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Project Portfolio Management Process

July 25, 2008 | Author: PM Hut | Filed under: Project Portfolio Management

Project Portfolio Management Process
By Dr.Russell Archibald

A typical project portfolio management process consists of these 12 steps:

  1. Define the project portfolios required.
  2. Define the project categories within each portfolio based on uniform criteria.
  3. Identify and group all current and proposed projects within appropriate categories and programs.
  4. Validate all projects with the organization’s strategic objectives.
  5. Prioritize projects within programs and portfolios.
  6. Develop the project portfolio master schedule.
  7. Establish and maintain a key resources data bank.
  8. Allocate available resources to programs and projects within portfolios.
  9. Compare financial needs (primarily cash flow) with availability.
  10. Decide how to respond to shortfalls in money or other key resources and approve list of funded projects and their priorities.
  11. Plan, authorize, and manage each program and project using the organization’s PM process and supporting systems and tools for each project category. This step comprises the entire practice of what has traditionally been thought of as “project management.”
  12. Periodically reprioritize, reallocate resources to, and reschedule all programs and projects as required within each portfolio (Archibald 2003, pp 12-14 and 175-177).

In organizations that are mature in their PM capabilities a Project Portfolio Steering Group (or Portfolio Governance Committee) is responsible for this process and for making the decisions that are involved in its effective use (Archibald 2003 pp 87, 177-179).

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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