Is the tail wagging the dog?
Who runs the business - executives or the project management stream?
The Project Centric approach certainly empowers the project manager but does it really empower the business. One of the biggest drawbacks of David Hofferberth’s Project Centric argument is the fact that project managers and executives do not always speak the same language nor do they have the same focus and view of the business.
Project management stream will typically communicate:
• Schedule/Time
• Project Cost
• Performance
• Stakeholder Satisfaction
• Scope/Change Control
Where the executive stream will typically communicate:
• Objectives
• Goals
• Strategies
• Project Selection & Mix
• Cash Flow
For too long the world of project management has been focused on the excellent of project delivery with little connection to ensuring they are delivering the right projects for the business.
Project Portfolio Management (PPM) is the bridge that brings the project delivery process and the business operations together. It is essentially the core of an integrated collection of processes that represent both operations and projects functions. It is also the engine that drives the production of project deliverables to enhance the total health of the enterprise. PPM ties these two key elements of the business into an efficient machine that increases value and purpose of projects. PPM is most certainly the “end goal” in that it ensures that projects are contributing to the overall health and success of the enterprise.
Hofferberth’s Project Centric approach assumes that project standardisation, structure and governance should come from a traditional bottom up approach. PPM directly challenges this and advocates project leadership and accountability from the top down. It is there to empower the business as a whole not just the project process - allowing stakeholders, business leaders and executives to see clearly and understand how effective their strategies are and which projects are delivering.
Understanding the strategy at all levels of the organisation is essential because even simple and seemingly non-strategic decisions are affected. Managers at all levels of the organisation need to use strategic objectives as a guide for ongoing operational decisions. A clear line of communication helps define the expected outcomes and answers. PPM is therefore a formalized method of implementing a governance and structured process by putting together a selection and prioritisation that ensures that all projects are delivering against the organisation’s strategic objectives. PPM hardwires a two-way contract between the business and the project management stream . In order for the project management process to deliver, it needs to be supplied with the relevant tools, capability, direction, objectives and strategies. These need to be agreed with and supplied by the business; without this agreement the project management process cannot justifiably undertake to guarantee timely and successful completion of the business’s project portfolio. When supplied and armed with the relevant tools to do the job, the project management process then needs to be held accountable for its delivery.
There are many benefits to implementing PPM for example
• Having a standard methodology for starting and managing projects and making them accountable to the business
• Empowering the business with control over project GO/KILL/HOLD/FIX decision making
• Delivering a repeatable process for prioritising, selecting and executing projects
• Getting early warning of any potential problems in meeting programme and project milestones
• Making it easy for different stakeholders to access project information relevant to their strategic interests
• Producing a better understanding of resource utilisation in order to ensure that the right staff are deployed on the right projects
• Calculating the financial impact of cancelling a poor-performing project
• Switching priorities based on organisational needs and redeploying staff quickly based on accurate real-time information
• Reducing project reporting timescales at executive and board level, allowing faster reactions to market and competitive changes and more accurate decision making
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