If you think the practice of Portfolio Management (PPM)—with all its processes, jargon, costs, etc.—is more of a liability than an asset to a business, think again. In fact, in order to better understand just how valuable PPM can be to an organization, it might be better to look at it from another angle. For example, one study found 52 percent of large government IT projects went over budget, were behind schedule or didn’t meet expectations; 41.4 percent were abandoned or had to be restarted1. That’s right—over four out of ten projects were either scrapped midstream or needed to be go back to square one.
Now consider the amount of time, effort, money, and other related resources that went into those four projects and how it essentially evaporated—at least from the organization’s perspective—since all of that investment didn’t yield the promised outcome. Not only is it an expensive problem to deal with, but it may also become disruptive to other active projects and daily operations.
We understand—there are always outliers and circumstances beyond our control that might impact a project, but what can be done to stack the odds in our favor so that failed or restarted projects are a rarity and that the projects we are delivering are checking are generating real business value?
Whether you have a Project Management Office (PMO) in place or not, there are three practices you should follow to 1.) ensure you’re taking on the right projects in the first place, 2.) the projects you take on continue to deliver the value the business expects based as the timeline progresses and circumstances change, and 3.) you’re doing your level best to ensure your project resources are being utilized effectively.
- Project Intake: Process designed to improve an organization’s strategic value by evaluating and prioritizing all proposed project ideas
- Project Governance: Decision-making framework that enables an organization to make logical, objective project decisions in order to manage capital investments responsibly
- Resource Capacity Planning: Tool used to balance visualize and balance resources across projects and other work needs to ensure proper utilization
It goes without saying using a Portfolio Management Fort Worth Tx that incorporates these will help you keep your projects organized, on track, and able to effectively communicate a project’s real value back to the business.
Is your PPM solution helping you generate real business value? Integrated Purpose Management is here to serve you.