Can anyone recommend a good project portfolio management book please?

Anonymous

I've recently been asked to manage our project portfolio, however this is something quite new to me. Can anyone recommend a decent book or resource please?

Posted: Mar 6, 2008 2:13 PM

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Al S. Brown PMP CSM PMI-PBA President and CEO| Real-Life Projects Inc. Belle Mead, Nj, United States

Project portfolio management is an ill-defined term right now, so make sure you know what they mean by "manage our project portfolio". Depending on the role, you will need different types of help.

Here are a few of my favorite books for people who are going to manage a project portfolio. They do not have "portfolio management" in their title, but they give key information that will help you:
Gary Heerkens, "The Business-Savvy Project Manager"
Paul Dinsmore and Terence Cooke-Davies, "The Right Projects Done Right!"

There is the about-to-be-updated PMI "Standard for Portfolio Management", but it is lacking some key processes in my view. It is useful for anyone introducing a new discipline of project portfolio management, and whose employer needs to prioritize a set of projects. I find that there is a lot more to managing a portfolio of projects than just prioritization and selection, though.

You might also find my web site helpful, particularly the articles on strategic planning and PM:
http://www.alexsbrown.com/tag/strategic

Posted: Mar 7, 2008 5:16 PM

Anonymous

I've found this book to be valuable:

http://www.amazon.com/Advanced-Project-Por...05430749&sr=8-1

Posted: Mar 13, 2008 1:53 PM

Don Kim PROJECT-TO-PORTFOLIO MANAGEMENT EXPERT| Seeking opportunities Sacramento, CA, United States

Once you go beyond the tactical aspects of managing a single project and move into program and/or portfolio management, is where you will be engaged in the grouping of projects and how they align with the strategic initiatives of your company. Typically, this will entail adding business metrics to those portfolio of projects and prioritizing them based on those metrics.

Below are books related to program and portfolio management that I found extremely useful:

The Handbook of Program Management

Optimizing Corporate Portfolio Management: Aligning Investment Proposals with Organizational Strategy

Project Portfolio Management: A Practical Guide to Selecting Projects, Managing Portfolios, and Maximizing Benefits (Jossey-Bass Business & Management)

The Business Savvy Project Manager

The last book is what Alex recommended, and not only is it one of the better books I've read on how to apply financial metrics to projects, but also has a section completely devoted to how to apply those metrics to portfolio management and a quite rigorous treatment.

The first book "Optimizing Corporate Portfolio Management" is very much into viewing a portfolio of projects from a strategic view and has excellent case studies as well.

I highly recommend all the books.

Don Kim, PMP
www.donkim.info

Posted: Mar 16, 2008 5:55 PM

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Can anyone recommend a good project portfolio management book please?

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