How do we implement IT Portfolio Management in manufacturing company?
Ginny AhujaProgram Manager| University of FloridaGainesville, Fl, United States
The company I am working for is a medical device manufacturing company and there is no process to manage resources, priority or deliverables. To add to this IT is a new department trying to coach the business with the value of the portfolio management. I am tasked to do the pilot in IT and then expand to other business. I am looking for some guidance to implement IT Portfolio Management which can be expanded later. I will appreciate any inputs. Saving Changes...
Start by gaining alignment across the senior stakeholders on some of the basic tenets of portfolio management. If you don't have their full buy in to adhere to those, no amount of process or tools will help.
This includes some key decisions such as:
1. What defines a project which falls within the scope of the portfolio?
2. How frequently will the portfolio be reviewed?
3. What are conditions under which project investments can be reduced or entirely divested?
Kiron
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1 reply by Ginny Ahuja
Oct 13, 2022 8:45 AM
Ginny Ahuja
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Thanks Kiron. I believe I have the buy in from CIO, which is a good start. Any tool or process suggestion?
Saving Changes...
Sergio Luis ConteHelping to create solutions for everyone| Worldwide based OrganizationsBuenos Aires, Argentina
My recommendation is going to Lean Portfolio Management (LPM)
literature to implement it. You can take as a guideline or framework to follow SAFe Lean Portfolio Management. While I am in charge to implement it in my actual work place I am not saying that it has to be implemented in all companies. I just saying that you can give it as a practical guideline or example. But at the end, in my personal experience, because companies are familiar with Lean then LPM could contain familiar terms and could help in the common understanding.
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1 reply by Ginny Ahuja
Oct 13, 2022 8:47 AM
Ginny Ahuja
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Thanks Luis. Manufacturing company understand Lean , so this may be an easy sell :-). Any suggestion to initiate that process?
Ginny AhujaProgram Manager| University of FloridaGainesville, Fl, United States
Oct 12, 2022 4:24 PM
Replying to Kiron Bondale
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Ginny -
Start by gaining alignment across the senior stakeholders on some of the basic tenets of portfolio management. If you don't have their full buy in to adhere to those, no amount of process or tools will help.
This includes some key decisions such as:
1. What defines a project which falls within the scope of the portfolio?
2. How frequently will the portfolio be reviewed?
3. What are conditions under which project investments can be reduced or entirely divested?
Kiron
Thanks Kiron. I believe I have the buy in from CIO, which is a good start. Any tool or process suggestion? Saving Changes...
Ginny AhujaProgram Manager| University of FloridaGainesville, Fl, United States
Oct 13, 2022 4:35 AM
Replying to Sergio Luis Conte
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My recommendation is going to Lean Portfolio Management (LPM)
literature to implement it. You can take as a guideline or framework to follow SAFe Lean Portfolio Management. While I am in charge to implement it in my actual work place I am not saying that it has to be implemented in all companies. I just saying that you can give it as a practical guideline or example. But at the end, in my personal experience, because companies are familiar with Lean then LPM could contain familiar terms and could help in the common understanding.
Thanks Luis. Manufacturing company understand Lean , so this may be an easy sell :-). Any suggestion to initiate that process? Saving Changes...
Before introducing any process or tool changes, get the governance framework defined first. This includes identifying what qualitative and quantitative metrics the portfolio steering committee needs to support their decision making. Then you can get a current inventory of active projects and submitted requests and conduct a preliminary session with the steering committee to identify any major changes they feel are warranted.
Kiron
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1 reply by Ginny Ahuja
Oct 24, 2022 8:55 AM
Ginny Ahuja
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Thanks Kiron. That is exactly I was thinking. I am trying to get start thinking about metrics.
These sort of questions are fun because often a solution in one domain, has a parallel application in others...
A portfolio is a tool used to aggregate data allowing it to be analyzed in a specific context to provide actionable information. Many software programs do that too, it's just different information analyzed for a different purpose. The point? Why not implement your management strategy like you would a software product?
When you are meeting with the stakeholders as Kiron describes, you are getting the perspective of the customer and either explicitly or implicitly developing user stories.
You can build a MVP to demonstrate the value by collecting one or two important data points on each manufacturing project like cost/benefit ratio and/or other intended benefits. Now you can demonstrate some value to using a portfolio to the customers (your employer). You may have to guide them as to why comparing ROI can help make business decisions if it is not clear.
Now once you are demonstrating value, you can prioritize how to provide more value in an organized approach. Since your customers are new to why portfolios are helpful, an iterative approach is ideal. They don't know what they want yet, so their priorities will change, 100% guaranteed.
Once you have a basic framework for your portfolio that is delivering value, create a rough plan for how to deliver additional value in right-sized increments, and Plan Do Study Act.
Sound familiar to SW delivery?
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1 reply by Ginny Ahuja
Oct 24, 2022 9:10 AM
Ginny Ahuja
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Makes total sense. Thanks Keith.
Saving Changes...
Thomas WalentaGlobal Project Economy ExpertHackenheim, Germany
Hi Ginny,
good advice given so far.
1. change your attitude from believing to knowing (by communicating, getting/giving commitments, documenting decisions) 2. if your sponsor is indeed the CIO, he should be able to give you his key requirements, probably based on pains - write them down, if you can, get a charter 3. with no process in place a key pain should be "portfolio visibility" which can be solved with a projects (and maybe project candidates) dashboard, but even that is not easy as you need (standardized) input from many stakeholders 4. limit the scope by only looking at the top 30-40 projects (20% have 80% impact) - you may call it MVP if you need 5. avoid tools as long as you can 6. avoid resource management as long as you can 7. define and plan your project with deadlines, should be less than 18 months induration 8. once you delivered your first product, start looking for the next pain, maybe "we have to many project ideas and try to do too many projects at a time (which often leads to staff burnouts and delays), so we need a decision process to start projects and which" 9. once you get to define the selection decision process, make sure those are NOT IT decisions (e.g. based on IT resource availability) but business decisions (strategic fit, funding, ..)
Good luck Thomas
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1 reply by Ginny Ahuja
Oct 24, 2022 9:07 AM
Ginny Ahuja
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Great pointers. Thanks Thomas
Saving Changes...
Housam KremaCorporate Strategy Specialist | Libyana Mobile PhonesTripoli, Libya
Ginny,
I assume that there is very well-defined vision for IT department and sponsored from top executive in your organization, a set of strategic objectives linked to this vision, a projects roadmap should be developed, OKRs, and/or balanced Score card frameworks can be adopted, then a periodical reports to the top executive level, if CEO like the new approach from IT department then he could enforce it to other departments. Saving Changes...
Ginny AhujaProgram Manager| University of FloridaGainesville, Fl, United States
Oct 13, 2022 6:15 PM
Replying to Kiron Bondale
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Ginny -
Before introducing any process or tool changes, get the governance framework defined first. This includes identifying what qualitative and quantitative metrics the portfolio steering committee needs to support their decision making. Then you can get a current inventory of active projects and submitted requests and conduct a preliminary session with the steering committee to identify any major changes they feel are warranted.
Kiron
Thanks Kiron. That is exactly I was thinking. I am trying to get start thinking about metrics. Saving Changes...
