From Project Management to Integrated Project Portfolio Management

February 10, 2009 | Author: PM Hut | Filed under: Project Portfolio Management

From Project Management to Integrated Project Portfolio Management
By Dr.Russell Archibald

Rather than attempt to manage individual projects as if they were stand-alone endeavors, executives have learned over the years that every project is always interrelated, primarily through the use of common resources, with some—if not all—other projects in the organization. Relating selected projects within a program is often a step in the right direction. Organizations have progressed from single project and program management to multiple project management, and they are now moving rapidly to project portfolio management. Dye and Pennypacker show the key differences between portfolio and multiple project management in the table below.

  Project Portfolio Management Multiple Project Management
Purpose Project Selection and Prioritization Resource Allocation
Focus Strategic Tactical
Planning Emphasis Long & Medium-Term (annual/quarterly) Short-Term (day-to-day)
Responsibility Executive/Senior Management Project/Resource Managers

High-Level Comparison of Project Portfolio Management and Multiple Project Management.

As indicated above, a project portfolio consists of the programs and projects supporting a given higher-level strategy. There could be only one overall corporate project portfolio, but it generally makes more sense to define more than one portfolio on a strategic basis in large organizations to reflect basic project categories or product line, geographic or technological divisions of the organization, industry or market.

Dr. Russell D. Archibald, PhD (Hon), MSc, Fellow PMI and APM/IPMA, PMP, is one of the six founding members of the Project Management Institute. Now semi-retired, he has many years of management experience in engineering and operations with a variety of major US corporations in Europe and South America as well as the US. He has made major contributions to the understanding of project management, is author of the best selling 2003 book “Managing High-Technology Programs and Projects” (published also in Russian, Chinese, and Italian), has trained more than a thousand program and project managers and project specialists around the world, and has consulted in project management to clients in 14 countries on 4 continents. E-mail: russell_archibald@yahoo.com. Website: www.russarchibald.com.

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