Project Portfolio Management (PPM) Today

Characteristics of PPM Success

What are the characteristics of an organization that is ready for Project Portfolio Management (PPM)?  What are the traits that indicate a successful PPM implementation?

Visibility: Organizations that understand the value of transparency are well positioned to take on a PPM initiative.  If visibility causes anxiety and doubt, then the organization is less likely to embrace a PPM solution.

Standardization: An operating bias toward standarized process means that an organization no longer wants to re-invent the wheel with every project.  Standard process creates predictability of execution, and if it's done well standardization can even inspire creativity.  If you follow the hero approch to projects, you may not be a good candidate for PPM.

Process Improvement: When you can define the steps to accomplish a job in a repeatable way, you have a defined process.  PPM greatly enhances the ability to improve the Project Life-cycle process, which in turn enhances project outcomes.  Some organizations do not define their processes, making it hard to achieve repeatability and process improvement.

Measurement: Organizations that measure how they are performing will find a significant improvement in their ability to measure how they are doing.  The saying goes, if you can't measure it, you can't manage it.  If you can't see it, however, you can't measure it.  See Visibility & Process Improvement.

Accountability: In many ways, you've already partly achieved accountability with visibility.  Once you can see who owns what, you immediately have better accountability.  In the public sector, this term gets thrown around to the point of becoming meaningless.  If your organization wants to achieve greater accountability, PPM will provide several ways to do just that.  See Visibility and Measurement.

Focus: Organizations that want to focus their precious resources on high impact activities are well positioned for a PPM implementation.  You must be ready and willing to define your priorities and make trade-offs.  But if you want to get the most from your people and not burn them out, PPM will give you a framework for focus.

Change: The willingness and the ability to manage change is relevant to PPM for at least two reasons.  1. Establishing a PPM management framework will likely require some change management; 2. A PPM framework will significantly improve an organization's ability to manage change.

There are other characteristics that are indicators of PPM readiness.  There are also different ways to define the points outlined above.  It comes down to this: are you ready to manage your project investments like investments?  Are you ready?

Process Gumbo

The library of processes and approaches and "standards" for managing project portfolios is simply overwhelming.  Here is a brief list of the available process models that are used today.  I'm leaving a bunch out just to save space.

• •PMI – Project Management Body of Knowledge
• PLM – Product Lifecycle Management
• ALM – Application Lifecycle Management
• SDLC – Software Development Lifecycle
• ITIL – IT Infrastructure Library
• ITG – Information Technology Governance
• COBIT – Control Objectives for IT
• •PRINCE2 – Projects in Controlled Environments
• Six Sigma – Quality Control Methodology
• MAMA – Mixture of All Methods Above

How do we sort though these?  How do we know which one will work for us?  What is the right combination of various processes? 

My take is that all of this stuff has to get a hell of a lot simpler.  It needs to be easily understood by everyone.  When the process gurus require a translator, you have a problem before you start.

The Simplest Model

I think I may have finally figured out the simplest possible model for PPM:

 

All projects follow a flow that works something like this model.  Someone decides they need something.  The Need either gets approved and becomes a project or it does not get approved and it sits on the Need stack.  If it gets approved, then a project gets Executed.  Sounds simple, right?

Unfortunately, things start to get a bit more complex.  A few quick questions:

• How do we define the need?
• What are the criteria for approval?
• How do we know if it's a good idea?
• Who will approve it?
• Do we have the resources to do it?
• What will we choose not to do as a result?
• If we decide to do it, who will do it?
• What conflicts will happen as a result?
• Who will get overloaded?
• How do we monitor progress?
• Who is responsible for realization?
• How do we know if we hit the target?
• What happens if the goals change mid stream?

I could go on.  You get the picture.  But at least this is a starting point for agreement.  From here, we need to go a bit deeper into where this model begins to fall apart and why

Wikipedia Definition

I took the opportunity to create a definition of Project Portfolio Management on Wikipedia.  I was somewhat surprised that there was no definition for PPM there already, but I was pleased to see how easy it was to create one.

Dis-intermediation continues to build more and more momentum.  We appear to be moving steadily toward a collective approach to developing knowledge and understanding.  We don't need to wait for the traditional powers-that-be to arbitrate what to discuss and how to discuss it.

If you want to take a crack at my definition, have at it: Project Portfolio Management.