Project Portfolio Management (PPM) Today

Barrier Breaker

For those folks who are spearheading a PPM initiative, I wonder to what extent they have grasped the true potential of what they are taking on.  So far, my experience is that some folks see it but many do not.  Simply put, a PPM initiative is about breaking down the typical barriers that people face when they try to collaborate across boundaries.

Sure, there's plenty more that PPM provides, such as reduced overhead, repeatability of process, predictability of execution, metrics that are reliable and accurate.  But perhaps the most important facet of a successful PPM initiative is the degree to which the leaders can create a culture of teamwork and out-of-the-box breakthroughs.

While it may not provide the kind of hard, quantifiable numbers that most decisions are based on, the ability to break down barriers leads to breakthrough performance, and PPM leaders are at the forefront of making that happen.  I tip my hat to you all.

Future States Section 2a.

Projects and project clusters function as cross-departmental organizing structures and they often operate across chain-of-command management boundaries.

The PMI defines projects as "a temporary endeavor to create a unique product or service."  While that's certainly not wrong, it falls a bit short of what I would call either insightful or motivating.  It's a bit like defining a human being is "a carbon based life unit that transforms biomass into feces to create energy."  What I want to discuss here is how project clusters create the links, the connectors, the conduits, between people across different departments, skills, disciplines.

To the point: project clusters represent the collective vision of where the organization is trying to go and how to get there.  Like it or not, the project portfolio is nothing short of the vehicle for achieving the company vision.

Moreover, organizations run concurrent projects as a means of moving from a current state to a desired future state.  That is the project portfolio, and it needs to be managed.  Some organizations run hundreds, thousands of projects at any given point in time.  The project portfolio represents the sum total of people, money and vision for moving an organization forward into the desired future.

Organizational change happens through project investments, and a project portfolio represents a path toward creating a future state that exists only in the imagination of project planners.  It is a collective path that operates across organizational boundaries: across departments, across divisions, across company boundaries. 

It doesn't take too much deep thinking to realize that project portfolio performance is critical to company health and success.  And so the question arises: who is responsible for project portfolio performance?  Who is accountable?  How do we know if we're performing well?  Who will define success?  Do we need a CPO?

For more reading on this topic, please take a look at our other papers.

Future States Section 2 (Job Description Syndrome)

2.  Chain-of-command management structures are insufficient mechanisms for creating future states and often create barriers to value creation

People in organizations tend to arrange themselves within hierarchical power structures.  These power structures are intended to enable basic functions, such as decision making, work distribution, information flow, skill specialization, accountability for performance, effective communication.  Moreover, organizations organize themselves into groups with names like departments and those departments are led by department heads.  Typical departments have names like Operations, Sales, Marketing, Professional Services, Customer Support.

So what's wrong with this picture?

To What End?

We gave an online presentation yesterday morning to about 35 folks.  It's an odd way to present because you're talking into a phone, and no one else can talk.  So, you can't hear the audience and you can't see them.  You just have to believe that they are listening and haven't nodded off.

Afterwords, we discussed the content of the presentation around the lunch table here, and we went straight into an internal discussion about the vision of PPM.  How exactly do we describe the "real benefits?"  How do we resonate with someone who just wants to take care of their own little bucket of responsibilities?  What is the difference between Customer Performance and Product Line Performance?

Clearly, I had not been as crystal clear as I had hoped. 

But we concluded on an interesting note: we have to assume that the people we are talking to know that they have a stake in their organization, and that they want to work toward improving the health and capabilities of the whole organization.  That's a pretty big assumption.

Katrina and PPM

Fact: a massive amount of the work that needs to be done as a result of the Katrina disaster will require intense Project Management.  Hundreds, thousands of projects.  Many different organizations and agencies collaborating in a coordinated fashion. Rebuilding, draining, recovering, relocating, funding, etc. 

And all of it will be managed with visibiltiy, clarity, accountability.  Or at least it should.

Why introduce PPM now?

• 3 C’s: Communication, Command & Control
• A significant percentage of the effort going forward is a project and resource management effort – this implies several components
  • Ownership – who is handling what?
  • Coordination – how do the different groups work together?
  • Execution – what needs to be done in what order by whom?
• Different agencies and groups will need to coordinate both internally and externally
  • FEMA, Red Cross, Army Corps of Engineers, Homeland Security, etc.

Here's the problem - we tend to think in a roll-up-the-sleeves, reactive way when we are faced with a disaster.  It's the hero syndrome in full bloom.  "Planning?  Well, we'll get to that.  We don't have time to plan." 

What is the status of that project?

I have now heard the same story over and over again, and I just have to relay this conversation.  It's like being stuck in a time-loop, or in a scene from groundhog day.  It goes something like this:

Mary: So how do you track project status?

Marty: We track time in a system that's integrated into finance.

Mary: But how do you make sure the project plan is current?

Marty: We get together once a month to update the plan.

Mary: How do you update the plan?

Marty: We pull the data from our finance system and update the plan manually.

Mary: So do you replicate your WBS in finance so your actual values are related to deliverables?

Marty: No, we track time to activity codes for cost accounting.

Mary: So how do you reconcile the actual numbers to the plan?

Marty: We don't - we just update the schedule on our understanding of the project status.

Mary: How many projects do you do this for?

Marty: Just the ones we have time to get to.

This is the state of the very basics of Project Management - it's a sorry state.