Combining Projects into a Project Portfolio Database

April 3, 2009 | Author: PM Hut | Filed under: Project Portfolio Management

Combining Projects into a Project Portfolio Database
By Miley W. Merkhofer

Solving the problems created by project-by-project decision making requires shifting the focus from the project to the project portfolio. The enabling step is to collect information about individual projects into a common database.

With project portfolio management, project data is centralized in an electronic database. This ensures that information is readily accessible and facilitates keeping the data up-to-date. In addition, tabular and graphical displays can be provided that make it easy to aggregate project data and to create summary reports.

Combining Projects into a Project Portfolio

Combining Projects into a Project Portfolio

The project portfolio provides a big-picture view. It enables managers to become aware of all of the individual projects in the portfolio, and provides a deeper understanding of the collection as a whole. It facilitates sensible sorting, adding, and removing projects from the collection based on (ideally) real-time information.

Miley W. (Lee) Merkhofer, Ph.D., is an author and practitioner in the field of decision analysis who specializes in assisting organizations in implementing project portfolio management. He has served on advisory panels for several government agencies and has received grants and research awards for work in the area. Lee is an editor of the journal Decision Analysis.

Prior to becoming an independent consultant, Lee was a Partner of PriceWaterhouseCoopers, where he founded that organization’s capital allocation and project prioritization business practice. Lee is a founding partner of Folio Technologies LLC, a provider of web-based, project portfolio management software.

Lee received his Ph.D. in engineering economic systems from Stanford University. He is the author of the book Decision Science and Social Risk Management and co-author of the book Risk Assessment Methods..

Additional papers on project portfolio management can be found on Lee’s website, www.prioritysystem.com. E-mail: lmerkhofer@prioritysystem.com.

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