies were not looking at extreme ethical behaviors, such as dishonesty or discrimination — breaching these standards would offend most people. The research above focused on subtle but important aspects of ethics, similar to those found in the "aspirational" sections of PMI's Code of Ethics. These types of behaviors encourage individuals to develop as professionals, create a great place to work and urge external stakeholders to support the team. The practical implications of these findings are that leaders need to "walk the talk" by engaging in ethical behavior. They need to create a strong ethical culture in their teams by providing the tools needed to help team members behave ethically, on a reinforced basis. Some tools to inject ethics into the team culture include:
Once created, an ethical culture in your team can be expected to have a strong effect sideways and downward within the organization — and outward to the wider stakeholder community. How do you encourage ethical behavior among your peers and teams? |
Fostering Cultural Awareness — Right from the Start
| Establishing a connection early on among team members is essential, but it can get complicated when they're from different parts of the world. One of the elements I consider is what anthropologist Edward T. Hall describes as a person's cultural context level. Higher context cultures -- such as Italian, Latin American, Chinese and Indian -- place great value on interpersonal relationships. Lower context cultures -- such as U.S., British or German -- emphasize directness and logic. For example, non-verbal communication is more important in higher context cultures. In higher context cultures, the contract is a starting point for negotiation. In lower context cultures, the contract is the contract. By understanding an individual's personal, national and organizational cultures, you can better align the team and gain greater influence. I didn't just read up on this theory. I lived it. While leading a project in Brazil in 2001, some U.S. team members told me they were uncomfortable with how Latin American team members greeted them with hearty handshakes and kisses on the cheek. I knew I had to address the issue early on to set the tone for the rest of the project. So during our next meeting, I eased into the topic by showing clips of people greeting each other in movies or sitcoms, making sure none were from the United States or Latin America. Afterward, I asked team members how they would react if they were in a similar situation. This was a revealing moment as the team became aware of their cultural differences by "seeing" themselves in the video clips. This broke the ice and opened the floor for candid discussions. Since then, I've included cultural differences on the agenda for every first team meeting. I use that time as an open forum for us to share and record cultural experiences. I also create a repository with documents and video clips that can be later used to induct new team members. I've shared this experience with peers, who agree that cultural awareness is a skill that should be developed and mastered. Incorporating a cultural differences exercise establishes respect and empathy for diverse values and behaviors, which in turn creates an open and accepting team environment. How do you handle cultural differences of your team members at the start of each project? What are you doing to build cultural awareness? |
Decomposing Requirements for Tangible Project Outcomes
| Delivering scope or fulfilling needs on a project is not always equivalent with adding value. In my opinion, a project adds value to an organization if its deliverables add value. Many project managers approach the project in a delivery-oriented fashion. They plan for, work against, and monitor and control the project's work through deliverables. Delivery-oriented project managers make the scope's outcome tangible in order to fulfill the project's goals. The first step to incorporating this project planning technique is to understand what a "deliverable" is. "Deliverables" are concrete and discrete artifacts of a project's outcome, such as products, functionalities, features, documents and plans. They can be obtained by "decomposing," or breaking down, the project's requirements in smaller, more manageable components. As you decompose requirements, keep in mind that you can structure and manage the project deliverables in various ways. Some of the most common approaches for different types of organizations include:
As a side note, in agile projects, where teams are action-oriented, the work decomposition is done slightly different. The focus then is on epics, user stories and on the functionality to be delivered. To decompose requirements effectively, I recommend following these tips:
Focusing mainly and steadily on the "what" is a pragmatic and efficient planning approach as you set up the project. How do you decompose requirements? Learn about the basics of project work planning, including the four main steps of planning. |