Archive for November, 2007

Kick start the PPM Process Part 2 of 9

Friday, November 30th, 2007

Readiness Assessment

When implementing a PPM process it is best to keep in mind the following key questions:

  • Executive sponsorship: Are we going to get executive support to implement a Project Portfolio Management process? Will we get adequate funding, people and time to implement this?
  • Culture and organisation structure: How flexible are the staff, can they change their existing mind-set as well as business processes?
  • Project management and business processes: How do we tie our strategic objective to project deliverables, and what will be the impact of PPM on our existing business processes and project management infrastructure?
  • Metrics and performance criteria: Have we established realistic, measurable performance criteria? What will be our ROI and ROO models?
  • Quick wins and credibility: How do we ensure that we get quick wins and quick ROI? How do we ensure that PPM is taken seriously as a change management project?
  • Are our resources going to provide us with the right inputs to go into the PPM infrastructure?
  • PPM staff and experts: Will we have internal or external PPM experts who can manage the whole process of PPM evolution in the organisation, that is, selecting a PPM vendor, establishing success criteria, taking alternative actions if PPM implementation does not go as planned, and monitoring vendor artefacts and processes?
  • Technology: Are our staff technically minded enough to use the software to its utmost capacity?

Posted in Atlantic Global, Change Management | No Comments »

New PPM Book Coming Soon March 2007

Wednesday, November 28th, 2007

Project Portfolio Management: Leading The Coporate Vision by Shan Rajegopal, Philip McGuin and James WallerProject Portfolio Management (PPM) is about ensuring you have the correct mix of projects that are focused on taking the business where it has decided to go. It is about being able to respond quickly to changes in the environment, enabling the business to set the direction and then create a series of steps to get there. Many companies and organisations are faced with a portfolio of projects that need to be managed effectively and successfully.

This new book by leading practitioners introduces a framework and a range of tools to enable the project portfolio to be strategically managed including establishing guidelines, prioritising, aligning projects with strategy, balancing the portfolio and sustaining a change culture through continuous improvement.

Authors: Shan Rajegopal, Philip McGuin and James Waller
ISBN: 0230507166
Format: Trade Book
Price: £25.00
Pub. Date: 15/03/2007
Publisher(s): Palgrave Macmillan

In December 2006 we will be starting a 4 part serialisation of the new book. Readers will be give an insight into the following:

  • Understanding Project Portfolio Management
  • Preparing and Organise for Project Portfolio Management
  • Executing Project Portfolio Management
  • Embedding the Project Portfolio Management Capability

Posted in Books & Papers | No Comments »

Kick start the PPM Process Part 1 of 9

Monday, November 12th, 2007

Where to deploy PPM

Having understood the relevant issues that need to be addressed in order to start organising the business for PPM, we now need to translate this into reality.

Determining the location of the business’s ‘domain’, or in other words, where to deploy the initial PPM process, is critical. Depending on your level of project management maturity, the higher up the organisation the process is to be deployed, the more challenging its implementation will be. The proof-of-benefit (PoB) process discussed later within the chapter articulates the need to prove the initial ROI at a more tactical level within the business, typically at the unit or departmental level. The rationale is to enable the business to construct, test and model the PPM process within a low risk environment as well as understand the change management issues confronting the organisation. Beyond this, the business case built around the PoB is deisgned to enable the business to roll out the PPM process to other parts of the business.

To de-risk the process of organising and deploying a PPM solution, it is essential to deal with ‘chunks’ of activity that prove the value of the solution and process from one stage to the next. Very rarely will a business have all the necessary internal skills to deploy a PPM process. Therefore, to deliver successful PPM and also to strengthen any exisiting in-house expertise, it is recommended that the organisation be in position to recruit outside help in the form of professional consultancy services and software application vendors. We will outline the necessary steps involved in recruiting outside expertise, then we will go into how the business can kick-start the process.

The main areas for consideration include:

a) readiness assessment
b) requirements capture
c) vendor selection process
d) business case considerations
e) the health check
f) measuring the return on investment (ROI) and return on opportunity (ROO)
g) establishing proof-of-benefit (PoB)
h) building a risk management framework.

Understanding the business case through to rollout within the enterprise requires that a number of stages to be followed. Developing an ROI model, understanding the requirements, processes and demands involved, then putting in place a PoB all count as part of the due diligence needed for a successful implementation.

A the process progresses more detail is added to the business case, as when vendors are selected and a roadmap put in place the ROI model becomes clearer, scope changes, opportunities arise or new initiatives are derived from the initial idea.

Next week, we will provide more detail on each area for consideration in the above list.

Posted in Atlantic Global, Project Portfolio Management | No Comments »

Project Portfolio Management Framework Part 5 of 6

Friday, November 2nd, 2007

Portfolio, Execution & Monitoring Not all projects make the grade and many need to be eliminated even after the portfolio has been approved, because:

a) The projects concerned do not provide sufficient value and are no longer aligned with the business’s objectives.
b) Projects with a higher urgency have been proposed, resulting in a delay to or termination of current projects.
c) A project has been rescoped and integrated within another.
d) Technology has changed, negating the benefits of a planned project.

With only a small percentage of the proposed projects approved and executed, it is crucial that they succeed. Since the business is changing throughout the year, there will also be ongoing changes to the portfolio. This includes the addition of new projects and the elimination of old. This ongoing process of replanning and rebalancing the work, based on changing business needs, is also a part of the portfolio management execution and monitoring process. Portfolio management is therefore more than a one-time event that is performed once a year during your business planning phase. It is a contiual, iterative process that needs ongoing monitoring and course correction. It is essential that the PPMT take proactive steps to resolve problems and keep projects on track by:

a) correcting overlaps and redundancies
b) reviewing and resolving issues and problems
c) monitoring project spending and adjusting budgets
d) monitoring and mitigating project risks
e) managing resource conflicts sch as supply and demand shortfalls
f) reassessing the timing and duration of projects

The PPM selection and prioritisation process is easily emasculated if the portfolio is not actively managed. With projects straying over time, over budget and with business goals shifting and evolving, even originally well conceived projects rapidly become misaligned. However, misalignment must not be feared; it is in fact a natural and expected outcome. The real success of PPM lies in the ability of the PPMT to identify this misalignment and take corrective action. The PPMT must be able to make objective ‘go/kill/hold/fix’ decisions and be able to recognise that a dramatic change in business priorities may eliminate the need for a project, requiring quick project terminatio. As stated earlier, management of the portfolio includes managing the resources, proactively communicating what is going on, reviewing and replanning the remaining work on a regular basis and measuring the results. If new projects are added to the portfolio it will mean that other, previously authorised projects will need either to be eliminated or put on hold. With the help of the PMO, the PPMT needs to document and track individual projects and impelment a course correction process to ensure that the portfolio as a whole accomplishes its objective.

The typical steps involved in executing and monitoring the portfolio include:

Step 1: Gathering project portfolio information
a) collective individual project score cards
b) building a consolidated portfolio score card
c) collecting project and portfolio resource plans including shortfalls and new demands
d) building a detailed project status report
e) building a detailed portfolio status report

Step 2: Measuring and analysing the project portfolio
a) measuring the performance of ongoing projects
b) measuring the success of completed projects
c) measuring interdependencies between projects
d) measuring overall business value and alignment
e) determining an inventory of projects for portfolio course correction changes

Step 3: Analysing the impact of changes to the project portfolio
a) analysing the impact of projects that may be cancelled
b) analysing the impact of newly identified projects
c) analysing the impact of current projects not achieving objectives
d) analysing the impact of projects that have changed their scope

Step 4: Reviewing portfolio changes and reforecasting
a) filtering new projects against the existing project portfolio
b) reviewing current and new portfolio goals and objectives
c) ensuring individual project business cases are revalidated and aligned with these objectives
d) ranking projects against revised priorities
e) updating the project inventory
f) modelling resource scenarios and analysing the overall impact on the business
g) selecting scenarios and updating the resource schedule

Step 5: Communicating and implementing portfolio changes
a) revalidating business cases for existing authorised projects
b) revalidating business cases for newly authorised projects
c) issuing a new project portfolio review
d) providing guidance on changes to portfolio work
e) communicating with project stakeholders
f) agreeing a timeframe for the next portfolio review
g) making ‘go/kill/hold/fix’ decisions

Being able to take corrective action on projects is a key component of PPM. If a project is not meeting its objectives, it is crucial to identify the root cause, develop an action plan, and then monitor and track to ensure the action is implemented and the issue is resolved. The PPMT must have the ability to intimately understand how projects in the portfolio relate to different business goals and the ramifications if either projects or business goals change. The PPMT needs to track trends and anticipate new opportunities and threats so that project stakeholders can implement measures to avoid misalignment.

Posted in Atlantic Global | No Comments »