Project Portfolio Management (PPM) Today

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?

Future States section 1d.

Projects form temporary investments in skilled disciplines, financial resources and imagined future states.

The key points that are typically emphasized here are temporary, investments and skills.  Sure, most projects are bound by a pre-defined beginning and ending; they require an investment of people's time, money or both; they are temporary by nature and so they require a unique management approach.  These are not new notions.

What is new is the expectation that these investments will deliver an anticipated return that aligns with known goals.  What is new is that managers need to view these investments as fitting into a larger pipeline of projects.  What is new is the expectation that projects fit clearly into the big picture. What is new is that project success can no longer be defined in departmental silos. 

Most importantly, what is new is that management leadership is becoming aware that the performance of the project portfolio has a major impact on company performance, and that "delegating" (abdicating) the management of projects as stand-alone efforts must end.

Future States Section 1c.

The term "Project" applies to so many different kinds of work that no one seems to be able to agree on what it means.  When someone says, "I'm going to be working on a new project next month," it could mean just about anything, from starting a new company to desinging a new logo. Certainly, the PMI has gone out of it's way to establish the definitive meaning of Project, but that has not exactly clarified the term "Project" in very many minds.  Very few organizations have defined what constitutes a project within the context of the organization.

The meaning seems to range from something that takes a half a day to something that takes half a decade.  It can be creative or mechanical.  A project can be something that's never been done or something that has been done millions of times.  Clearly, any discussion of Project Portfolio Management has one pressing question: what is a project?

Future States: Section 1b

Significant undertakings demand projects that cross different skill sets and company boundaries - these projects are intended to achieve a common vision of a desired future state.

As stated in the previous section, "cross-departmental project management remains a case-by-case operation."  Furthermore, when an active project requires the collaboration of multiple departments and multiple skill sets, organizations typically lack the process capability to ensure that the project is initiated, evaluated, planned, executed and completed in a coordinated approach.  In other words, cross-departmental initiatives are challenged before they start.  Add to this single-project challenge that there are often many cross-departmental projects running at any given time.  How are these projects evaluated?  How are they planned?  How are they managed?  Who owns the success of these projects?  Who defines success?

Future States: Section 1a. Projects as Isolated Efforts

Within the context of an organization, projects have traditionally been conceived as isolated efforts.  Projects appear and disappear almost at random, and they operate both within, and beyond, the visibility of senior management.  They are created as a result of conversations, meetings, customer requests, management demands, and many other means.  How projects are approved varies depending on the unique individuals who are in the room at the time of approval.  Projects are spawned by other projects, and projects often stop because they are ignored or lost.

Future States: Section 1.0

Organizations create their future states through projects & project clusters – the emerging term for this discipline is Project Portfolio Management

Organizations cannot remain content with their current capabilities, products and services.  If they do not continue to innovate, improve, and invest in their core of products and services, the market will demand new leadership.  "Innovate or die" goes the now popular saying.  There are those who will say that innovation can lead to dead ends, but that is the very nature of innovation and does not offer a compelling reason to remain satisfied with the status quo.  New ideas do not always work, but they often lead to other new ideas that do work.

Future States & Project Portfolio Managment

Why Project Portfolio Management Changes the Game…

"You cannot step into the same river twice, for fresh waters are ever flowing in upon you." – Heraclitus

1. Organizations create their future states through projects & project clusters – the emerging term for this discipline is Project Portfolio Management .
   1. Historically, projects have been managed as stand-alone, temporary entities rather than a steady flow of connected investments in an unfolding future state – this is changing right now.

   2. Significant undertakings demand projects that cross different skill sets and company boundaries - these projects are intened to achieve a common vision of a desired future state.

   3. Organizations struggle with understanding project fundamentals, such as “what is a project?” and “what does a successful project look like?”

   4. Projects form temporary investments in skilled disciplines, financial resources and imagined future states.