Project Portfolio Management - delivering a single standard process across your organisation

Portfolio, Program and Project Management Diagram

Did you know organisations reported an increase in operational efficiency of 20% or more when they implemented methodologies, systems and infrastructure to align work and available resources with the organisations strategic plan (PWC survey 2008) and 98% of organisations with a mature program management system and methodology reported a 100% project success rate?

Project Portfolio Management (PPM) is a management discipline that enables organisations to achieve maximum project portfolio value through the continuous process of evaluating and managing projects against key performance indicators and strategic business objectives. The fundamental objective of the PPM process is to determine the optimal mix and sequencing of proposed projects to best achieve the organisation's overall goals - typically expressed in terms of hard economic measures, business strategy goals, or technical strategy goals - while honouring constraints imposed by management or external real-world factors. Typical attributes of projects being analysed in a PPM process include each project's total expected cost, consumption of scarce resources (human or otherwise) expected timeline and schedule of investment, expected nature, magnitude and timing of benefits to be realised, and relationship or inter-dependencies with other projects in the portfolio.

The ability to plan long term whilst maximising performance in ongoing operations is imperative for all organisations. Successful PPM requires a framework for real time analysis, planning and implementation. In order to meet increasing operational requirements, regulatory standards and deadlines departments are challenged to cut costs, improve ability to manage resources in line with key strategic business initiatives and realise the full value of their investments. The organisation requires the relative program / project infrastructure, resources and methodologies in place to deliver the programs of work. This can range from risks and issues management, program and project governance, financial and resource management, change, configuration and document management, collaboration and support. Resource levels for program and project management require planning from an enterprise, division, department and project team levels. Through online real time monitoring of performance managers can help manage the conflicts, prioritise projects and tasks, identify available personnel and accurately forecast schedules and monitor progress against the plan. Project investment should only be made in projects where the necessary resources are available during a specified period of time.

Take a minute to complete the Project Portfolio Management test:

  1. How easy is it to make intelligent business decisions by gaining full, up-to-date visibility of all project and operational work across your organisation?
  2. How effective is the synchronisation between strategic planning, budgets and the execution of your projects?
  3. How high is the success rate and measurability of projects across your organisation?
  4. How easy is it for you to anticipate future resource requirements and manage outsourcing decisions accordingly?
  5. How mature is your project management methodology and architecture in supporting your organisational requirements?
  6. How effective are you in optimising the utilisation of people through resource management and intelligent capacity planning?
  7. How effective is your PPM system in providing executive reporting and analysis such as resource utilisation and forecasting etc?

How well did your organisation measure up? Does your organisation need some help?

At TAMS we have developed solutions that deliver benefits across the entire scope of PPM. Some of the functionality within these solutions includes:

  • Procedure and process ownership / governance
  • Total overview of all the projects in the various stages in an organisation
  • Effective individual project and team management
  • Enterprise wide resource management
  • Capacity management / utilisation and optimisation
  • Integrated cost and scheduling for large programs
  • Generic resource / skills management
  • Multi project controlling
  • Collaborative supply - full integration between the organisation, the contractors and the suppliers
  • Budget monitoring
  • Scenario simulation
  • Includes robust change control and audit ability / compliance
  • Benchmarks and key performance indicators

If you would like more information about how we can help you with your Project Portfolio Management to maximise your investments contact us.

solutions, not just software