Any amount of management represents an overhead expense to the endeavor to which the oversight is applied. Therefore, it is critically important the amount of management applied is limited to that which yields an increased overall product value and not so much that overall value is diminished. This balance between applied management intensity and overall valued added is represented by the Project Management Intensity Continuum.
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https://www.strategydriven.com/wp-content/uploads/IntensityContinuumWhite.jpg359523StrategyDrivenhttps://www.strategydriven.com/wp-content/uploads/SDELogo5-300x70-300x70.pngStrategyDriven2008-10-07 22:02:162019-05-19 19:54:47Project Management Best Practice 1 – The Project Management Intensity Continuum
“A project is a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product, service, or result.”
Project Management Body of Knowledge
Third Edition Project Management Institute
To many, project management represents their worst nightmare. The mere mention of the term conjures images of bloated bureaucracies, large consultant-laden teams, and endless meetings where decisions are seldom made and status is often reported as being behind. Executed properly, project management can be an effective tool for aligning the organization to the successful implementation of simple and complex initiatives.
An art and a science, project management is most effective when implemented with a rigor correlated to the scope and complexity of the work to be performed. Regardless of intensity, the management of projects consists of five phases:
Initiate – initial, high-level project definition and authorization
Plan – project scope refinement and approval; task identification and sequencing; resource to task allocation; schedule development; project cost estimation and budget development; project plan creation and baselining
Execute – project plan execution
Evaluate and Control – project plan execution performance monitoring and reporting; project scope and plan change control; project risk management
Close – final project activity documentation; financial closeout; overall project performance assessment and lessons learned development; product evaluation; project administrative closure
Focus of the Project Management Forum
Materials in the Project Management Forum are dedicated to discussing the leading practices of companies effectively managing projects for the efficient achievement of mission goals. Additionally, all project management information presented will be aligned with, compliment, and expound on the project management processes described by the Project Management Institute’s A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge. The following articles, podcasts, documents, and resources cover those topics critical to the effective management of consequential projects.
To supplement the project management information found on the StrategyDriven website, our contributors recommend the Project Management Institute’s A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge, Third Edition (PMBOK Guides). This book is a complete process reference covering all aspects of project management including:
Project Integration Management
Project Scope Management
Project Time Management
Project Cost Management
Project Quality Management
Project Human Resource Management
Project Communications Management
Project Risk Management
Project Procurement management
https://www.strategydriven.com/wp-content/uploads/SDELogo5-300x70-300x70.png00Nathan Iveshttps://www.strategydriven.com/wp-content/uploads/SDELogo5-300x70-300x70.pngNathan Ives2008-08-19 21:37:132016-08-08 16:12:43StrategyDriven Project Management Forum
Portfolio managers direct deployment of assigned resources across the several programs, projects, and processes they oversee in a manner that maximizes the organization’s return on investment. (See Figure 1) Complicating the portfolio manager’s work is the myriad of differing resource types; resources that are often limited and shared by the portfolio’s many components.
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Executives and managers of organizations both large and small manage portfolios of assets and activities representing what the business is and what it does. Managed well, these portfolios directly support the effective and efficient achievement of mission goals. Managed poorly, these portfolios target achievement of differing and sometimes competing objectives or inappropriately expend resources on low value activities; ultimately diminishing the organization’s ability to maximize value creation. Thus, the focus of portfolio management is the optimization of resource deployment across the collection of activities most directly supporting achievement of mission goals.
Types of Portfolios
Portfolios are the collections of either assets sharing similar characteristics or activities supporting achievement of common objectives. Individual items with the collection may or may not be interdependent or directly related. These logical groupings, however, facilitate measurement, comparison, and prioritization which in-turn provides portfolio managers with the information necessary to make and implement decisions that maximize value creation for the resources expended.
Management of asset and activity portfolios requires a different focus and skill set. While both asset and activity portfolio management involve the management of resources, asset portfolio management focuses on value creation through the acquisition, deployment, and release of resources whereas activity portfolio management focuses on the prioritization, selection, and execution of value creating work using resources. To better illustrate this concept, the following asset and activity portfolio definitions are offered:
Asset Portfolios: collections of items the use of which generate value
Financial: collections of convertible instruments that create value and/or can be exchanged for other resources. Examples include: cash reserves, options, stocks, and bonds
Material: collections of physical property used in the creation of value adding products and services. Examples include: structures, equipment and tools, and raw materials, components, and supplies
Intellectual: collections of knowledge resources used in the creation of value adding products and services. Examples include: data, patents, copyrights, trademarks, and retained human knowledge and experience
Labor: collections of employees, typically grouped by skill set, who perform value adding work. Examples include: managers, engineers, graphic designers, and mechanics
Activity Portfolios: collections of business activities through which value is created or enhanced.
Operational Portfolios: collections of the major, ongoing and repetitive activities that either directly or indirectly support organizational value generation. Examples include: marketing, sales, production (of goods and/or services), maintenance, human resources, and finance
Project Portfolios: collections of projects typically used to enhance or expand existing operational portfolio activities. Examples include: business process reengineering, enterprise resource planning software implementation, and new product/service development
Note: While effective management of both asset and activity portfolios is critical to the success of any organization, postings within the Portfolio Management category will focus on activity portfolios. Insights regarding the management of asset portfolios will be provided within the Resource Management category.
Activity Alignment with Mission Goals
Aligning activity portfolios with the organization’s mission goals necessarily begins with the strategic planning process. Because no one project or recurring activity is likely to satisfy all of an organization’s goals, executives and managers work together to identify, prioritize, and select collections of activities possessing the greatest value potential for a given cost, bounded by the organization’s limited resource availability. Quantifiable measures of value and cost assigned to aid in activity prioritization and selection are then translated into performance measures against which the portfolio manager judges the collection’s ongoing mission alignment. (See Figure 1)
Effective, Efficient Deployment of Resources
Today’s rapidly changing business environment and the dynamic nature of operational activity and project execution demands continuous reevaluation, reprioritization, and, as necessary, redistribution of the organization’s limited resources away from low and no value adding work to those more directly supporting goal achievement. Making resource allocation adjustments to maximize an activity portfolio’s value is, subsequently, a primary responsibility of the portfolio manager.
In order to maximize a portfolio’s ongoing value creation, portfolio managers must act to ensure performance of their portfolio’s activities remains in alignment with and drives achievement of stated mission goals. Therefore, these managers need to clearly understand the organization’s overall objective goals and the value proposition of each activity within their portfolios. It is with this knowledge that they divert resources from low and no value adding work to those more directly supporting goal achievement.
Focus of the Portfolio Management Forum
Materials in the Portfolio Management Forum will focus on the underlying principles, best practices, and warning flags associated with maintaining effective activity portfolio alignment with mission goals while, at the same time, efficiently deploying the organization’s limited resources. The following articles, podcasts, documents, and resources cover those topics critical to a robust portfolio management program.
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“A project is a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product, service, or result.”
. The following articles, podcasts, documents, and resources cover those topics critical to the effective management of consequential projects.
Portfolio managers direct deployment of assigned resources across the several programs, projects, and processes they oversee in a manner that maximizes the organization’s return on investment. (See Figure 1) Complicating the portfolio manager’s work is the myriad of differing resource types; resources that are often limited and shared by the portfolio’s many components.
Executives and managers of organizations both large and small manage portfolios of assets and activities representing what the business is and what it does. Managed well, these portfolios directly support the effective and efficient achievement of mission goals. Managed poorly, these portfolios target achievement of differing and sometimes competing objectives or inappropriately expend resources on low value activities; ultimately diminishing the organization’s ability to maximize value creation. Thus, the focus of portfolio management is the optimization of resource deployment across the collection of activities most directly supporting achievement of mission goals.
Activity Alignment with Mission Goals
Business Programs