I am in search of some good sources of information related to Program Portfolio Management (an enterprise-wide process for selecting, monitoring, and reporting on the health of an enterprise's portfolio of program initiatives). Saving Changes...
That sure is an IT-centric view of the world, Tom. There are plenty of projects and project environments out there that may have nothing to do with IT.
Even so, if we are talking about IT, if what Tom suggests is step one, then step zero needs to be a business and operational strategy, and step minus-one needs to be the devlopment of "profound knowledge" about the system in question and how to look at and manage the few constraints it faces in trying to achieve its goals.
Hmmm...that means step minus-two is clarity on the goal and necessary conditions that must accompany it.
Yep, I'm IT centric all right! A Strategic IT Plan should support your business unit's business plan which includes strategy, objectives, and so on. In your case, Frank, your marketing a one shoe fits all solution that only works in a light manufacturing environment where scheduling techniques can often make a significant impact. In the world of IT project management, your TOC techniques can only be described as laughable and counter to prudent PM strategies and techniques. I base this last statement on my Lucent Technologies experience. Tom Welch, WWW.MoneyWords.Com Saving Changes...
John ZacharProduct Dev Manager| Association for Project Management (APM)Brackley,, Northamptonshire, United Kingdom
Having skimmed through the discussion here, one thing seems obvious to me - there is some confusion about what is a programme (English from England) and what is a portfolio. They are different, and using the words interchangably can and has caused difficulty.
A programme of projects is a series of projects that are all focused on the same strategic, organisational objective. There is a high level of uncertainty here as it is impossible to know that the objective will be met by the projects that have been commissioned. This can be discussed further if there is a need.
A portfolio of projects is a series of proejcts whose only common factor is probably the resource pool used to populate the projects with staff. The individual project's objectives are not focused on a common objective, and as the earlier discussion has suggested, an IT department is actually a good example. Lots of projects, all focused in different directions.
Whether managing a programme or a portfolio, data is required to effectively manage the series of projects. The offices that perform these functions can be called lots of things, usually something like project support office, programme support office (both PSOs), project or programme managment office (PMOs) and lots of other permutations. One thing that few realise that the functions, activites and responsibilities shift quite remarkably from project support to programme support. Most of the discussion so far seems to have focused on projects, not programmes. Programme support has one really distinctive difference and that is the management of benefits - benefit acquisition for the programme.
My suggestion is that you first of all get a really good handle on whether you are support or managing projects, portfolios, super projects (like an oil rig construction) or whether you really are supporting programmes. In most organisations, very few programmes can be coped with at any one time; primarily because of the level of step change involved.
You need to check out the portfolio management capabilities of Project 2000 and Project Central. We have just finished installing these at a large client to manage over 1400 projects a year. It works great Saving Changes...
Kathy HallDirector of Program Management| Carousel Industries IncPhoenix, Az, United States
Resources: Standord University Integrated Project Systems Project Portfolio Mgt. Process Point of Contact: Ernest J. Nielson, Chief Knowledge Officer - IPS _______________________________ www.techrepublic.com Gartner Research: The Project Office: Teams, Processes, & Tools _________________________ www.4pm.com ________________________ www.pmi.org PM Network Magazine April 1999 Building the Project Office: Get Organzied!.. PM TODAY Magazine PMI Seminars _______________________ Establishing an Effective Project Office - The Core Requirements for Success.. Andrew Brook (1997) WhitePaper www.microplanning.com _____________________________ kath _______________________ Saving Changes...
During a quick perusal of this thread, I noticed a number of comments on priorities and resources, and an emphasis on tools. Before you call out the tool box, I would suggest that there a number of useful readings to help understand the characteristics of your portfolio (project or programme...). These include:
Marc Meyer and Alvin Lehnerd, The Power of Product Platforms, 1997, The Free Press.
Cooper, Edgett and Kleinschmidt, Portfolio Management for New Products, Perseus Books, 1998.
Wheelwright and Clark, "Creating Project Plans to Focus Product Development," Harvard Business Review, 1992.
All three books provide useful approaches for understanding the strategic nature of the portfolio, and making the crucial decisions in the "fuzzy front end" of portfolio planning that can assist in developing decision rules for resource priorities. Meyer and Lehnerd pay particular attention to information system project portfolio, and have published some follow ups in Sloan Management Review. Don't let the Product Development theme in the title scare you off - all three sources provide approaches applicable in establishing priorities across high technology product and process projects. Saving Changes...
Back to the original question about tools for Portfolio Management. There is a tool call Gensight which is offered by the Atlantis Group. Gensight offers a world of capability in this area and can assist in the "What if" planning that was mentioned early on in this discussion. Saving Changes...
Many of the software tools listed here are find for project planning, but they are not meant for project portfolio management. The type of tool (or PMO) that you need depends on the amount of projects, the type, and number of people working or collaborating on the projects. You can have web based software and ASP software, work flow related, planning software (like Project 2000) and many variations. Saving Changes...
