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Project Portfolio Management - Role Play part 1 (The Top)

February 6, 2008 | Author: PM Hut | Filed under: Project Portfolio Management

Project Portfolio Management - Role Play part 1 (The Top) (#1 in the series Project Portfolio Management - Role Play)
By Demian Entrekin

In the next few articles, I will probe the range of individual perspectives of Project Portfolio Management (PPM). I will explore the needs, assumptions, changes, interactions, biases and discoveries that occur on a role-by-role basis.

For now, I will try to limit the focus on PPM within the boundaries of IT. Many of the perspectives will probably apply to other portfolio environments, such as R&D and Services. The breadth and reach of these perspectives is especially relevant for organizations that have an enterprise-wide approach to PPM.

Here are some of the roles I will cover:

  1. CIO or VP of IT
  2. Steering Committee Member
  3. Director or Manager of IT
  4. Senior Project Manager
  5. Project Manager
  6. Resource Manager
  7. Team Lead
  8. Team Member
  9. Customer
  10. Analysts and Pundits
  11. Finance or Budget representative

I will not address them in any particular order, and I look forward to your input and participation.

To get the conversation started, I will start at the top with the CIO or the VP of IT. This executive role might also be considered to be the owner of the IT portfolio.

CIO or VP of IT

  • The CIO is a company officer, and therefore has certain responsibilities and liabilities that are central to the overall health of the organization. Governance and oversight are key responsibilities for an executive officer. These duties have profound impacts on the CIO’s perspective of PPM.
  • The CIO who requires transparency will implement PPM to measure key performance indicators throughout the IT department: budget performance, customer satisfaction, asset allocation, resource capacity planning, demand management versus supply, application value, project status, etc.
  • The CIO operates within a management structure that has its own culture, idiosyncrasies and expectations. Often, the CIO must shield the IT department from these challenges. For example, does the CFO consider IT to be a value center or a tax on the business?
  • The CIO management style will take many different forms. Sometimes these folks are hands-on, and sometimes they are hands-off. It will vary depending on the size of the company, the skills of the individual and the structure of the IT department. There also seems to be as many CIO styles as there are CIOs.
  • The CIO may be somewhat removed from “the details of running IT.” This CIO delegates day-to-day operations to direct reports, who become the de facto owners of PPM. These delegates may implement PPM in self defense, since they don’t have the power to say “no” without strong data and process.
  • If the CIO does not actively support the PPM initiative, it will likely fail. A CIO who is skeptical of PPM may not understand the value of transparency and process improvement. A conservative CIO may not be willing or able to risk the change necessary to implement and run a PPM solution.
  • The CIO stands the most to gain from a PPM implementation of anyone in the IT department. PPM provides the CIO unprecedented access to information. In fact, the CIO may not know what to do with that much information. The CIO who takes a phased approach will mitigate risk while learning to leverage PPM.

What would you add? Qualify? Remove?

Demian is the CTO of Innotas. As founder and CEO, Entrekin oversaw marketing, product development, sales and services for the company. Today, he focuses on strategic product direction. Prior to Innotas, Entrekin co-founded Convoy Corporation and was Chief Architect of its initial products. In that role, Entrekin helped the company lead the middleware market with an annual growth rate of 670 percent and played an instrumental role in Convoy’s subsequent acquisition by New Era Networks in 1999. A recognized thought leader in Project Portfolio Management, Entrekin has published numerous papers on PPM and his blog (PPM Today) explores current issues related to successful PPM implementation. During his 18 year career, Demian has assumed leadership roles as a consultant and as an entrepreneur, delivering commercial and corporate database applications. Demian holds a B.A. in English from UCLA and an M.A. in English from San Francisco State University.

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