Thoughts about Dr. Markowitz's Article

Paul Harder Project Director| Fulcrum IT Services Williamsburg, Va, United States

What are your thoughts regarding the interview with Dr. Markowitz? I have
some that occurred to me as I interviewed him:

I found it fascinating that, though his work is cited in many articles
as foundation for PPM, he never heard of this and no one had every spoken
to him about PPM.

He raised some great questions regarding the importance of knowing the
skills of the personnel (the "human capital") within a company in assessing
levels of risk for projects. We do this on an individual project basis
but not necessarily at the portfolio level.

His concerns with treating a company's activities in the same way a fund
manager treats assets was also interesting. There are factors and corporate
constraints that may prohibit managers from behaving like fund managers.
If you don't believe me, try killing a pet project. Fund managers can move
equities to meet certain performance goals. Managers, on the other hand,
can't move that quickly and sometimes can't move at all.

I'd like to know your thoughts. Post them here.

Posted: May 21, 2002 12:36 PM

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Rick Turoczy Portland, Or, United States

Paul,

Bravo.

First, it's nice to see this section come alive with content. (Especially after watching it remain stagnant for so long.)

Second, this was an excellent interview. I, too, found it interesting that Dr. Markowitz was not familiar with the application of similar theories to the management of projects, infrastructure, operations, and applications.

As to your point about assessing skills and risk of the human capital, I thought I would mention that there are, in fact, a number of companies approaching this from a portfolio level (from the concepts of service automation or optimization) including PeopleSoft, Changepoint, Evolve, and PlanView (as well as others with whom I'm not as familiar). Both Melinda Ballou of META Group and Ted Kempf of Gartner follow this space quite closely and may be good sources for additional information.

Not that you asked, but how about folks proposing candidates for future interviews? Bob Cooper (author of Portfolio Management for New Products) and John Thorpe (author of The Information Paradox) jump to mind.

Keep up the good work,

Rick

Posted: May 22, 2002 7:35 AM

Paul Harder Project Director| Fulcrum IT Services Williamsburg, Va, United States

Rick:

Thank you. I'm excited by this topic and I hope others are as well. As for interview suggestions, I always take requests and the two people you mention are excellent candidates. Watch this space for further details.

Paul
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Posted: May 22, 2002 7:41 AM

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Thoughts about Dr. Markowitz's Article

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