Projects Prioritization due to Resources Constraints
Marek RudnickiPMO, Program Management, Project Management, Business Development| FreelancerPoland
I know this is a monster topic, but I need some advice from You!
Let me put the scenario.
Large financial organization.
Quite a large portfolio of 100+ projects. No experience on real prioritization so far, but there is project's scoring (but never actionized before).
Normally business coming with projects all year long.
As long as there is a budget they got always OK.
Not much roadmap visibility of what business can come up.
End of last year and this year shared resources become the bottleneck and an issue on project performance.
Mostly App development (IT) but also Legal and Procurement.
While shared business units are working on enhancing their capacity there is a strong idea, we should also limit the number of projects in the portfolio and better manage this part.
So we started to work on this now.
One of my challenges is no-one ever told the business you cannot start the project or you need to put this project on hold because there are no resources.
This will be a new experience for this organization.
Can You please share how You do it in your companies?
What works what doesn't. I am looking for a kind of working E2E model outline.
Would strongly recommend you read Steve Tendon & Daniel Doiron's book "Tame your work flow" which combines lean with Goldratt's ToC to address this challenge of skilled people and not money being the true constraint on an organization's ability to deliver.
They provide a lot of great ideas for how to shift from too many concurrent projects to focusing on the vital few.
Kiron
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1 reply by Marek Rudnicki
Apr 01, 2021 10:53 AM
Marek Rudnicki
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Kiron, Great suggestion.Many thanks!
Saving Changes...
Marek RudnickiPMO, Program Management, Project Management, Business Development| FreelancerPoland
Apr 01, 2021 9:06 AM
Replying to Kiron Bondale
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Marek -
Would strongly recommend you read Steve Tendon & Daniel Doiron's book "Tame your work flow" which combines lean with Goldratt's ToC to address this challenge of skilled people and not money being the true constraint on an organization's ability to deliver.
They provide a lot of great ideas for how to shift from too many concurrent projects to focusing on the vital few.
Kiron
Kiron, Great suggestion.Many thanks! Saving Changes...
Thomas WalentaGlobal Project Economy ExpertHackenheim, Germany
Hi Marek
have seen your situation quite often and helped organizations to mitigate it (it is sometimes a reason to start a PMO).
Organizations do portfolio management (=govern their work) if they are aware of it or not. It is beneficial to formalize it without getting too buerocratic.
My recommendation is to not try to manage resources in the beginning but establish visibility on key projects and align the organization with it. With some stability in priorities you can also increase staff satisfaction, reduce attrition and waste.
In one case just by establishing order and transparency we almaost doubled the project volume with the same resource base.
Marek RudnickiPMO, Program Management, Project Management, Business Development| FreelancerPoland
Hi Thomas,
Many thanks for the reply and "hands-on" tips! This is what exactly I expected when posting a question.
I think the organization made all resource optimization and stretch and I think all potential in this matter is used.
Also, visibility on portfolio activities is there. we have prioritization (as scoring, but not much executed for decisions - see below)
The real dilemma is there are 2 options (I know) how to execute prioritization of projects (I am talking practical approach, not theory).
1) Saying NO to the business owner at project initiation, your project is too low on scoring needs to wait. And let existing projects complete and release resources. Then using FIFO take the next one from the waiting list.
Or
2) Let all open (for political reasons) but Saying NO to the running projects with the low scores - and put them on hold, to make room for new important projects (with better lobbing?)
I know all will say do both or do this based on scoring points.
I am more interested in how others do this in their organizations - which option dominates in practice.
Both need some unpleasant discussions with the business owner about why his project is considered, even you have all arguments in hand.
This is a very political topic in execution at the end.
And TOP management by itself will not make decisions ( also because of politics) unless PMO is preparing this well and recommend which projects, make initial discussion, almost convince business etc.
And this is exactly that "sticky" part of it.
SO, Bump!
ALL portfolio/PMO Managers! How is your organization dealing with the execution of prioritization!
Thanks in advance! Saving Changes...
Thomas WalentaGlobal Project Economy ExpertHackenheim, Germany
Marek
it is easy. All dichotomies vanish if you reframe the problem.
Not the PMO or top management makes the Go/Nogo decision but the requesters themselves, publicly. And there is room to move for everybody.
In the case I shared, the company / cross divisional portfolio had the bulk of budget but each division kept their own budget. So if their project did not make it to the company portfolio, they could do it by themselves, maybe spread over 2 or more periods. Or make a deal with another department. In any case, their responsibility. The budget was set by the CFO and actually he limited the portfolio value.
Keen to hear from others.
Thomas Saving Changes...
Marek RudnickiPMO, Program Management, Project Management, Business Development| FreelancerPoland
Thomas,
Many thanks.
Good and out-of-the-box thinking on changing the operating model. I have not considered it. And this is why I am asking:) Thanks again.
Not sure what would be a road to implement this kind of model change in my organization - during the financial year (you know - re-budgeting process ), but definitely good to put it on a table and start considering it for the next one. Saving Changes...
Vladimir LiberzonR&D Director| Spider Project TeamMoscow, Russian Federation
How often do You review your portfolio for making a decision based on the model?
Is the evaluation of projects done before they start and let only those with high scores?
Or You evaluate as they go and suspend, slow down, stop those to make room for higher priorities?
Do You have multiple sponsors or the same body/person make a decision on what to stop?
What is the process (not metrics) to get to decide what to stop?
The volatility of the environment encourages market needs to change abruptly and constantly, seeking resilience. In other words, the ability to inspect to adapt solutions to the new context.
Similarly, the business reality is framing within a VUCA context (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity e Ambiguity). Likewise, a tending towards digital transformation has created an environment of high innovation and competitiveness through new applications and technological developments. Indeed, it is necessary to seek a technique that best assesses all those factors, both as the solution and perform.
Using a technique called the “Requirement prioritization model” is possible to appraisal all those factors for evaluating the feasibility of delivering the most desirable solutions into the window of opportunity, considering the capacity and resources available during the development. It enables the assessment of risk at a lower cost. This technique is a matrix model that rates each feature within several dimensions. Then, each factor (custom needs (benefits, penalty), risk, cost, time, techniques, competitors, etc.) is measured and weighted to evaluate its influence.
Finally, an adequate life cycle approach is necessary to design the portfolio conceptualization. I recommend using the Discipline Agile methodology because I think it adapts very well to each case. Saving Changes...
Marek RudnickiPMO, Program Management, Project Management, Business Development| FreelancerPoland
Hi Mahendra,
Thank You for these suggestions!
We do have PMO and all tools and visibility what is needed. Also, the project prioritization model.
My question was around "how others work" with sponsors to limit their appetite for projects.
As we can not constantly grow teams to satisfy them resource and budget-wise (PMO manages total projects budget). And this is a very political area. I really mean practice, not tools.
Thomas's answer was probably most close to addressing the question.
Anyway thanks for the blog links - nice points. Saving Changes...
Marek RudnickiPMO, Program Management, Project Management, Business Development| FreelancerPoland
How often do You review your portfolio for making a decision based on the model?
Is the evaluation of projects done before they start and let only those with high scores?
Or You evaluate as they go and suspend, slow down, stop those to make room for higher priorities?
Do You have multiple sponsors or the same body/person make a decision on what to stop?
What is the process (not metrics) to get to decide what to stop?
Thanks in Advance for your reply! Saving Changes...
