Not surprisingly, the success of the project portfolio is truly in the eye of the beholder – the stakeholder (execs, customers, the board, etc.). Whether those stakeholders view your projects as successful will likely be based upon the PMOs ability to deliver on its commitments as well as what you can measure. How can you ensure the PMO is delivering on its commitments and adding value to the business? This blog features project success criteria examples related to the project portfolio to help you think about 1) what criterion to consider, 2) if your current processes and technology are meeting those needs, and 3) how portfolio and resource management can help.
Let’s get started.
The Investment Portfolio
Are you analyzing all the projects across the investment portfolio regularly?
How can portfolio and resource management help? Planning is ongoing and dynamic, and your ability to anticipate change shows how agile you are. You need to be able to adapt to change and plan continuously. With the ability to model scenarios, you can illustrate the clear advantages and disadvantages of possible options across your investments. It makes it easier to demonstrate and share costs and key metrics to make the right trade-off decisions for the business.
Financial Planning and Management
Do you have access to financial information related to those investments and are you reconciling, reallocating, and justifying overages regularly?
How can portfolio and resource management help? If you’re still trying to use spreadsheets to present a cohesive investment forecast, you’re likely spinning your wheels. You need to link operational and financial planning, and have fast and accurate insight so you can divert funds from poorly performing investments, or simply confirm financials are on target. This allows you reduce planning cycles, and cut complexity. It also frees you from the tyranny of spreadsheet deduping.
Resource Capacity and Demand
Do you know what your resources are working on and where they are spending their time? Can you visualize that information in real time?
How can portfolio and resource management help? You need to understand resource capacity against demand. Get the right people to do the right work at the right time. Assess short-, medium-, and long-term resource planning across role-based, soft-, and hard-booked resource assignments to gain clarity into both capacity and the demand pipeline. Companies that do this well can adapt to change faster and can take on new opportunities quicker.
Process Improvements
Can you monitor and visualize process flow and optimize and course correct as change occurs?
How can portfolio and resource management help? Portfolio and resource management enables governance across your portfolio of projects. You must refine processes for project repeatability and delivery. You need to analyze throughput, volume, and cycle time to see trends and optimize progress. When you can confirm that the right work is being committed to, you can ensure an efficient flow throughout the work.
Monitoring Project Health
Can you easily see the status of projects no matter where they are in the lifecycle?
How can portfolio and resource management help? You need to be able to monitor project health across the portfolio. Wrangle portfolio sprawl by using trending metrics to quickly review and communicate the project and portfolio status. This allows you to pinpoint issues and isolate action items before they become roadblocks.
Measuring Planned vs. Actuals
Are you taking the time to understand and share the difference between what was planned versus what happened related to the portfolio of projects?
How can portfolio and resource management help? You need to be able to share, understand, and communicate the difference between planned vs. actuals. Quickly spot and remedy problem areas in a project or portfolio by using analytics that make it easier to assess their impact and act proactively instead of reactively.
I hope the breakdown of criteria is helpful and got you thinking about the things you should be analyzing related to your portfolio of projects. To learn more, I invite you to read The Top 7 Reports for IT PMOs to discover how portfolio and resource management can improve the success of your portfolio of projects within your PMO.
