... is worth three in the rushes? Should performance management be an essential part of portfolio management? I would suggest that, while good portfolio management is about portfolio prioritisation of benefits and spend, there are some things to get right before proper prioritisation can happen – largely in the area of performance management.I think that before you can get your ducks in a row you need to figure out how well they are doing. And the latter assumes you know what ducks you have. The larger or less strategic the organisation, the more difficult it is to be able to define not...
Hello, You are invited to participate in a short online survey approx. 10 min on academic research topic“Decision making in Project Portfolio Selection”. The online survey requires participants to be working at themanagerial positions in an organization. It is advised to keep a pen and paper for the survey questions. You can find more details like aim of research, data confidentiality, and contact persons once you start the survey. Thank you in advance for your participation. You are welcomed to forward this online survey link to people who are interested to participate. Please follow...
I am currently conducting research into the influences of political behaviour on portfolio management as part of an MBA project.There is a wealth of publications covering portfolio management and separately the impacts of political behaviour but rarely do the two get considered together. In terms of portfolio prioritisation and optimisation most texts recommend formal rational mechanisms and do not consider that internal or external politics are a fact of life and have influences on which projects are selected and which are dropped.I am seeking your views thorugh the...
CIMA has recently published the results of research undertaken by Professor John Ward and Dr Arnoud Franklin (Cranfield School of Management) and Professor Elizabeth Daniel (OUBS). Entitled, 'Project portfolio management in turbulent times' the report summarises the findings from 5 case studies encompassing a range of business sectors. It makes for interesting reading. You can see the report on the CIMA website
I'm a new member to APM, so this may be repeating stuff but I don't see it covered on the website.I went to a recent APM meeting in Edinburgh discussing the next version of the BOK and I was a bit surprised at the view that portfolios always sit above programmes. That doesn't fit with what I've seen in practice and reading the website further, I think my disquiet is reflected in differences between definitions of portfolio management.According to APM the definition covers"all of an organisation’s projects, programmes and related business-as-usual activities"whereas the OGC add the phrase "or...
Based upon my own experience I’m pleased to see that the number of organisations adopting portfolio management, particularly in the public sector, is increasing. I hope that portfolio management becomes ‘internalised’ and embedded in day to day working practice like some other initiatives you may be familiar with - best value, business process re-engineering and EQFM to name, but a few.Most of us will agree that a Portfolio Office, operating closely to the Chief Executive, can provide timely information which should facilitate improved strategic decision making. However, my assertion is that...
Martin SamphireWednesday, February 23, 2011 - 15:36
A programme is a big project and a portfolio is a big programme? NOT! There is a fundamental discontinuity between the three, mainly in skills. This is the same for portfolio assurance.From the Assurance SIG we heard that project and programme assurance fundamentally takes a risk based approach. Should the same be true for portfolios?Let’s explore programme assurance first. I would expect this to focus not only on the risks around delivery to time, cost, performance, benefits, etc. but also on how the potential benefits can be maximised and are there opportunities to be exploited that are...
At one of the earliest APM Portfolio Management Steering Committee meetings we decided to take our own medicine and adopt project management best practice!We did this by spending some agenda time thinking before doing........What is our vision? What are our measurable outcomes (benefits) and what should be or are our strategic undertakings? Are there lessons that could be learned from other APM Specific Interest Groups in terms of quick wins? We also asked what has drawn each of us to volunteer to be part of the SIG committee.In true workshop fashion, out came the large charts which...
Achilleas MavrellisThursday, February 10, 2011 - 15:42
The APM Portoflio Management SIG and the APM Project and Programme Assurance SIG presented a joint event entitled Assuring successful delivery of the portfolio on the9th of February 2011. Almost 70 people attended to hear the talks and participate in a workshop on portfolio assurance. It was chaired by Roy Millard.The day began with keynote speaker Terry Morgan, Chairman of Crossrail, speaking about the circa £16bn infrastructure and rolling stock development project expected to deliver shorter cross-London travel times of 20-40% by 2018. Of particular interest to portfolio managers was...
I have been reflecting recently on what makes portfolio management so different from project and programme management… and why I have been surprised that so many people don’t really seem to appreciate this. (I mean here the portfolio management of project- and programme-like activities and not that of investments in shares or property or works of art where the focus is on acquisition and disposal). Many of the conversations remind me of those we had in the “old days” when project management was widely established and programme management was the misunderstood new kid on the block...
