Henrico Dolfing - Interim Management and Project Recovery

Saturday, May 16, 2020

  • Labels: Project Portfolio Management , Strategy Implementation

The Difficult Act Of Balancing Your Project Portfolio

Opportunity cost should be one of the biggest factors in your project portfolio valuation

Maximizing Value

Portfolio View - Cost vs Value

Risk to Realize Value

risk-value portfolio bubble chart

Difficulty to Realize Value

Portfolio View - Difficulty to realize

Time to Realize Value

Portfolio View - Time vs Value

Resource Spread

Why your projects should be short and fat (and how to get them that way)

Strategic Objectives

Investment types.

Run, Grow, & Transform Technology Investments

The Various Approaches to Project Portfolio Optimization

Project portfolio management (PPM) encompasses the optimization of project portfolios to achieve strategic goals. Common approaches include cost-value optimization, resource optimization, schedule optimization, and portfolio balancing. We will show you how it works!

One of the most frequent sentence clusters in this blog goes something like this: Project Portfolio Management (PPM) involves the centralized management of one or more project portfolios to achieve strategic business objectives. Project Portfolio Management is commonly a Project Management Office (PMO) task.

Ok, so far so good. But let us rephrase that a bit: project portfolio management aims to optimize the project portfolio towards a specific set of strategic goals . The emphasis here lies on portfolio optimization. Ok… but how?

Unfortunately, there is no go-to solution for optimizing one's project portfolio - or portfolios. In fact, several approaches are equally common and may be combined. Let’s take a rough look at these very portfolio optimization approaches before we dive deeper into each one.

Cost-Value Optimization : This commonly employed method relies on the so-called efficient frontier analysis. The primary constraint in cost-value optimization is the portfolio's budget allocation. In short, it is all about bang for the buck.

Resource Optimization : Another effective strategy involves capacity management analysis to optimize resource allocation. Resource availability serves as the primary constraint. In short, it is about getting as much work done with the number and quality of resources available.

Schedule Optimization : This method involves project sequencing, considering interdependencies. Schedule optimization's primary constraints include project timing and dependencies. In short, it is all about creating the most efficient and logical roadmap.

Portfolio balancing : Another, arguably less often executed form of optimization involves balancing risk, return, investment budgets, and a category set. The investment budget per category element acts as the major constraint. Whilst the category set may vary widely from company to company, it frequently contains the strategic goals and/or organizational units (such as legal entities, countries and so on). In short, it is about not laying all eggs in one basket but instead hedging project investments via spreading the risk over numerous projects, goals, and the organization.

Is this all too theoretical for your taste? We got you covered.

Before we delve deeper, in its purest form, portfolio optimization involves the creation of an optimal portfolio within existing limitations and constraints. It underscores the scientific aspect of project portfolio management, relying heavily on data-driven approaches and advanced analysis techniques . Whilst going about things pretty academically, one does not need to. Depending on the maturity of your PMO , your project portfolio, your company, and your company culture, you may want to get a little less academic - while still drawing on the general concepts offered by the various approaches to project portfolio optimization. This article will offer some insights for approaching project portfolio optimization a bit more hands-on and less data-driven . But before we can take this exit of the project portfolio route, getting a deeper understanding of the approaches is worthwhile.

Cost-Value-Optimization or the Efficient Frontier

A fundamental principle of project portfolio management (PPM) is to increase organizational value through its projects. Achieving this involves traditional cost-value optimization, often referred to as identifying the 'efficient frontier'. The objective is to pinpoint the project combination or mix that yields the highest business value within a specified budget. This approach aims to work right at the so-called efficient frontier.

The Efficient Frontier

The efficient frontier is a portfolio of projects that are expected to yield the highest returns for a given level of risk. A portfolio achieves efficiency when no alternative portfolio can offer superior returns with an equivalent or lower level of investment. The positioning of portfolios along the efficient frontier is contingent upon the PMO’s tolerance for risk.

Have a look at the depiction below. It shows the efficient frontier as the line made up by plotting the maximum risk-adjusted portfolio value at a given portfolio cost. All portfolios - such as the example’s Portfolio A - ranging below the frontier are inefficient. They either accrue too much cost for a designated return or offer too little value at a given cost level.

Plotting the efficient frontier is not an easy task. It requires understanding the value impact of each project (e.g., the net present value - but more on project portfolio value later) and the associated cost. In addition, it requires ranking all possible project combinations at a given level of associated total cost to find the maximum risk-adjusted portfolio value. This sounds difficult to pull off - and it is.

But leaning on the concept of the efficient frontier as a means to optimize a project portfolio bears an important message and hence lesson: a prevalent method of ranking projects on impact and proceeding to select them from the top down until the budget is depleted may yield satisfactory outcomes. Still, it often falls short of achieving optimal results. Many organizations overlook identifying the optimal combination of projects to maximize business value. In reality, it's conceivable that two lower-priority projects combined could deliver greater business value than a single higher-priority project.

Resource Optimization

Resource optimization offers an alternative perspective to portfolio optimization by tackling practical resource constraints. It focuses on optimizing resource utilization and availability to create a feasible portfolio that can be realistically accomplished and delivered. One drawback of cost-value optimization is its failure to integrate resource availability and utilization into the analysis directly. While this approach may result in an optimal portfolio in terms of value, it could be unfeasible to deliver due to acknowledged resource constraints.

An initial strategy organizations can adopt is optimizing select key resources during annual planning. This entails estimating resource utilization for each role across various projects over the fiscal year. With a reasonable grasp of the actual capacity of each role, it becomes feasible to identify an optimal mix of projects that aligns with established resource constraints. On the very basic level, this method requires transparency regarding resource availability - and resource requirements for each project. If you happen to have that, this approach may yield good results.

However, there are several drawbacks. This method fails to consider the timing of resource requirements, potentially resulting in periods of unrealistic workloads due to project timing. It also assumes that resource estimates are reasonably accurate; however, when optimizing the portfolio at such a broad level, even slight adjustments to resource estimates could significantly alter the selection of projects within the optimization process. Especially when it becomes necessary to increase the level of detail - e.g., by looking at quarters or even months instead of the fiscal year - these problems gain potency. This aligns with the general difficulties of resource capacity planning and allocation discussed here . We are not trying to say you shouldn't use this method. However, it requires quite a bit of resource data availability and accuracy. If your portfolio happens to offer this, go for it! In fact, and especially if you are considering the following project portfolio optimization method, it is highly recommended to incorporate resource optimization, too.

Schedule Optimization

Another facet of project portfolio optimization involves schedule optimization within a multi-project environment, considering project interdependencies. The objective is to identify the critical path, representing the longest sequence projects and their tasks necessary to achieve the project portfolio's goals. This process entails delineating all tasks required for project completion, establishing their sequential order, and determining the longest duration for project completion, known as the 'critical path,' thereby providing a definitive timeline for project execution.

Tasks and projects are classified as either 'critical' or 'non-critical.' Critical tasks must ad here to their deadlines to ensure project completion as scheduled; any delay in these tasks will consequently delay the project. Non-critical tasks, however, offer some flexibility in scheduling and are less likely to impede project completion. The optimal portfolio is reached when creating maximum value in a given time frame under the constraints of logical dependencies. If you want to use this approach, you should consider project priorities and resource availability when sequencing projects.

This method draws on the so-called waterfall planning method . Like the resource optimization approach, it requires high certainty regarding project length and interdependencies. This is often not the case, especially when projects are in the early stages of their life cycle or if the portfolio environment is rather turbulent. However, more agile methodologies do not pair well with the schedule optimization approach. Nonetheless, we look into how to deal with changes later in this article.

Portfolio Balancing

Another optimization approach that complements project selection is known as portfolio balancing. Essentially, this method assists in achieving a well-rounded investment. The concept of 'portfolio balance' often involves visualizing the portfolio through risk-value bubble charts. The entire idea is to refrain from overinvesting in low-value or high-risk areas. Balancing investments can also support a distributed investment strategy across various dimensions, such as business units, product lines, and strategic goals.

In short, the goal is to maximize impact under the constraint of risk and min./max. investment for categories defined upfront. This approach requires setting investment constraints for the designated categories as a first step. That is setting lower and upper investment boundaries. For example, management could invest at least 1 million into Business Unit A and not more than 1.5 million, whilst doubling down on Business Unit B. Similarly, investment constraints are assigned to strategic goals or other relevant categories.

Given these constraints, a portfolio is optimized when reaching maximum total impact whilst keeping within the constraints set up front. Unsurprisingly, project portfolio balancing is commonly utilized alongside cost-value optimization.

What is the portfolio value?

We have left quite an essential thing for granted thus far. Project portfolio value. After all, project portfolio optimization is all about maximizing value, right? But how is this value defined? This is a difficult one. Conventional portfolio theory assumes that project and portfolio value solely revolves around financial metrics. However, project value should encompass qualitative or intangible benefits that extend beyond metrics like net present value (NPV) or return on investment (ROI). The portfolio's value should also align with strategic objectives and the fulfillment of organizational goals.

In our earlier discussion on project prioritization and aligning the project portfolio with the strategic goals , we emphasized the necessity for the PMO and C-Level to define 'value,' recognizing its variability across companies. Once this definition is established, a scoring model can be devised to assess project value. These prioritization scores reflect the relative value of projects and can subsequently inform portfolio optimization efforts. Senior leaders may limit portfolio optimization to financial considerations alone without a clear definition of value, which may not yield optimal strategic outcomes. By incorporating strategic alignment and other business drivers, a more comprehensive evaluation of project value can be achieved, thereby optimizing the project portfolio.

The hands-on approach to project portfolio optimization and management

All approaches discussed in this article require a lot of data - whether on risk-adjusted value, resources, or tasks and timing. Projects that are early in their lifecycle tend to offer little certainty regarding this data. Yet employing sophisticated optimization algorithms yields dodgy results if the input is of low quality and certainty. Suppose you work in a Project Management Office and feel uncomfortable presenting your management with a project portfolio optimized on shaky data. In that case, there is a way forward without spending hours verifying assumptions and data points: drawing on your team and utilizing a bottom-up approach . This method banks on bringing your stakeholders together in a workshop setting to gauge the optimal portfolio in a stringent process. This is how it works:

  • Parameters : Decide what parameters you want to use to optimize your portfolio (e.g. impact, risk, budget size, needed resources).
  • Matrices : Draw a couple of matrices, such as those in the picture below. Use your parameters from step one as axis labels.
  • Projects : Have all projects ready. If you do this with everybody in the room, we recommend post-its.
  • Stakeholders : Get your project managers together. You may want to involve other stakeholders, too. Many organizations bring in upper management, IT, and controlling.
  • Placement : Position your projects in the matrices as a group task. The actual position is of little importance. Focus on the relative position of projects towards each other.
  • Discussion : Ensure that you keep a discussion going in the team while placing the projects. A good way to foster a discussion is to have the project managers place their projects independently and one by one. Have them explain why they chose the very spot in the matrix while doing so.
  • Critical Path : Have the project managers discuss interdependencies. If you go old-school with this, connect interdependent projects with some yarn.
  • Voting : In the last step, let the team vote on what projects they would include in the portfolio. You can use little stickers to do so. Make sure to set the maximum number of votes so little that it will be hard to choose.

This exercise may seem tedious. However, it has tremendous benefits. For one, you foster an understanding of building a project portfolio - rather than managing individual projects - amongst your stakeholders. In addition, you will get a feel for the relative position of projects in relation to impact, risk, needed resources and budget, dependencies, and so on. This will help get a feel for what projects should be part of your portfolio, their priority, key risks, and, most importantly, what projects should not be part of your portfolio.

Naturally, this approach will not yield an optimized project portfolio in a mathematical sense. But it has the great potential to get a shared understanding amongst your organization’s stakeholders and hence a solid portfolio to get things going.

Management: How do deal with change and the role of stage gates

Given that new project ideas may arise and things generally tend to change over time, you should combine this approach with a steering committee, a strict reporting cycle, and stage gates.

You need to report on your project portfolio progress to the management. A wonderful place to have that very reporting presented is a steering committee. It should consist of the CEO, the PMO, and all relevant project managers/sponsors - and oftentimes the CFO. Have the committee come together regularly. Monthly often does the trick - although you may want to start biweekly. The PMO should prepare the meeting and have a project portfolio report. It should give you a sense of the overall portfolio health and be the basis for making portfolio decisions.

Make sure to use stage gates as part of your reporting. Stage gates deserve their own article . But here is the gist: In project portfolio management, a stage gate is a strategic milestone or decision point separating different phases of a project. Project progress is evaluated at each gate, and key decisions are made regarding whether to proceed, modify, or halt the project. Think of stage gates as checkpoints in the project journey, allowing organizations to maintain control, allocate resources wisely, and align projects with overall business strategy. The goal is always to know in which phase a project resides - respectively, what needs to be done to move over to the next phase. With this approach, you can create a system that easily compares projects in your portfolio. In addition, it allows for making informed portfolio decisions.

This is quite a task. Try to keep the administrative hustle as little as possible. Please do not rely on spreadsheets to make this happen. Depending on the size of your project portfolio, you will enter a world of trouble . We are not saying you need to use Falcon - but think about using a suitable Project Portfolio Management Software Solution. If you wonder what a suitable PPM solution needs to offer, this article may help .

Do you want to align your strategic goals with your project portfolio? Get to know our software Falcon!

We think that Falcon is the right lightweight PPM software solution for you! We would be happy to tell you in a personal meeting how Falcon and its numerous features can support you in your individual case and save your team lots of time in their PPM work. Learn more

Project portfolio management (PPM) involves optimizing project portfolios to achieve strategic goals. Common approaches include cost-value optimization, resource optimization, schedule optimization, and portfolio balancing.

Cost-value optimization maximizes business value within budget constraints, while resource optimization focuses on efficient resource utilization. Schedule optimization streamlines project timelines by identifying critical paths, and portfolio balancing distributes investments to mitigate risks. The approaches require accurate and reliable project data. Oftentimes, this data is not available. A collaborative approach involving stakeholders facilitates decision-making and prioritization.

Continuous monitoring is essential to keep a handle on the portfolio. Integrating stage gates and a steering committee ensures informed decision-making throughout the project lifecycle. Software helps with these tasks. Spreadsheets do not.

Organizations can optimize project portfolios by implementing these strategies to maximize value and align with business objectives.

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Project Portfolio Management

This guide to ppm is brought to you by projectmanager, the project management software trusted by 35,000+ users worldwide..

ProjectManager's project portfolio management summary page

What Is a Project Portfolio?

What is project portfolio management (ppm), project portfolio management vs project management, the project portfolio management process, what does a project portfolio manager do, 5 project management processes for ppm.

  • Project Portfolio Management Software

Must-Have Features of Project Portfolio Management Software

How to use portfolio management software, project portfolio management roles & hierarchy, which industries and organizations benefit from ppm, project portfolio management (ppm) key terms.

A project portfolio is a collection of projects, programs and processes that are managed together and optimized for the financial and strategic goals of an organization. A portfolio can be managed at either the functional or the organizational level.

Unlike a project, which has a defined end goal or deliverable, a portfolio represents a more strategic planning commitment to continuously optimizing the allocation, prioritization and scheduling of resources across many projects.

Project portfolio management (PPM) is the analysis and optimization of the costs, resources, technologies and processes for all the projects and programs within a portfolio. Project portfolio management is typically carried out by portfolio managers or a project management office (PMO).

Related: 15 Free PMO Templates for Excel and Word

The key focus of PPM is to make sure that all the outcomes in the portfolio support the strategic goals and business objectives of the organization. The project portfolio manager or PMO does this through business analysis, reviewing budgets and forecasting while minimizing risk and managing stakeholder expectations.

Project portfolio management tools (PPM tools) are often used to collect and analyze that data to ensure that their project portfolio is aligned with the overall strategic planning and goals of the organization. ProjectManager has powerful, yet intuitive, tools for managing project portfolios. Track all your projects with a customized dashboard, manage your portfolio on a roadmap, even allocate resources across your projects. It’s easy to do all this and more with ProjectManager. Try it free.

ProjectManager's portfolio management summary showing several projects

ProjectManager’s portfolio dashboard is one of its many PPM tools .

In the hierarchy of business management, project portfolio management is the link between project management, which we will define briefly below, and enterprise management, which deals with the overriding vision, mission and strategic planning of the organization.

To understand where project portfolio management and project management differ, we must first define each and explore the areas where they diverge.

Project management is, quite simply, the management of a project. A project is a temporary endeavor that results in a product or service. It has a beginning and an end. Project goals are defined, and tasks are broken down into a schedule. Cost and budgets are set; resources are assigned, and stakeholders are reported to.

Project portfolio management, on the other hand, is a higher level approach that orchestrates, prioritizes and analyzes the potential value of many projects and programs in a portfolio to manage them simultaneously and optimize resource management. The goal of the portfolio management process is to manage and leverage the life cycle of investments, initiatives, programs, projects and outcomes to best reach the overall goals and objectives of an organization. Therefore, project management is a subset of project portfolio management. It leads to the ultimate objective, which is meeting the strategic goals of the organization.

There are five basic project portfolio management steps:

1. Define Business Objectives

Before you start thinking about portfolio management, you’ll need to understand your organization’s business objectives and strategic goals. The idea is that your project portfolio aligns with the strategic planning of your organization, so you’ll need to check if its financial objectives and customer value are good enough for your organization.

As a project portfolio manager you’ll need to reach an agreement about the strategic goals of the project portfolio with stakeholders, and then proceed to establish valuation criteria for project selection .

2. Collect Project Ideas for Your Portfolio

Once you’ve defined your portfolio’s strategic goals it’s time to start building it. To do so, you’ll need to start collecting projects. Those could be in-progress projects or project ideas that are similar enough to be managed simultaneously. Gather project management data and prepare the valuation criteria to choose the best.

3. Select the Best Projects for Your Portfolio

To determine which are your best projects for your portfolio, you’ll need to do a cost benefit analysis and use your valuation criteria. This valuation criteria will measure the amount of value that each project brings into the portfolio.

There are a variety of aspects that can go into the project selection scoring criteria, such as the payback period, net present value, or risk level.

4. Validate Project Portfolio Feasibility

Now that you’ve chosen the projects that are the best fit for your portfolio, it’s time to do a feasibility study that takes into account all the financial risks, capacity planning and resource management constraints.

Doing this will guarantee your project intake process prioritizes the best projects while also considering what is feasible considering the available resources of your organization.

5. Execute and Manage your Project Portfolio

Now you’ll need to coordinate the execution of the projects and programs in your portfolio simultaneously by working with project and program managers.

Related: Free Multiple Project Tracking Template for Excel

Project portfolio managers oversee the management of the project portfolio which includes approving or rejecting project and program ideas. They are responsible for getting a return on investment and meeting the goals and objectives of their organization. The project portfolio manager can be tasked with managing one or more portfolios.

The job is done by working with various portfolio management tools, financial algorithms and models to help the project portfolio manager align the projects to strategic goals of the organization. They are further guided by a set of valuation criteria and standards that help them through the portfolio management process.

Project portfolio managers are often involved with the PMO , which also sets the processes and standards for the portfolio. The project portfolio manager and PMO can also provide direction on what project management methodologies are used, whether traditional waterfall or an agile framework, when managing the project.

Project portfolio management requires a balance of resources, time, skills, budgets, risk mitigation and running the projects in the portfolio frugally and expediently without sacrificing quality. Managers do this through the use of five key project management processes.

  • Change Management : Identifying and prioritizing change requests. These can be feature requests, business strategy, regulatory requirements, etc., based on business strategy, capacity planning, demand, financial and operational constraints.
  • Risk Management : Identifying risks in projects that make up the portfolio, and developing a risk management plan to mitigate uncertainty within the project portfolio.
  • Financial Management: Managing financial resources related to the projects in the portfolio and demonstrating financial results of the portfolio in relation to the organization’s business goals and strategic objectives.
  • Pipeline Management: Ensuring project proposals are in the pipeline and using valuation criteria to determine if they’re worth executing.
  • Resource Management : Efficiently and effectively using an organization’s limited resources, from materials and equipment to people and financial resources.

Project portfolio management software is a tool that’s designed to centralize the management and maintenance of a project management portfolio. With the increasingly large amount of data now associated with a single project, let alone a portfolio, the use of portfolio management software has become a necessity for project managers.

Project management training video (7y5z887r5q)

Portfolio managers and project management offices (PMOs) use portfolio management software to gather data, analyze information and use the results to better manage the portfolio and achieve the goals of their organization. Typical PPM software offerings are also used for portfolio optimization to better achieve the financial goals of the organization. Managers or PMOs use portfolio management software to find complementary processes, methods and technologies that will help each project succeed and the portfolio flourish. Microsoft Project is one of the most commonly used project management software, but it has major drawbacks that make ProjectManager a better choice for project management, program management and portfolio management.

Desktop vs. Online Project Portfolio Management Software

Managing a portfolio is like keeping many plates spinning at once. To keep up, you need robust project portfolio management software. The question is, what kind should you go for?

In terms of features, desktop and online software applications, at this point, are on an even playing field. It depends on the product, of course; but for the most part, both offer similar PPM tools. The major differences are price, security and speed. For example, desktop portfolio management software tends to cost more and require a license for each team member to use. This can add up.

Pros of Desktop PPM Software

Security on a desktop, even one linked to an office intranet, is likely better than many online services. Performance for a cloud-based software depends on your internet connection, and if your service goes out you’re out of luck. This, obviously, is not a concern for desktop apps.

Pros of Cloud-Based PPM Software

Online apps are monopolizing the project management sector, and for good reason; they excel at connectivity, collaboration and real-time data. So long as your team has an internet connection, they can use the tool—no matter where they are. This creates a platform where even distributed teams can work together anywhere and at any time. As teams update their status, you get live data that is more accurate and timely to help make effective decisions.

Gantt Charts icon

See All Your Projects Together

A Gantt chart is a visual tool that helps plan and schedule a project, but it can also be used as a roadmap to view all the projects in your portfolio on a single timeline. This helps managers find synergy between projects and work to make the portfolio more effective and efficient.

Gantt Charts image

Get Live Data Across Portfolio

Being able to monitor your project portfolio is key to keeping it on track. A portfolio dashboard collects information on all your projects, calculates that data and then displays it in easy-to-read graphs and charts that can be read at a glance.

Dashboards image

Use Detailed Data to Make Better Decisions

Better data leads to better strategies when managing your portfolio. Managers need a tool that can mine information from their project portfolio and present them with detailed reports. Being able to share and filter those reports to target the information your stakeholders want to see is also key.

In-Depth Reports image

Keep Team’s Tasks Balanced

Project portfolios work at the task level. To get the level of performance you need, your teams have to have the right number of tasks. Balancing their workload keeps your portfolio progressing as planned, so you need a portfolio tool with a feature to track who’s working on what.

Resource Management image

Easy Change of Assignments

If you’re using the roadmap or dashboard, and see that there’s a need to reassign a task, the last thing you want is to have to go into another application to adjust a project in your portfolio. With a task management feature, you can stay in one tool.

Task Management image

View Your Portfolio in Real Time

The sooner you know something, the faster you can act. This can make the difference between taking advantage of an opportunity and missing a deadline. With online portfolio management software, you see what’s happening as it happens and can respond quickly to take advantage.

Live Data image

Projects are hard enough to manage, and a portfolio of them even more so. It’s many times more complex and requires robust project portfolio software. In this section, we will use ProjectManager as an example on how to use portfolio management software. If you want to follow along, then sign up for a free 30-day trial of ProjectManager. Once you’ve got our PPM software up and running, follow these steps.

1. Set Goals & Objectives

Having goals and objectives for your project portfolio is important, as it gives portfolio managers a target to hit when trying to increase their return on investment and keep risk at bay.

Start by writing down the goals and objectives for each project in your portfolio. There will likely be a number of detailed project management documents describing these projects. Attach them to our portfolio management software, which has unlimited file storage.

A screenshot of ProjectManager’s PPM tools unlimited file storage window

2. Group Related Projects

Grouping projects in a portfolio and creating reports around them collectively, rather than individually, gives portfolio managers the data they need to make better business decisions about costs, resources and more.

Keep all the projects in your portfolio together in our overview section. Compare status, budget and more of everything in your portfolio, all in one place. Now you can use resource allocation to boost one of the projects that might be underperforming.

A screenshot of ProjectManager’s project portfolio management tool, which displays multiple projects at once

3. Create Milestones

Milestones mark the end of one major phase and the beginning of another. They can be easily inserted on the Gantt chart, where they’re represented by a diamond symbol.

Set milestones and break up your projects into more manageable parts. This boosts the team’s morale by giving them a series of successes as they work through their tasks. Managers can use milestones as a means to measure progress.

4. Set Dependencies

Tasks are not all the same. Some can’t start until another has finished, or must start or finish at the same time as another. It’s important to know which of your tasks are dependent to keep the portfolio healthy.

Link dependent tasks by dragging one to the other to avoid blocking teams. This prevents these dependent tasks from falling through the cracks during the execution of the project. Once you have set dependencies, you can filter by critical path .

5. View Roadmap

When managing a portfolio, it’s important to keep the big picture in sight. Without it you can easily get lost in the weeds and fall behind schedule.

Keep goal-minded with the roadmap tool, which places all the projects in your portfolio on one Gantt chart. See every project on a timeline and quickly discern if there are any conflicts and resolve them before they interfere with the goals and objectives of your organization.

A screenshot of ProjectManager’s PPM roadmap view, which shows all the projects in your portfolio together on a timeline

6. Balance Resources

Workload represents what your team has been assigned, in terms of their tasks. If you overburden one team member, they’ll not be as productive and morale will suffer.

See the planned effort for every team member working across your portfolio in a color-coded chart that shows who has too many hours assigned and who has too few. Then you can reallocate their hours right from the same page, improving efficiencies.

A screenshot of ProjectManager.com’s PPM workload page, showing team member’s task load and labor costs

7. Track Portfolio Progress

A dashboard is a tool that graphically depicts various project metrics, so you can see how your project is performing. It’s a high-level view that can alert you of issues to address before they become problems.

Use our cloud-based dashboard to see your portfolio’s progress in real time. Mini-dashboards appear for each project that offer important metrics such as progress, budget and costs. You can also customize the dashboard to show only certain projects, and you can create reports based on projects that are filtered in this manner.

ProjectManager’s dashboard view, which shows six key metrics on a project

8. Analyze & Present Reports

Status reports are a way to measure the current state of your project. They communicate important data to stakeholders, keeping them updated. They also maximize portfolio performance.

Use the built-in reporting tool for a deep dive into project data to see progress and measure performance. A portfolio status report is perfect for stakeholder presentations. If they have questions, the status report can be filtered to bring up just the information they’re interested in.

ProjectManager's portfolio management status report

9. Collaborate with Stakeholders

Collaboration means working together to increase productivity. This can be at the task level for teams, or on an executive level. Ideally, it’s practiced throughout every department in an organization.

Project portfolio managers have the tools they need to stay in touch with every project manager leading a project in your portfolio. Get in touch with anyone by tagging them in a comment. They’ll get an email notification. Alerts can be customized, so your inbox doesn’t get cluttered.

Task list in ProjectManager

Project Portfolio Management Tools

With software moving from the desktop to the cloud, project portfolio management grew more efficient and effective. Some of the features that serve portfolio managers are the following:

  • Online Gantt Charts
  • Real-Time Dashboards
  • Shared Calendars
  • Time Tracking and Timesheets
  • Project Groups
  • Dynamic Reporting
  • Collaborate with Remote Teams
  • Resource Management

The following is a hierarchical listing of the team members involved in managing and executing a project portfolio.

  • Board Member: Members of the board are responsible for governing an organization and bear the legal responsibility for the organization. Their skills and experience help guide the organization to achieve its vision.
  • Project Portfolio Manager: This individual manages the plans, development and implementation of the portfolio, keeping in mind best practices to make sure that the portfolio is performing as expected and right what is preventing that.
  • Program Manager: Programs differ from portfolios in that all the projects collected under it are related. Therefore the program manager’s role is similar to that of the portfolio manager, coordinating the projects in the program to work together to achieve their shared objective.
  • Project Sponsor: This position is usually held by a manager or an executive who is tasked with being accountable for the project. They are the hub that connects the project to the business and those responsible for making large strategic decisions for the organization.
  • Project Owner: This person is the one who is usually working with the sponsor and is responsible for the project’s implementation. Therefore, they usually come from the business unit that is getting the final deliverable for the project.
  • Project Manager: They are responsible for the planning, scheduling, monitoring and reporting of a project. They also assemble and lead a team hired to execute the plan. They build the budget, manage resources, etc.
  • Project Coordinator: Working under the project manager, they take smaller tasks off the project manager’s desk to free them up for larger managerial responsibilities. Mostly, this means that the project coordinator is handling administrative duties.
  • Team Member: Hired because of skills and experience related to the project, these individuals are assigned tasks and oversee their completion. They meet regularly with the project coordinator or project manager, to whom they update their status.

Any industry that is working on multiple projects at the same time benefits from the discipline of project portfolio management. Obviously, that’s a lot of industries and organizations.

Some of the industries and organizations that are reaping the rewards from using project portfolio management include:

  • Computer software
  • Hospitals and healthcare
  • Construction, automotive
  • Financial services and banking
  • Service and staffing recruiting
  • Telecommunications
  • Government administration

The following is a mini-glossary of project portfolio terms that have been used in this guide.

  • Portfolio Management: Controlling a portfolio of projects to make sure they align with the overall strategic goals and objectives of an organization.
  • Program Management: Managing a portfolio of projects with the same aim as portfolio management, only the projects in the portfolio are all similar or related.
  • Project Management: Planning, executing, monitoring and reporting on one project, from start to finish, including controlling scope, costs and schedule.
  • Project Management Office (PMO): Group within an organization that’s tasked with maintaining standards for project management within that organization, often oversells portfolio and program management.
  • Change Control Management: Process to identify and successfully respond to change in a project or portfolio.
  • Portfolio Reporting: Creating charts, graphs and other reporting documentation to communicate progress and other portfolio metrics.
  • Risk Management: Identifying and resolving risk before it happens and after.
  • Resource Management: The process of allocating resources throughout the life cycle of the portfolio.
  • Pipeline Management: Making decisions for estimating and selecting which projects to fund that align with an organization’s strategy.
  • Financial Management: Understanding each project’s unique risk and using this knowledge to make decisions across the entire portfolio.

All these factors and more make it clear that project portfolio management is a methodology that can serve any organization with a portfolio of projects. And, with ProjectManager , you have the best PPM tool in the market to fully take advantage of all these business benefits.

Sign up for your free 30-day trial and start managing your portfolios better.

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Project Portfolio Management Resources

  • Project Closure Template
  • RACI Matrix Template
  • Communications Plan Template
  • Best Project Portfolio Management Rankings
  • Project Management Trends (2022)
  • 5 Benefits in Adopting PPM (Project Portfolio Management)
  • What do Portfolio Managers do?

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The Complete Guide to Project Portfolio Management

A step-by-step look at ppm processes, reporting, and software, project portfolio management (ppm) helps organizations to execute projects in support of strategic goals and priorities..

Mature project portfolio management processes ensure organizations deliver more projects on time and within budget. PPM helps organizations to rigorously prioritize their project pipeline and focus on delivering business value.

Without project portfolio management, projects are often selected in a haphazard way, leading to strains on budgets and resources. Teams don’t know how a project will add value to an organization and are often left without the proper tools to manage their work.

In this guide, you’ll learn why your organization needs project portfolio management, and the importance of business strategy, governance, risk management, and stakeholder engagement.

You’ll also see how to manage key PPM processes, such as new project requests and cross-project reporting, using SharePoint .

What we’ll cover

1. what is project portfolio management, 2. project portfolio management software, 3. project portfolio management and business strategy, 4. project portfolio governance, 5. portfolio stakeholder engagement, 6. portfolio risk management, 7. using sharepoint for project portfolio management, project & portfolio management software evaluation guide, your complete resource for selecting new software. , project portfolio management (ppm) aligns projects with strategic goals and creates the right environment for successful project outcomes..

PPM helps organizations to answer questions such as:

  • Are we making good decisions about projects?
  • Are we working on the right projects at the right time?
  • Do we have the resources to take on this project?
  • How are projects currently performing?
  • Can we run multiple projects at the same time?
  • What are the interdependencies between projects?
  • What risks arise from those interdependencies?
  • Will our projects meet key strategic goals?
  • Do we have a strong mix of short and long-term projects?

Project portfolio management differs from project management in a few ways.

Project Management

  • A project is a temporary endeavour with a defined beginning and end, scope, and resources.
  • Project management is the “application of knowledge, skills, tools, and techniques to project activities to meet the project requirements.’’
  • A project manager focuses on planning and managing individual projects, including reporting, risks, and resources.

Portfolio Management

  • A portfolio is a collection of projects grouped together.
  • Project portfolio management refers to “the centralized management of one or more project portfolios to achieve strategic objectives”.
  • An organization can have one overarching portfolio or a portfolio for each area of the business.
  • A project portfolio manager is concerned with all projects within the organization.

Unlike a project,  a portfolio  is not defined by a start or end state. Instead, new projects replace completed projects on a regular basis.

A project portfolio manager has several responsibilities including:

  • Creating and implementing standardized project processes.
  • Assessing new project requests according to business goals.
  • Improving communication between senior management and project teams.
  • Tracking and reporting on portfolio performance.
  • Coaching project managers and teams.
  • Balancing resource allocation across the portfolio.
  • Managing risk.
  • Dealing with at-risk projects.

To deliver effective PPM, a portfolio manager needs access to accurate data to make informed decisions.

They will also require strong communication skills, especially stakeholder engagement, negotiation, and conflict resolution.

Benefits of Project Portfolio Management

You may be thinking that PPM sounds like another layer of process that will slow down your projects!

In fact, the Project Management Institutes reports that  organizations using PPM  complete 35% more of their projects successfully.

The goal of project portfolio management is to avoid working on projects of little value that drain resources.

Instead, PPM helps companies to pick the right projects and maximize the impact of each project in several ways.

  • Project portfolio management  aligns proposed projects with business strategy . This means new project requests are reviewed and prioritized against defined goals and only high-value projects are executed.
  • Implementing PPM  increases visibility across all projects  with standardized processes and templates, often managed with software. This improves reporting, decision-making, and risk management.
  • Communication  between project teams and stakeholders is strengthened, leading to better feedback and engagement during execution.
  • By taking a  complete view of resources , project portfolio managers avoid bottlenecks on key projects.
  • Data collection from past projects makes it easier to predict the success of future projects, informing  business forecasting and planning .
  • Projects are often interconnected in some way, for example, resources. Managing  risk at the portfolio level  reduces the impact of issues on interdependent projects.
  • Project teams are supported  with clear, simple processes, templates, and ongoing training.

Now we know why project portfolio management is critical, let’s look at  some consequences  of not implementing PPM.

  • Poor project selection : If business goals are not defined, senior management doesn’t have a framework for selecting new projects. This leads to low-value projects, wasted resources, and duplicated efforts.
  • Project overload : Without the means to prioritize the pipeline, organizations attempt to complete too many projects at the same time. Capacity, not strategy,  drives project execution – if people are available, the next project is launched.
  • Under-resourced projects : When projects are planned at a departmental-level, there’s no central view of budget or resource allocation. This places enormous pressure on already-on stretched project teams.
  • Sunk-cost fallacy : Underperforming projects are not canceled due to existing investment. In some cases, there is no process for identifying and ending such projects.
  • Reduced competitiveness : Project delays and failure mean slower time-to-market. If completed projects are not aligned with business goals, you may find yourself with a product or service that no-one wants.
  • No project maturity : Without standardized processes, project managers have to re-invent the wheel with every new project. This means success is harder to replicate across teams and little effort is made to improve project management.

Get a weighted scoring sheet to easily compare different solutions in four key areas. 

As you’ve probably guessed, project portfolio management requires a shift in how projects are valued, planned, and delivered at every level in the organization.

Choosing the right project portfolio management software can facilitate this new way of working.

Here are five benefits you can expect when using  project portfolio management software :

  • A standardized approach to project management in your organization with pre-defined project templates.
  • Complete visibility into your project pipeline including new project requests, current projects, and resource allocation.
  • Improved reporting, decision-making, and collaboration within teams.
  • Higher project success rates with more effective project planning and budget management.
  • Greater insight into the business value of the solution delivered by the project.

Evaluating Project Portfolio Management Software

With so many project portfolio management software solutions on the market today, how do you know which one is the right one for you?

If you are struggling to select a PPM solution, try our free evaluation kit !

The guide includes assessment questions in four key areas (project, portfolio, work, and organizational capabilities) and a weighted scoring sheet.

Below is a selection of guidance and questions from each section of the kit.

1. Portfolio Capabilities

Start with portfolio capabilities, with a focus on increasing control and visibility for senior executives.

Key features include:

  • A scalable, consistent project request management system.
  • High-level, real-time portfolio dashboards.
  • Resource Management.

Use these questions to evaluate portfolio requirements:

  • Can project requests be easily captured, reviewed and monitored?
  • Does the product deliver immediate visibility into project portfolios with real-time dashboards?
  • Do resource reports show what work is assigned to whom and at what amount across a project?

2. Project Capabilities

Next, you’ll need to review project management capabilities.

  • A collaborative toolset to reduce administration work.
  • Project reporting, including status reports, emailed reports, and project dashboards.
  • Standardized templates.

These questions will help you to assess project management capabilities in the tool:

  • Can a new project site be created from a standardized template or copied from an existing project site?
  • Is it possible to create, calculate, and update the timeline using an in-browser task scheduler?
  • Does the product include customizable Kanban Boards?

3. Work Capabilities

Work management and collaboration capabilities are particularly useful for project team members, who want to contribute to the success of a project.

They need a tool to view team-member focused reports, efficiently manage their work, and connect with others working on the project.

The three key feature sets you should be looking under work management are:

  • Centralized project sites with all project information in one place.
  • Simple task management to find, do, and update work.
  • Collaborative functions like discussions and forums.

Use these questions to evaluate work management features:

  • Does the product make it easy for team members to collaborate regardless of their location?
  • Can team members find and do their assigned work quickly?
  • Can team members manage their non-project work in the project site?

4. Organizational Capabilities

Finally, the solution should support your current project management maturity levels with the option to grow in time.

Organizational project management capabilities are particularly important for project management champions, who are tasked with implementing and continuously improving project management practices in an organization.

Three key capabilities you should look for under organizational project management are:

  • Practical deployment with low IT burden.
  • Best-practice project management templates.
  • Highly flexible and configurable solution.

These questions will help you to assess organizational project management capabilities:

  • Can the product be quickly deployed on premise with minimal IT burden?
  • Can you start quickly with out-of-the-box templates and the amount of project management process you need right now?
  • Will you have a dedicated Customer Success Architect?

In addition to evaluating the above areas, it’s also important to consider non-technical elements , such as deployment and support, training resources, ease-of-use, and the vendor’s track record.

Project Portfolio Management Software: Build or Buy?

As you begin to evaluate project portfolio management software, senior management may ask about the cost of buying versus the cost of building a solution internally.

This is a common objection to purchasing new software and is a logical question if you have an in-house development team.

After all, it is reasonable to expect these individuals to have the skills, knowledge, and time to build the solution according to your specific needs.

However, organizations who build their own software solutions frequently find it is cheaper and quicker to buy a solution tailored to their needs.

Moreover, these solutions typically ship with maintenance, training, support, and continuous upgrades – areas that an internal team with multiple commitments are unlikely to service.

If you are asked to compare the cost of building or buying software, start with these questions:

  • What other projects are the development team working on?
  • How configurable is the software you wish to purchase?
  • What is the build v buy cost analysis?
  • How long will deployment take?
  • Is the software easy to use?

At BrightWork, we recommend using your existing SharePoint infrastructure for PPM , which we’ll cover in more detail later on.

Aligning projects to strategic goals is a core tenant of project portfolio management.

Business strategy defines key objectives and the future state the organization wishes to reach.

Strategy  is guided by Vision (where the company wants to be) and Mission (what the company does). These objectives are translated into initiatives or projects to deliver business value.

Applying strategy to project portfolios typically means doing the right projects and doing the projects right.

Without a clear ‘big’ picture, it’s too easy to waste time and resources on the wrong projects or to assume all projects are equal and deserve the same support.

Creating a link between a project and a larger business goal also helps to motivate teams. If individuals understand why a task or process is important to the project and the company, they likely to be more engaged.

What is Business Strategy?

In his 1985 work, Competitive Advantage: Creating and Sustaining Superior Performance, Michael Porter defined strategy as “a process of analysis which is designed to achieve the competitive advantage of an organization over another in the long term.”

He further named three types of strategy – cost leadership, differentiation, or focus – and recommended organizations pursue one strategy type to achieve the best results.

  • Cost Leadership refers to minimizing the costs of delivering products or services for an organization – not necessarily to reducing costs for consumers.
  • Differentiation requires organizations to make products or services that are different from competitors.
  • Focus involves concentrating on a particular market.

Strategy can also be defined as “a set of guiding principles that, when communicated and adopted in the organization, generates a desired pattern of decision-making.’’

Decision-making is key to this statement, and indeed, to successful project portfolio management.

A clear strategy helps senior executives to decide which projects to start or stop, how to distribute resources, and how to manage risks.

Later on, you’ll see how key reports and templates on SharePoint surface critical project data to support decision-making.

Strategy also plays a role in governance, for example, project selection and portfolio reviews.

We’ll take a closer look at governance in the next section.

See how to evaluate software for project, portfolio, work, and organizational project management.

Governance is another critical area for successful project portfolio management..

The Association for Project Management defines project portfolio governance as:

“The selection, prioritization, and control of an organization’s projects and programs in line with its strategic objectives and capacity to deliver. The goal is to balance change initiatives and business-as-usual while optimizing return on investment.”

As you can see, governance is closely linked with business strategy.

Strong governance helps organizations to select the right projects at the right time whilst also ensuring these projects are successful.

By taking a proactive approach to risk management, resource allocation, and project interdependencies at the portfolio level, senior executives can remove common roadblocks for teams.

At every stage of the governance process, senior management make decisions about projects and are accountable for the outcomes of those decisions, especially the success of approved projects.

Governance processes should help, not hinder, project teams, and be appropriate to the size of your company. Don’t create paperwork just for the sake of it!

4 Elements of Project Portfolio Governance

1. define the portfolio.

Governance starts with a process for reviewing new project requests and ongoing projects.

As business opportunities and challenges evolve, so too should your strategy. As a result, it’s important to define the project portfolio two to three times per year.

New strategies become business cases, which in turn, may become approved projects.

2.  Optimize portfolio value

Next, approve projects that support clear strategic goals .

This includes reviewing resource allocation and deciding when to start the project, based on priorities and current projects.

Underperforming or delayed projects that are draining resources are concluded early with resources moved to other projects.

Together, the processes for defining and optimizing the portoflio form a feedback loop. Learnings from ongoing projects become inputs for refining the approval process, improving project outcomes.

3. Protect portfolio value

Once the project is under way, progress, risks, and resources are closely monitored. If needed, steps are taken to resolve any problems and get the project back on track.

Depending on the orgainzation, the Project Management Office (PMO) reports on portfolio performance to senior management and stakeholders.

With a tool like BrightWork, senior managers can create customized dashboards to track any project in the portfolio in real-time.

4. Deliver portfolio value

The solution, service, or product created by the project team is delivered to stakeholders. The project must generate value for the orgainzation.

From time-to-time, senior managers should review the performance of the overall portfolio , particularly around alignment with business strategy.

  • Portfolio Governance Team

Many organizations appoint a project portfolio governance team to implement the above steps.

It’s important for those involved with project portfolio governance to:

  • Have the right level of authority to make key decisions.
  • Exert influence within the organization.
  • Understand the vision, mission, and strategic goals of the organization.
  • Work closely with teams and managers to develop a balanced portfolio.
  • Be comfortable with saying ‘No’.
  • Have access to up-to-date project information.
  • Be accountable for project outcomes.

In later sections, we’ll take a closer look at using key BrightWork capabilities, such as project request management , to enable portfolio governance on SharePoint.

PPM Software Evaluation Guide

Download your free guide, including a weighted scoring sheet for easy comparisons, stakeholders are defined as “individuals or organizations who are actively involved in the project, or whose interests may be positively or negatively affected as a result of project execution or successful project completion”..

These individuals or groups may be involved in the project itself or will be impacted by the outcomes of the project, for example, using a new product.

Introducing PPM processes will change how teams and departments deliver projects. It may mean fewer projects are executed or project approval policies become more robust.

People will resist this change, especially if they feel they are going to lose out.

Getting stakeholders on board will reduce this friction, helping you to implement effective portfolio management and governance.

Stakeholders typically exert considerable influence and authority within an organization.

They can play a key role in defining business strategy, which in turn, drives portfolios and project selection.

Winning the support and trust of stakeholders will improve portfolio performance in key areas such as resource allocation and risk management.

It’s also important to understand how portfolio stakeholders will measure the success of PPM, for example, more projects completed on time, increase revenue, or entry into new markets.

Finally, making stakeholder engagement part of portfolio governance is an important signal to project managers and the PMO.

Stakeholder engagement should be part of every project; happy stakeholders are a vital metric of success.

Stakeholder Examples

Typically, stakeholders are categorized as either internal or external to the organization.

Internal Stakeholders

  • Senior managers
  • Project Management Office
  • Portfolio Managers
  • Project Sponsors
  • Project managers
  • Project Team
  • Department or Operation managers
  • Internal customers or end-users.

External Stakeholders

  • Customers and end-users
  • Contractors
  • Local community
  • Regulatory agencies. 

As PPM focuses on aligning projects with business strategy, it’s unlikely you will need to engage with external stakeholders on a regular basis.

However, it is important to consider external stakeholders and ensure project managers are communicating with these groups as needed.

Let’s review a four-step process to identify and engage your stakeholders.

How to Identify and Engage Portfolio Stakeholders

1.  identify and prioritize stakeholders.

Start by figuring out your portfolio stakeholders – anyone with an interest in the portfolio or who can influence projects, either positively or negatively.

In addition to the list above, use these questions to find potential stakeholders.

  • Who has a financial or emotional investment in projects in your organization?
  • Who will be impacted by project portfolio management?
  • Who defines organizational strategy?
  • What business functions should be involved?
  • Who gets more or less work?
  • Who must change?
  • Who must approve important decisions?
  • Who influences your stakeholders?

Check any organizational charts and ask stakeholders about other people who could be affected by PPM processes.

Next, prioritize this list. Stakeholders are f categorized based on their power, interest, and influence .

  • High power, highly interested . Manage and engage these individuals closely.
  • High power, less interested . Keep these individuals up-to-date.
  • Low power, highly intereste Keep these individuals up-to-date.
  • Low power, less interested . Engage these individuals from time-to-time.

2. Plan Stakeholder Engagement

Using this list, plan your engagement or communication strategy . Different stakeholders will need different information at varying intervals about the portfolio.

Updates include:

  • Recently approved projects.
  • Changes to existing projects.
  • Benefits management.
  • Commentary on portfolio performance, including risk and budget.
  • Impact of new or changed business strategy on the portfolio.

Here are some suggestions to help you develop a communication plan. These recommendations will depend on your prioritized list, available software, and stakeholder preferences.

  • Senior managers and sponsors : Quarterly review meetings and real-time dashboards in a project portfolio management tool.
  • The PMO : Monthly review meetings and real-time dashboards in a project portfolio management tool.
  • Project Managers : Monthly reports shared via email or accessed in a project portfolio management tool.

Be sure to document your engagement strategy as part of the portfolio governance plan.

3. Manage Stakeholder Engagement

During this stage, you’ll need to leverage your communication skills, including conflict management and negotiation, to ensure stakeholders are informed, involved, and happy!

Real-time project portfolio management software can simplify and improve stakeholder engagement. We’ll cover stakeholder engagement with SharePoint in a later chapter.

4. Monitor Stakeholder Engagement

Like business strategy, portfolio stakeholders will change. You’ll need to periodically add new stakeholders or remove existing contacts from the stakeholders engagement plan.

Don’t forget to ask for feedback on how to improve engagement, for example, increased usage of email reports or customized dashboards.

Free PPM Software Evaluation Guide

Evaluate software for project, portfolio, work, and organizational project management capabilities , bringing projects together into a portfolio can surface risks, particularly relating to interdependencies between projects and resources assigned to multiple projects., what is portfolio risk.

Portfolio risk refers to the combined impact of risks within all projects in the portfolio and the interdependencies between those projects.

As an organization tackles more projects, risks multiply –as do the consequences if risks become a reality for ongoing projects.

Portfolio risk also refers to the balance of projects within the portfolio, for example, high-risk with high-reward or low-risk with low-reward.

Portfolio risk management includes identifying and managing risks for individual projects as well as managing the risk posed by each project to the overall portfolio and the organization.

Portfolio risk management often forms part of enterprise risk management , which focuses on larger concerns such as finance, security, and reputation.

There are three main types of portfolio risks :

  • Component risks: These are risks presented by individual projects and programs. Component risks also include interdependencies between projects:
  • Outcome interdependencies : Delivering the outcome on a project depends on another project.
  • Schedule interdependencies : One project depends on the timely start or completion of another project
  • Resource interdependencies : A project used the same resources and skills of another project.
  • Overall risks refer to the interaction between component risks.
  • Structural risks arise from how the portfolio is created and the relationship between various elements.

Portfolio risks may also be internal or external to an organization or caused by how an organization operates (structural risks).

Managing Portfolio Risks

Managing risks starts when defining the project portfolio and is part of ongoing portfolio optimization.

Portfolio risks are not static. As mentioned above, portfolios change in response to strategy, governance, and new stakeholders. Each change, every new project, brings different risks.

Of course, you have to begin somewhere. A database of past projects and the risk register for current projects are good starting points for assessing the current portfolio.

If you are using project portfolio management software, gather data on the performance of ongoing projects, including flagged risks.

Cross-project reporting dashboards in SharePoint increase visibility into risks across the portfolio and within individual projects.

It’s easy to drill down into a particular project to uncover more information about a risk such as causes, consequences, and the risk score.

In this review, think about:

  • Interdependencies between projects, such as resources.
  • The cost of not completing certain projects.
  • The ratio of high-risk projects to low-risk projects.
  • The organization’s tolerance for risk.
  • The complexity and scale of project risks.
  • Contingency measures of addressing risk for both individual projects and the overall portfolio.
  • If current projects are contributing to the goals of the portfolio and if completed projects delivered tangible business value.

Based on this review, categorize projects based on a risk rating:

  • Stop : Projects with low economic value and low strategic alignment.
  • Accelerate : Projects with high economic value and high strategic alignment.
  • Must-do : Projects with low economic value and high strategic alignment.
  • Monitor : Projects with high economic value and low strategic alignment.
  • Evaluate : Projects with medium economic value and low strategic alignment.

With a clearer picture of the portfolio, you can now resolve potential risks. This may include:

  • Pausing a high-risk, high-reward project until another project is completed.
  • Reducing the scope of a project.
  • Ending a high-risk project earlier than expected.

Portfolio risk management also applies to new project requests and ongoing projects.

When reviewing a new request, it’s important to consider if the project will add more risk to the portfolio. If so, you’ll need to decide whether to reject the project or go ahead with some contingencies.

Once a project moves into execution, use roll-up dashboards and reports in your project management software to track risks on the project level. This way, you can get a ‘helicopter’ view of the big picture with the ability to zoom in for more details as needed.

You’ll see how to manage portfolio risks with SharePoint in a later chapter.

A collaborative web-based tool, SharePoint is an ideal solution for project portfolio management.

SharePoint is used by over 400,000 customers in 250,000 organizations worldwide, increasing the likelihood of existing infrastructure in your organization.  Leveraging this existing environment will reduce the impact on IT resources.

Building project sites in SharePoint creates a single source of data for better reporting and increased visibility. Everything from project plans to tasks, documents, and reports can be stored in a standardized way in one place.

When  extended with software like BrightWork , organizations can use SharePoint to:

  • Report across multiple projects and portfolios.
  • Manage new project requests.
  • Create reporting portfolios with sites and sub sites.
  • Leverage metric tiles to track progress quickly.
  • Automate reporting updates via email.
  • Predict project outcomes with scorecards.
  • Track progress in real-time with dashboards.
  • Manage risks at the portfolio level.
  • Enable employee timesheets.
  • Support project teams with out-of-the-box configurable templates.

With SharePoint, you can create a project hierarchy , with sites and subsites, to mirror organizational structure.

In the below screenshot, the top-level site (BrightWork Projects) has a subsite, BrightWork Project Office (BPO).

Underneath the BPO are a series of mini-project offices with project sites to manage the individual initiatives in each department.

project portfolio balancing

In this chapter, we’ll explore how to leverage BrightWork for project and portfolio management on SharePoint.

You’ll see how to:

  • Implement governance with the Project Request Manager Template.
  • Report across portfolios and create personalize dashboards.
  • Track project and portfolio risks.
  • Engage stakeholders with automated reports.
  • Manage resource allocation across multiple projects.

Governance and Project Request Management

As mentioned above, selecting the right project to execute at the right time with the right resources is key to PPM.

Without a scalable approach to new projects:

  • Project teams end up working on low-value initiatives or too many projects at the same time.
  • Projects are planned in isolation, leading to stretched resources.
  • Failing projects are not ended, wasting more resources.

Taking a structured approach to project prioritization not only helps to align projects with strategic goals – projects are planned with a holistic view of the pipeline.

This improves resource management, project sequencing, and engagement levels within teams.

Out-of-the-box,  BrightWork  comes pre-populated with a simple process to track project requests all the way from Draft to Approval and Project Site Creation.

Using this template, anyone can log a request for a new project.  Those requests are then queued up and sent to the approver (typically a senior executive) for consideration.

The  BrightWork Project Request Manager  template is split into four different states:

BrightWork Project Request Manager template

  • Draft:  A new project proposal is submitted.
  • Review:  The relevant individual receives an email notification about the new request.
  • Pending Decision : Once assessed, the reviewer makes a decision about the proposal, including sending the proposal to senior management for further review.
  • The request is Approved  or  Rejected . The approver can opt to create a project site based on the submitted request.

Automated email notifications and reminders keep the process flowing.

Below is the PRM command center in BrightWork in action. As you can see, it’s easy to move through the entire project request life-cycle from logging a request to project site creation after the project is approved.

project portfolio balancing

Reporting with BrightWork Portfolio Templates

BrightWork ships with two key templates for  portfolio reporting : Project Office and Portfolio Reporting.

1. Project Office Template

BrightWork uses the hierarchical structure of SharePoint to create a logical project management structure for organizations.

This hierarchy typically aligns to business structure, for example, a Project Office for Marketing, IT, and Finance.

The  Project Office template  displays data from all the projects located under it in the hierarchy in a single dashboard.

Project Office Template BrightWork SharePoint

Individual project sites sit under the main Project Office. As team members work on and update tasks at the project level, this information rolls up automatically to portfolio dashboards for a quick snapshot of all projects.

Using the Project Office, senior management can track resources, work, issues, and risks at the portfolio level. At any time, it’s easy to click into a particular project site for more detail.

2. Portfolio Reporting Template

Like the Project Office Template, the Portfolio Template Report tracks metrics from multiple project sites.

However, the template only reports on projects added to the list, making it useful for personalized reporting. Senior management can create dynamic, tailored project offices as needed.

Portfolio Reporting Template BrightWork SharePoint

The Project Office Template and Portfolio Reporting Template both include dashboards with:

  • Project Status Reports and Charts
  • Project Gantt / Schedules
  • Work Reports and Charts
  • Issue and Risk Reports and Charts
  • Project Status Reports
  • Scorecards of Key Metrics
  • Exception and In-Trouble Reports.

Portfolio Risk Management

Drill down into the detail of selected projects

When you see a project that needs attention, you can simply drill down into the project to view why it is in poor health.

Project Risks BrightWork SharePoint

If the project has overdue work, you can remind the responsible party by sending a detailed email. This can also be automated to save time on a regular basis.

Automated Reports for Stakeholder Engagement

One of the most common challenges faced by senior executives is a lack of visibility into ongoing and proposed projects.

BrightWork provides a series of reporting dashboards in SharePoint, with metrics and traffic light indicators, delivering instant visibility across all the projects in an organization.

The beauty of using BrightWork and a hierarchical project structure in SharePoint is that the portfolio dashboards roll up information from all the projects below.

Project managers create a status report at the project lev; this data percolates up to the portfolio dashboard used by senior executives.

They no longer have to go chasing updates.  It’s all there on the portfolio dashboard in real-time. The dashboards can be built with visually striking charts, KPIs, and scorecards to quickly understand the status of the project.

With BrightWork, the reports can be emailed on request or on a schedule, for example,  an email every Friday morning with an update on that weeks’ progress.

Of course, they can check the Project Office site at any time for an update and see the information in real-time as well.

This kind of real-time visibility allows senior executives to find projects in trouble and drill down into detail specific projects that require attention.

BrightWork Reporter

Project reports must be actionable and relevant to your team. However, it’s simply not feasible to create and share reports for each person on your team!

Instead, create a single report with personalization options.

The BrightWork Reporter web part  allows users to:

  • Filter data
  • Add or remove columns
  • Save personal report views.

project portfolio balancing

These options are found in the Reporter ribbon, available on any report in a BrightWork project site.

As we’ll see below, BrightWork Reporter is also used to report across multiple sites, sub sites, and lists rendering as a single report.

Sharing Reports

With BrightWork, you can  build and share reports via email  quickly to increase project visibility.

There are a few ways to share projects reports via email:

  • Ad-hoc, for example, a last-minute update before a meeting.
  • Scheduled emails, for example, a weekly work report.

Dashboards should be saved as either .PDF or .XPS format and shared as email attachments.

Email options are located in the Reporter ribbon. Simply fill in the relevant information and send the report.

Recipients can click on the links in the email to get more information in the relevant project site.

Resource Management

Resources should be tracked at the portfolio level at two key points in the project lifecycle – new requests and ongoing projects. These reports help with business planning and talent management.

New project requests

When assessing new project requests, it’s important to understand proposed  resource allocation , even at a very high-level.

Stakeholders need to know what resources are needed on the new project and how these allocations affect other projects, both ongoing and upcoming.

Even if the exact details of every task are not yet available, taking a larger view of the pipeline helps to balance resources across projects to avoid over-allocation and bottlenecks at critical milestones.

In some cases, a new project may be delayed until another project is complete, thus freeing up resources.

Resource allocation reports can also identify skills shortages that could impact on current or future projects. In these instances, your organization can opt to train existing team members, recruit, or outsource certain tasks.

Current projects

Like resource reports for individual projects, tracking resources at the portfolio levels helps senior management to oversee work distribution throughout the organization.   Resource management reports  show over and under-allocated resources on current projects.

How to use Resource Allocation Reports on SharePoint

Resource Allocation is part of the Project Request Management (PRM) Template from BrightWork.

The Resource Allocation list allows users to plan resources at a high-level when submitting a request.

project portfolio balancing

Offering multiple project and portfolio reporting options, SharePoint will help you to save time and deliver key information to the right people at the right time.

Grace Windsor

Read more SharePoint and project management articles from  Grace !

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PMWorld 360 Magazine

How to create a balanced project portfolio

Looking for a way to create a balanced project portfolio? Companies can maximize project benefits and minimize overall project risks by balancing project portfolios. Executives have to analyze and balance the portfolio to reach these goals. The objective is to fund worthy efforts in order to produce the highest payback from each investment. A project portfolio can be considered as an investment fund, where the fund manager tries to create the best investment portfolio by choosing the most appropriate stocks (high-risk stocks and blue-chip stocks) to reach the goal.

Scoring model

A standard scoring model for project selection should consider different factors, here are some of the most relevant:

  • Payback period : shows how long it takes for a business to recover an investment. The number of years needed for the cumulative cash flow to match all cash costs expended prior to the start-up date.
  • Strategic alignment : shows how well the program fits with the strategy of the company. Aligning projects with the strategic goals of the company is critical for project success and for obtaining a return on investment.
  • Product duration : this is the life of the product in the marketplace expressed in years. How long is the cycle in which the product goes from introduction to withdrawal or eventual dismissal.
  • Market opportunity : the probability for the company to satisfy a market need by creating a specific product or service that customers want.
  • Level of competition : how strong or intense the competition is. How many competitors are in the market, and which products and services they are offering.
  • Level of expertise : the presence of skills within the company to execute the project to create a specific product. Each project requires different types of skills and knowledge.
  • Probability of success : the probability of technical and commercial success. Technical success means reaching the goals of a project. While commercial success means achieving a profitable market.

Executives score each factor on a scale of 1-10 per project. Then, these factors are used to create a project attractiveness score. This score is used to make Go/Kill decisions and is also used to rank the order of projects – from best to worst.

It is useful to use visual charts to display the balance in new product project portfolios . These visual representations can include portfolio maps or bubble diagrams.

Risk-Reward Charts

The most popular bubble diagram is a variant of the risk-return chart: the risk-reward chart.

One approach is to use a qualitative estimate of rewards, ranging from “modest” to “excellent,” and the probability of overall success (commercial success and technical success). It is important to say that counting too much on financial analysis can do serious damage, especially in the early stages of a project.

The other approach is to rely on a more quantitative and financial measure of reward, namely the probability-adjusted NPV of the project. In this case, the probability of technical success is the vertical axis, as the probability of commercial success has already been built into the NPV calculation (horizontal axis). The size of the bubble indicates a third variable, usually development costs, given the success.

The four quadrants of the portfolio model are:

  • Pearls (upper right quadrant): These are the potential star products – projects with a high likelihood of success and that are also expected to yield a very high reward. Most businesses desire more of these.
  • Oysters (lower right): These are the long-shot projects – projects with a high expected payoff but with a low likelihood of technical success. They are the projects where technical breakthroughs will pave the way for solid payoffs.
  • Bread and Butter (upper left): These are small, simple projects – a high likelihood of success but low reward. They include the many fixes, extensions, modifications, and up-dating projects of which most companies have too many.
  • White Elephants (lower left): These are the low probability and low reward projects. Every business has a few white elephants – they inevitably are difficult to kill, and companies should have as few as possible of these types of projects.

Companies that want to grow rapidly need to:

  • have few White Elephant projects;
  • spend little money on Bread and Butter projects;
  • start enough pearls projects that are the ones that can guarantee high rewards;
  • assign the right number of resources to all projects, notably to the Oysters.

Project Selection (Risk-Rewards Chart)

Risk - Rewards Chart for Project Selection | PMWorld 360 Magazine

The bubble diagram model requires senior management to consider the number of resources needed to execute each project. Basically, if executives decide to add one project to the diagram, they must remove another; or alternatively, they can reduce the number of resources assigned to other projects.

Keep in mind

There are numerous parameters, dimensions, or variables across which one might wish to seek a balance of projects. As a result, there are an endless variety of histograms and pie charts that help to portray the portfolio balance. When using a risk-reward chart, it is important to remember that project bubbles are not static. From one year to the next, a Bread and Butter project may evolve into a White Elephant, and one of your White Elephants may transform into an Oyster. For this reason, it is key to have the ability to look back and compare the data and information contained within the chart from year to year or more frequently.

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Francesco Pecoraro

Francesco Pecoraro ​ , PMP, PSM, PSPO, SSYB, SSGB, SSBB, CL, CC is the founder of francescopecoraro.com where he shares useful and practical information about project management, program management, project portfolio management, and agile methodology. Francesco has extensive experience as a project, program and portfolio manager, project management officer (PMO), digital transformation and strategic consultant. He is also considered a communication, public speaking, and leadership expert. Francesco writes about project methodologies , program , and portfolio management . See Francesco's Articles

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PPM 101 – Project Portfolio Optimization

Introduction to project portfolio optimization.

Project portfolio optimization offers the promise of generating and delivering the maximum possible business value from the company’s project portfolio. By using data and advanced analysis techniques, organizations can often generate more business value (+20%) with the same budget and resources as they can using manual processes. Project portfolio optimization stems from financial portfolio management theory and is one of the most advanced processes of project portfolio management.

To optimize means to “make the best or most effective use of a situation, opportunity, or resource” (Dictionary.com). In simple terms, optimization is about doing the best we can with what we’ve got. Another way to look at is “bang for the buck”. Virtually every company has limited resources, and the goal is to generate as much business value (“bang”) with the limited resources available (“the buck”).

Optimizing a project portfolio is to construct an optimal portfolio given current limitations and constraints. Portfolio optimization heavily emphasizes the “science” of project portfolio management and is very much data driven and relies on advanced analysis. This is why our PPM maturity model includes portfolio optimization starting at level 3 maturity. Before this, most organizations simply do not have established processes to enable portfolio optimization techniques.

Portfolio optimization is part of the second component of the project portfolio lifecycle , ‘Optimize Portfolio Value’. The goal of project portfolio management is to help organizations deliver maximum business value. Processes such as prioritization and managing resource capacity help us to “make the best or most effective use of human resources”. In this way, organizations can increase business value delivery . However, while these processes may help leaders to construct a ‘good’ project portfolio, it likely does not produce the best (or optimal) results. This is why portfolio optimization very  often deliver greater value with the same resources and budget. That’s powerful.

The Different Types of Project Portfolio Optimization

An “optimal” portfolio for your organization will depend upon the goals of your portfolio. Not every organization will optimize their portfolio in the same way, but there are four basic types of portfolio optimization:

  • Cost-Value Optimization : this is the most popular type of portfolio optimization and utilizes efficient frontier analysis. The basic constraint of cost-value optimization is the portfolio budget.
  • Work Type Optimization : this is a lesser known way of optimizing the portfolio, but corresponds to a more common term, portfolio balancing. The basic constraints of work-type optimization are categorical designations.
  • Resource Optimization : this is another effective way of optimizing the portfolio and utilizes capacity management analysis. The basic constraint of resource optimization is human resource availability.
  • Schedule Optimization : this type of optimization is associated with project sequencing, which relates to project interdependencies . The basic constraints of schedule optimization are project timing and project dependencies.

These four types of optimization are actually advanced versions of foundational portfolio management disciplines . Prioritization as a selection technique becomes cost-value optimization. Portfolio balancing becomes work type optimization. Resource capacity planning becomes resource optimization. Project sequencing becomes schedule optimization. The chart below highlights that the cost-value and work type optimization techniques are used to improve project selection whereas resource and schedule optimization are used to build a realistic portfolio.

Companies do not need to use every technique, but utilizing multiple methods can produce the most optimal portfolio for your organization. In order to successfully optimize a portfolio, two key things are needed: the right data, and the right constraints. Without sufficient data, the portfolio cannot be optimized. From this angle, collecting a sufficient amount of the right data is directly tied to organizational maturity . Less mature organizations will not have the discipline or processes in place to collect enough good data.  Data is the fuel that makes the portfolio engine run; without enough good data, there is insufficient “power” to optimize the portfolio. Moreover, if the data is not refreshed with some regularity, the optimization outputs become stale. Mature organizations will collect good data during Work Intake and have other processes in place to regularly input new project data into its portfolio system, enabling it to optimize the portfolio on a recurring basis.

In addition, the right constraints need to be identified, understood, and communicated among the portfolio governance team . A constraint is a limitation imposed upon the organization or a restriction set by the portfolio governance team. Without acknowledging and identifying key constraints, it is not possible to optimize the portfolio and maximize organizational value. Each aspect of portfolio optimization has its own constraints and will be discussed in more detail below.

Cost-Value Portfolio Optimization (aka Efficient Frontier Analysis)

One of the basic tenets of project portfolio management (PPM) is to maximize the value to the organization through its projects. This can be accomplished through traditional cost-value optimization (most commonly known as finding the ‘efficient frontier’). The goal is to identify the combination (or mix) of projects that generates the most business value for a given budget level. In other words, if you have a $30 million dollar project budget, how much more business value can you generate compared to a $25 million dollar budget? You should be able to generate far more value, but the key is to select the right combination of projects to unlock that value. Cost-value optimization can potentially increase portfolio value by 20% without making any additional investments.

Cost-Value Optimization is a Superior Project Selection Technique

Cost-value optimization is a superior project selection technique. In our article on prioritization , we discussed a very common approach for rank ordering projects and selecting projects from top to bottom until budget ran out. This approach will yield a reasonably good result, but it will not produce the best result. Simply prioritizing projects and “drawing the line” when you run out of budget will not unlock maximum value. What most organizations fail to do is identify the best overall combination of projects to maximize business value. In fact, it is possible for two lower priority projects together to deliver more business value than one higher priority project. Richard Bayney, in his article “ Creating a Portfolio of Prioritized Projects ”, does a great job of showing how rank ordering produces an inferior portfolio selection result to portfolio optimization. Cost-value optimization requires senior leaders to reframe project selection by focusing on maximizing business value, not merely selecting only the highest ranked projects.

With cost-value optimization, the basic constraint is the organizational budget for projects. In most cases, organizations will have a fixed total project budget, or at least a strong estimate of how much it can spend over a given year or period. For those organizations that may not have a fixed budget, efficient frontier analysis can still provide target portfolios at different cost points.

The Efficient Frontier

Traditional portfolio theory (used for financial portfolios) applies the concept of an “efficient frontier” (figure below), the points at which for a given amount of investment there is an optimal portfolio providing maximum benefit.

Lee Merkhofer, a portfolio management expert, has this to say about using the efficient frontier for portfolio optimization: “In the context of modern portfolio theory, the efficient frontier is the bounding curve obtained when portfolios of possible investments are plotted based on risk and expected return. The efficient frontier shows the investment combinations that produce the highest return for the lowest possible risk. A portfolio that is not on the efficient frontier is said to be ‘inefficient’ because another portfolio exists that has lower risk for the same return. The goal for selecting projects is to pick project portfolios that create the greatest possible risk-adjusted value without exceeding the applicable constraint on available resources. Economists call the set of investments that create the greatest possible value at the least possible cost the ‘efficient frontier.’ Most organizations fail to find the best project portfolios and, therefore, do not create maximum value. Inability to find the efficient frontier is [another] reason organizations choose the wrong projects.” Portfolio Managers and Portfolio Governance Teams should under the portfolio risk tolerance thresholds in order to optimize risk and value in the portfolio.

As much as companies want “data-driven decision making”, if the optimization outputs are contrary to their expectations, they will have a harder time accepting the results. Open discussion is needed to level set expectations with leadership.

In the example below, we can see a portfolio (red diamond) that is not on the efficient frontier. For the same budget, this portfolio could generate far greater value. At a lower budget, this portfolio could generate equal value. Although most organizations prefer to maximize the value for their maximum budget target, this view is useful to keep in mind for executives to understand that senior leaders often leave money on the table or pay too much for the value they are getting.

Here are three more views to conclude our discussion on the efficient frontier. In my experience, I have seen many companies simply try to approve everything on their list. This would put a portfolio in the upper right corner of the efficient frontier. There are significant diminishing returns as you approach that spectrum of the efficient frontier. Usually all those extra projects are low-value ‘nice to have’ projects that consume resources but add very little value. Companies need to be careful of those types of projects. At the other end, some companies may make exceptional budget cuts and lose opportunities to deliver business value. At that end of the spectrum, even modest increases in portfolio budget can lead to far more business value. There is a careful balance when applying efficient frontier analysis and we will cover these challenges at the end of this article.

You Must Define Portfolio Value

Traditional portfolio theory assumes project and portfolio value is strictly a financial value. However, project value should also include several qualitative (or intangible) benefits that are not measured strictly by net present value (NPV) or return on investment (ROI). The portfolio’s value should also correspond to strategic delivery and accomplishing the strategic goals of the organization.

Be sure to refer back to our article on prioritization . There, we covered the importance of having the portfolio governance team define ‘value’ , which will differ at every company. Once value is defined, a scoring model can be created to evaluate project value. These prioritization ‘scores’ represent relative project value and can then be used to optimize the portfolio. Without defining value, senior leaders will only be able to optimize the portfolio from a purely financial standpoint, and this will not lead to optimal strategic results. By factoring in strategic alignment and other business drivers, a better assessment of project value can be produced and used to optimize the project portfolio.

The application of the efficient frontier approach can save the portfolio governance team time on project selection because it focuses on the set of projects that delivers maximum value for a particular level of spending. Instead of fighting for what should be included, the discussion can be focused on those projects that bring the portfolio off of the efficient frontier (such as mandatory projects that don’t provide much value). To use a golf analogy, using the efficient frontier will not give you a ‘hole in one’ (i.e. it won’t give you the final answer), but it will get you to the putting green nearly every time in one stroke (i.e. save time by getting very close to the final answer). Every golfer would take that.

Work Type Portfolio Optimization

A complementary optimization approach to improve project selection is what we refer to as work type optimization. Essentially, this type of optimization helps ensure a balanced investment across the portfolio and can be used in conjunction with cost-value optimization. The concept of ‘portfolio balance’ is quite common in PPM literature. We see it come up in relation to risk-value bubble charts in order to visualize the portfolio and ensure that senior leadership is not overinvesting in low-value or high-risk areas.

Balance can also support a distributed investment strategy across:

  • Business units
  • Product lines
  • Categories (such as run, grow, transform)
  • Strategic goals

In order to optimize the portfolio according to work types (or categories) the portfolio governance team needs to set investment ranges across the categories they want to optimize against. The simple table below captures the investment range that a portfolio governance team may want to put into each of its six product lines. These values are used as part of an optimization algorithm to ensure an acceptable balance of investment. If the ranges are too narrow, it can limit the options available to the portfolio governance team.

Optimizing a project portfolio is to construct an optimal portfolio given current limitations and constraints. Portfolio optimization heavily emphasizes the “science” of project portfolio management and is very much data driven and relies on advanced analysis.

Resource Optimization

Resource optimization takes a different approach to optimizing the portfolio by addressing resource constraints that exist in practice. Resource optimization focuses on resource utilization and availability in order to construct a realistic portfolio that can be achieved and delivered. One of the shortcomings of cost-value optimization is that it does not directly incorporate resource availability and utilization into the analysis. That approach may yield an optimal portfolio from a value perspective but one that is unrealistic to deliver because of known resource constraints.

Resource optimization is an extension of resource capacity planning. In our article on the challenges of managing resource capacity we covered that good project planning is the foundation of capacity planning; without reasonable project planning capacity planning is simply not possible. As long as there is reasonable project planning with good enough resource estimates, some level of resource optimization is possible. We will briefly touch two approaches.

Approach #1 – Annual Utilization

A simpler approach that organizations can get started with is to optimize a few key resources at an annual planning level. This involves estimating the resource utilization for each role for each project for a given fiscal year. As long as there is some reasonable understanding of the true capacity of each role, an optimal combination of projects can be found to fit within known resource constraints.

One of the primary benefits of this simplistic approach is that companies can more easily determine how many projects could realistically be worked on over the course of a year. However, there are multiple down sides. This approach does not take into account the timing of when resources are needed, so there may still be periods of time with unrealistic workloads due to the timing of the projects. It also assumes that the resource estimates are reasonably good; when attempting to optimize the portfolio at such a high level, even minor changes to resource estimates could greatly change the mix of projects selected as part of the optimization. Nevertheless, this approach can help support annual planning exercises.

Approach #2 – Time phased resource plan

Optimizing against a time-phased resource plan is more advanced, harder to do, but will produce a better output. This approach assumes that a month by month resource plan is prepared with good resource forecasts. This can be done manually through scenario planning, but only specialized software can support genuine resource optimization. Please note that we are not referring to ‘resource leveling’, which is where resource loads are smoothed out but project durations are extended. This is not resource optimization. Rather, we are focused on sequencing projects according to resource utilization and capacity in order to minimize over-utilized resources. The graphic below highlights that re-sequencing projects across the portfolio can reduce over-utilization and perhaps even remove unnecessary projects in order to free up critical resources.

Schedule Optimization

The last type of portfolio optimization is schedule optimization in a multi-project environment. This accounts for all project interdependencies across projects. In relation to project sequencing, organizations should also account for project priorities and resource availability (see graphic). There are at least two approaches that we will highlight below.

Multi-Project Critical Path

Some organizations may load dependencies between projects into a master integrated schedule and apply critical path scheduling to create the best scheduling network across projects. This is a fair approach that can help teams improve scheduling across projects.

Multi-Project Critical Chain

We believe that an even more valuable approach is to account for critical bottleneck resources. This is where Critical Chain Project Management (CCPM) can be very effective for optimizing the schedules of multiple projects across the portfolio.

Critical Chain Project Management originates from the Theory of Constraints which emphasizes that every system has a bottleneck or ‘constraint’ which limits the output (throughput) of a good or service. Critical Chain Project Management is a project management application of the Theory of Constraints that recognizes that a small number of key resources (‘bottleneck resources’) are the key constraints to completing project work on time. When Project Managers understand the resource constraints and schedule according to it, they can achieve fantastic results .

Applying Critical Chain Project Management combines both resource optimization and schedule optimization together. It prioritizes the scheduling of tasks that utilize bottleneck resources in such a way that the bottleneck resources are not over-utilized while still accounting for other schedule dependencies and relationships across project schedules. There are a number of other important principals associated with CCPM (such as buffer management) that are beyond the scope of this article, but are important for successfully adopting CCPM.

Challenges of Project Portfolio Optimization

We will now turn our attention to the challenges associated with portfolio optimization. As we mentioned at the beginning, project portfolio optimization requires more advanced processes and is often initiated as organizations reach level 3 maturity according to our portfolio maturity model . While project portfolio optimization can help organizations maximize business value delivery , there are a number of challenges that must be addressed in order to see these benefits.

Getting leadership support of the outputs

The first major challenge is getting senior leaders to support the outputs of any optimization. With cost-value optimization, the recommended portfolio may not match leadership expectations. In fact, two lower priority projects may be favored by the optimization model over one higher priority project, which will likely frustrate the sponsor of the higher priority project. As much as companies want “data-driven decision making”, if the optimization outputs are contrary to their expectations, they will have a harder time accepting the results. Open discussion is needed to level set expectations with leadership.

One way of getting around this is to use cost-value optimization to create two or three portfolio scenarios to let senior leaders discuss the merits of one portfolio scenario over another. Or, an optimization approach will likely include some of the same projects across all three scenarios. From there, the portfolio governance team can weigh in on the projects that were included in one of the scenarios but not all three and then make a final decision on the smaller set of projects. Leadership should also learn to challenge any projects that bring a portfolio off of the efficient frontier. In this way, the portfolio governance team can learn to maximize portfolio value.

The portfolio optimization models cannot factor in all criteria

Another challenge is where an optimization model cannot possibly account for all of the decision criteria. In some cases, project selection involves some very unique criteria that would otherwise be hard to model. Selecting a portfolio based on a few factors will undoubtedly omit some very important decision criteria that the leadership team understands. Examples of this can include company mandates, regulatory compliance, or other work required to keep the business running. These types of projects may get excluded from cost-value optimization because they have lower business value but still have other criteria that requires them to be done. Organizations may choose to exclude all mandated projects from cost-value optimization analysis and simply adjust the budget accordingly.

Collecting enough data and having the right data at the right time

One critical success factor for making portfolio optimization successful is to have “lean” processes that make it reasonably easy to collect project and portfolio data and use the data to optimize the portfolio. If organizational processes are too cumbersome, or if the data is too hard to collect, the portfolio optimization process will be less valuable and likely replaced with less effective (but easier) processes.

Not having enough options to choose from

At some companies, a proposed list of projects is submitted that just meets the planned budget. In this case, there are no alternatives to choose from and therefore no optimized portfolio. The portfolio governance team should have at least a few options to choose from in order to select the best portfolio possible. By approving everything on the list, there is no way to optimize the portfolio from a cost-value perspective.

Ironically, having too many options to choose from can also create challenges. When there are too many options, even subtle changes to cost-value optimization criteria and project inputs (such as project budget) can produce greatly different results. Be mindful of having too many project options; even without utilizing optimization techniques it can be difficult for decision makers to agree on a project portfolio when there are too many projects to choose from.

Developing the right cadence for portfolio optimization

Since optimization techniques can change the composition of the portfolio or the sequencing of projects and resources, additional consideration needs to be given to the frequency of utilizing optimization techniques. Cost-value optimization might be used for annual planning, but what about project requests that come in during the year? Will optimization be used throughout the year? And how does the portfolio governance team handle active projects that are no longer part of the optimization output? Portfolio Managers need to draw up guidelines for how optimization techniques will be used and applied, otherwise portfolio optimization can potentially disrupt project delivery.

Not having internal expertise portfolio optimization

Finally, companies may not have sufficient internal expertise to successfully optimize the portfolio even if all the data is available. Project portfolio optimization does require the right data analysis skills. Companies that lack this skill set internally should get outside help with optimizing the portfolio. In the future, we believe that Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning will greatly improve portfolio optimization .

How To Get Started With Portfolio Optimization

The most important factor for successfully utilizing portfolio optimization techniques is to have good quality data with agreed upon constraints. This includes an organization’s ability to translate their strategic goals and objectives into meaningful business drivers that can be incorporated into an optimization model.  Your Portfolio Manager plays a critical role with developing and establishing portfolio optimization processes. Here are some steps to take to get started with each dimension of portfolio optimization:

Cost-Value Portfolio Optimization

  • Establish a robust prioritization scoring model – this will enable the portfolio governance team to clearly evaluate a project’s value. This will include qualitative factors such as alignment to strategic goals and other business drivers. The resulting output, the value score, can then be utilized for cost-value optimization.
  • Establish good project planning – make sure the project teams fully understand the scope and cost of their project. Otherwise, portfolio optimization will be far less effective. At the very least, make sure that project scope is reasonably well understood and a reasonable cost estimate can be produced. Again, if project costs change over time due to changing scope, this can interfere with effective optimization.
  • Establish ground rules for how portfolio optimization will be used – this includes training leadership on how portfolio optimization works and get agreement for how optimization results will inform final portfolio selection.
  • Conduct optimization – this may entail building a model a spreadsheet or use of other sophisticated software.
  • Define categorical designations – companies ready to begin applying optimization techniques probably already have sufficient categorical designations, but if not, be sure that everyone on the portfolio governance team understands the categorizations. For example, run/grow/transform is a common paradigm, but many companies still struggle to categorize projects because the definitions are not well understood.
  • Ensure each project is categorized – this is a data integrity step to ensure that all projects are categorized appropriately.
  • Define investment ranges for each category – the portfolio governance team needs to agree on investment ranges for each work type (e.g. category, business unit, strategic objective, product line, etc.).
  • Establish good project planning – we covered this in great detail in our article on resource capacity planning . Project teams must know how to create a project plan with scope, activities, dependencies, duration estimates, and resource estimates. Without this, both capacity planning and resource optimization are not possible. This may require dedicated training by the Project Management Office (PMO) .
  • Create a resource plan for each project – at the very least, overall resource estimates should be compiled in order to conduct the simpler version of resource optimization. For advanced resource optimization, a time phased resource plan is needed as well as sophisticated software to handle this type of optimization.
  • Define good integrated scheduling practice – simplified project management and project tools will not work with full schedule optimization. Project Managers need to be well versed in how to create an integrated schedule that can calculate a critical path (or utilize Critical Chain Project Management).
  • Establish a process to create a multi-project view – in order to optimize schedules across a portfolio, all project scheduling data needs to be linked.
  • Prioritize projects to support sequencing – the most important projects should take schedule priority over lower value projects.
  • Incorporate bottleneck resources (if using Critical Chain) – Critical Chain Project Management does an excellent job of combining resource optimization and schedule optimization together, but portfolio governance teams need to agree on which key resources should be included in this analysis.
  • Conduct optimization – this requires the use of sophisticated scheduling software.

Sample Process for Optimization

The diagram below represents a sample approach for handling portfolio optimization.

  • The Project Manager will negotiate resource needs with Resource Managers based on the project plan.
  • The Resource Manager will determine the resource capacity for each requested individual.
  • The Portfolio Manager will analyze resource capacity.
  • The Portfolio Governance Team will categorize existing projects and determine budgetary constraints for each category.
  • The Portfolio Governance Team will also score each project (if not already done) using their prioritization scoring model.
  • The Portfolio Manager will take these inputs and perform portfolio optimization and conduct sensitivity analysis.
  • The Portfolio Governance Team will review the scenarios created by the Portfolio Manager.
  • Project Managers will provide final resource requirements (if not done earlier)
  • The Portfolio Manager will evaluate resource availability and recommend certain projects to be cancelled or postponed if resource availability is inadequate.
  • The Portfolio Governance Team will decide if any projects need to be cancelled or deferred and then finish ranking projects and support project sequencing.
  • The Portfolio Manager will help communicate any projects that have been cancelled or deferred.
  • Resource Managers will re-allocate their resources according to updated priorities.
  • Project Managers will adjust schedules as needed in support of priorities, resources, and sequencing.
  • Project delivery continues.

A Portfolio Manager should actively monitor the portfolio and recommend another optimization exercise when certain criteria are met. The list below highlights several conditions during project execution that may prompt the portfolio to be re-optimized:

  • New project requests are proposed
  • Significant changes occur in the business environment
  • Customer needs change
  • Business emergencies impact project(s)
  • Project performance deteriorates
  • Resource availability changes
  • Strategic direction changes

VIDEO: Project Portfolio Optimization

Portfolio optimization summary.

Project portfolio optimization can greatly increase portfolio value and significantly increase the likelihood of success, but the techniques required are typically performed by more mature organizations. Establishing good portfolio management discipline lays the foundation for solid portfolio optimization. Companies should be encouraged to mature their processes in order to be able to utilize different optimization techniques. Project portfolio optimization relies heavily on the “science” of PPM, but good leadership (“the art”) is needed in order to successfully apply optimization outputs. While lower maturity organizations may be able to complete a one-time optimization exercise with the help of an outside expert, higher maturity is needed in order for companies to perform these advanced portfolio optimization techniques consistently on their own.

Tim is a project and portfolio management consultant with 15 years of experience working with the Fortune 500. He is an expert in maturity-based PPM and helps PMO Leaders build and improve their PMO to unlock more value for their company. He is one of the original PfMP’s (Portfolio Management Professionals) and a public speaker at business conferences and PMI events.

What is project portfolio optimization?

Optimizing a project portfolio is to construct an optimal portfolio given current limitations and constraints. To optimize means to “make the best or most effective use of a situation, opportunity, or resource” (Dictionary.com). In simple terms, optimization is about doing the best we can with what we’ve got. Another way to look at is “bang for the buck”. Virtually every company has limited resources, and the goal is to generate as much business value (“bang”) with the limited resources available (“the buck”).

What are the different ways for optimizing the project portfolio?

Cost-Value Optimization: this is the most popular type of portfolio optimization and utilizes efficient frontier analysis. The basic constraint of cost-value optimization is the portfolio budget. Work Type Optimization: this is a lesser known way of optimizing the portfolio, but corresponds to a more common term, portfolio balancing. The basic constraints of work-type optimization are categorical designations. Resource Optimization: this is another effective way of optimizing the portfolio and utilizes capacity management analysis. The basic constraint of resource optimization is human resource availability. Schedule Optimization: this type of optimization is associated with project sequencing, which relates to project interdependencies. The basic constraints of schedule optimization are project timing and project dependencies.

How is the efficient frontier used in PPM?

Traditional portfolio theory (used for financial portfolios) applies the concept of an “efficient frontier”, the points at which for a given amount of investment there is an optimal portfolio providing maximum benefit. Senior leaders need to keep in mind that using the efficient frontier helps them realize when money is being left on the table or pay too much for the business value they are getting. In some cases, for the same budget, a portfolio could generate far greater value. At a lower budget, a portfolio could generate equal value.

What are some of the challenges of utilizing project portfolio optimization?

There are a number of challenges companies need to be aware of in order to utilize portfolio optimization such as: getting leadership support of the optimization outputs, recognizing that portfolio optimization models cannot factor in all criteria, collecting enough data and having the right data at the right time, not having enough project options to choose from, developing the right cadence for portfolio optimization, and not having employees who know how to optimize the portfolio.

Is project portfolio optimization hard?

Portfolio optimization does require advanced data analysis skills. However, having good data is a prerequisite for portfolio optimization. This is why companies are typical at a level 3 maturity before they attempt portfolio optimization.

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Project Portfolio Management: Prioritizing and Balancing Multiple Projects

Project management diploma in London

Posted on Sep 25, 2023 at 12:09 AM

Project portfolio management is a critical component of best practices, but it can also be one of the most challenging. As organisations grow and new projects are added to the mix, prioritising and balancing multiple projects becomes increasingly important. 

In this article, you will learn about the importance of project portfolio management and how it can help you make better decisions. 

What is portfolio management in project management?

We all know how it goes in every business company: a business idea turns into a project, a manager is trusted to manage it, and then voila! We just have to sit and wait for the magic to happen. 

Not entirely,  because there's a lot more to it than just that, and this is where portfolio project management comes into play; it allows us to manage all the projects we have going on at any given time. Moreover, it's one of the most essential Personal Skills for Project Management that every manager needs in the 21st century.

Project portfolio management is simply the process of managing projects (through portfolios) in a strategic, comprehensive way that helps managers approach several projects simultaneously.

P.S. Portfolios are groups of programs, processes, objectives, and operations aligned strategically according to their importance to the company's goals.

But what goes on in project portfolio management? 

The goal of project portfolio management is to manage multiple projects and programs to maximise business value and return on investment, so it involves making decisions on:

How to select projects and investments to undertake

How much effort should be allocated to each project?

What metrics will be most efficient when evaluating project performance ?

how much risk can be tolerated (and by whom)

how projects will be staffed

How to identify the costs, potential, goals, and outcomes of each program

What is an example of project portfolio management? 

Let's say there's an airport in London with many technical issues: suitcases are missing, flights are delayed due to technical errors, etc. This airport is losing a lot of resources and has recently opted for a change to a new software that will upgrade its technologies and improve workflows. 

So, this airport invites teams of experts for the execution of this significant change; they first start with the essential needs, changing the flight management software to a more effective one (That's one project portfolio), then another expert suggests that using the same software to connect each flight with their passengers' suitcases information would offer a more practical system that would reduce the amount of error that happens during flights - it would be easier to link the baggage to the plane because these two are interrelated (another portfolio) 

Another expert offers a new tracking model to ensure the delivery of suitcases and avoid any mix by providing a bar code for each bag. (yet another portfolio). 

The role of project portfolio management in this example is to look at the bigger picture, examine each portfolio and develop methods and solutions that can help align those projects together to create an overall systematic operation that ensures the success of each of those portfolios without any constraints.

What is the difference between PMO and PPM?

As previously mentioned, PPM brings together all the projects and initiatives in an organisation, creating a big-picture view of everything that needs to be done. It helps the enterprise prioritise its work to align with the goals and achieve optimal business results. 

It does that through analysing a collection of projects and ensuring that all programmes involved deliver the best results across all departments; this way, the company's entire set of tasks is aligned through all its elements. And it's all done through project portfolio management. 

On the other hand, a PMO, or project management office, is where a company would coordinate and control all the master plans. It's a committee (or place) responsible for planning and selecting which projects to do and how to manage them. 

What are the benefits of project portfolio management? 

As a manager or a CEO, you might be wondering how this project management skill might help you excel in your business life; we’re here to make that question easier; here’s how:

project portfolio balancing

For starters, it's one of the most essential Engineering Project Management Skills companies look for in any employee. Let’s consider that this skill is in such high demand is straightforward, a manager who manages multiple projects at once, deals with problems and offers immediate creative solutions is basically on another level!

It also enables you to effectively allocate company resources, prioritise projects and adhere to the company’s budget.

Moreover, project portfolio management provides an overview of all projects without the need for constant individual monitoring.

It helps remove waste and increases efficiency: Each project is managed with clear objectives and goals, so your team doesn’t get off track.

With PPM, you can delegate tasks more efficiently and effectively by knowing exactly what needs to be done, how long it should take and how much it will cost. 

If you decide to participate in a Project management diploma in London , you will learn to plan better to create schedules with as much detail as possible.

It's a great project management tool that will be helpful during all your project management phases .

Ultimately, it's important to remember that project portfolio management is about creating a path towards a desired outcome.  The more detailed the plan, the better it will be able to guide you through the project and keep you on track.

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Balancing Project Portfolios: The Double Dimension

project portfolio balancing

By Kathy Martucci , PMP

Note:  This is part 5 in our series on portfolio management. See below for previous entries.

Before we begin, let me start out with two definitions that may seem obvious…but usually aren’t.

Program : a program is comprised of projects that are related in some fashion and bring benefits to the organization by being run together rather than one at a time (or not at all).

Portfolio : the organization’s complete roster of projects regardless of type, complexity, etc.

A program is administered by a program manager, and it is only one portion of the portfolio. The portfolio, with all its combined benefits and liabilities to the organization, is the responsibility of executive management. Executives must examine and balance the portfolio to achieve the maximum benefit while minimizing risk and liabilities. The goal is to fund deserving efforts, produce the highest payback from each investment and protect the organization from utilizing strategic resources for “pet projects”.

As with everything that executive management considers, the strategic plan of the organization should offer a strong guiding principle to this exercise. In addition to alignment with overall corporate strategy, organizational resource usage and allocation must be factored into decisions about maintenance of the portfolio.

One dimension of balance may be created by stocking the portfolio with three different types of projects:

  • Ongoing support: often the projects that no one wants. They are not fun to work on, not anything new. However, they are vital to support the business and should comprise a good share, perhaps up to a third, of the portfolio.
  • Advance strategy: used to maintain and increase market competitiveness, these projects will make up a majority of the portfolio.
  • Revolutionary: now, these are the fun projects everyone wants to do! They are the riskiest type of project for any business but should make up some portion of the portfolio or stagnation may set in.

Of course, the organization must define – and agree on the definition – of these project types. Once equipped with solid criteria, it would be relatively easy to categorize each project under consideration.

The second dimension of balancing the portfolio is the mix of projects within each type. No doubt every organization has many potential responsibilities and opportunities and only so many resources to apply to them. Fortunately there are many selection models to choose from, ranging from the most simple to extraordinarily complex.

Which is best?  Often, organizations spend a lot of money trying to decide which projects to do; any model used must be realistic, robust but flexible, easy to use and cost effective.

Some models to be considered include:

  • Checklist : best used if time is of the essence, this model employs a few criteria against which to measure the projects. For example, if the corporate priority is time to market, perhaps that criterion and cost (or cost and risk, etc.) would be on the list.
  • Weighted criteria: although it is sometimes difficult to assign weights or scores to criteria, this method is used quite extensively. Projects are assigned scores made up of rank times weight and the highest scores get to stay in or join the Portfolio.
  • Profile model: using two criteria, for example risk and return. Perceived risks (very subjective) and calculated return are plotted and projects can be analyzed according to where they fall in the graph.
  • Financial: including discounted cash flow analysis, net present value and internal rate of return, these models are all based on the time value of money and are very popular models for project selection.

A wide variety of selection methods may be appropriate for specific companies and project circumstances. Some projects require financial evidence of their viability. Others may demonstrate no more than an acceptable potential when compared to other options. In other words, any of the previously discussed selection methods may be appropriate under certain situations.

Regardless of the approach that a company selects, we can be sure of one thing:  Making good project choices is a crucial step in ensuring good project management downstream.

How does your organization make these choices?

The other parts are:  Part 1 –  Projects Projects Everywhere: A Portfolio Management Approach Part 2 –  Elements of Portfolio Management: Developing the Compelling Business Case Part 3 – Portfolio Management: Developing Tools for the First Gate Part 4 –  Project Portfolio Management Reporting and Review .

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Did That Process Change Work? Four Steps to Better Processes

Three Levels Of Balancing A Project

project portfolio balancing

Balancing a project can take place at one of three different levels of

authority in an organization, depending on the kind of change needed:

1. Project. Balancing at the project level requires making changes that keep the project on track for its original cost, schedule, and quality objectives. Since these three parts of the project equilibrium won't change, the project manager and team should have authority to make these decisions.

2. Business case. If the project cannot achieve its cost-schedule-quality goals, then the equilibrium between these three factors must be reexamined. This means that the business case for the project must be reevaluated. Changing any of the goals of the project puts this decision beyond the authority of the project manager and team. To understand why the decision to change the cost-schedule-quality equilibrium has to be made at the business level consider that:

• Cost goals are related to profitability goals. Raising cost targets for the project means reevaluating the profit goals.

• Schedules are closely linked to the business case. Projects that deliver late often incur some profit penalty, either through missed opportunities or actual monetary penalties spelled out in the contract.

• Changing the features and performance level of the product affects the quality—and therefore the value—of the end product.

• Balancing the project to the business case requires agreement from all the stakeholders, but most of all, from those who will be affected by changes to cost, schedule, or quality.

3. Enterprise. When the project and business case balance, but the firm has to choose which projects to pursue, it is then balancing the project at the enterprise level. The enterprise could be a department within a firm, an entire company, or a government agency. This decision is absolutely beyond the power of the project manager and team, and it may even exceed the authority of the sponsor and the functional managers, though they'll be active participants in the decision. Choosing which projects to pursue and how to spread limited resources over multiple projects is primarily a business management decision, even though it requires project management information.

Continue reading here: Increase Productivity by Using Experts from within the Firm

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Readers' Questions

What arev the levels atb whichna project canbe balanced?
What are three reasons why businesses use projects?
To improve efficiency - Projects are used to set a timeline for completing tasks with specific goals and objectives in mind. This helps reduce wasted time and resources, while also ensuring that tasks are completed correctly and to the highest standards. To increase customer satisfaction - Businesses use projects to ensure that customers receive the highest level of service. Projects give the customer a better sense of confidence that their needs and expectations are being met and that their feedback is being taken into account. To monitor progress - Projects allow businesses to track and monitor their progress in real-time. This helps businesses gain a better understanding of where they are at in terms of meeting their goals and objectives, and allows them to make any necessary adjustments in order to remain on track.
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At this point, you have your prioritized list of work for the portfolio, as well as guidance on your available funding. If the available funding will cover all of the proposed work, you will be in the enviable position of moving forward without further portfolio adjustment. However, this is rarely the case. On the other hand, if you did not need to balance the portfolio, the process would be as simple as cutting back the work based on priorities until the remaining work fits within the available budget.

Portfolio balancing is the process of organizing the prioritized components into a component mix that, when implemented, is best aligned with, and best supports the organization's strategic plan. PortfolioStep makes a major assumption that the required balance points are usually set by the Executive for allocating resources, financial or otherwise, between the competing demands within a portfolio. These are the demands raised by the various business units such as Operations, Projects, Other Work, and so on. The balance points may be set in terms of actual dollar amounts, but more usually are set in terms of percentages. The latter approach provides more flexibility.

Optimizing the portfolio means making some final cuts and/or adjustments such that the combination of projects and other work gives rise to the maximum benefits to the organization given the resources and funds available. So, the combination of cutting the proposed work requests and balancing and optimizing the portfolio will take more time. It may also take a few iterations, as cutting back in one area may free up funding that will allow you to re-authorize work that was previously cut elsewhere.

345.1 Cut Work to Fit Available Budget

345.2 Use Balance Points to Balance the Remaining Work

345.3 Cutting and Adding Work Out of Order

345.4 Stretching Out Projects

345.5 Optimizing the Portfolio

345.9 Techniques

[ Previous - 340.0 Prioritization ]  [ Next - 350.0 Authoriz ation ]

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COMMENTS

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