Ah, spring, the time for blooming flowers, warmer weather, and new beginnings. The most important new beginning for businesses? Advancing the PMO with portfolio and resource management. Seriously, you’ll thank me later when your PMO is able to not only meet goals and deadlines more effectively, but also deliver products to the market faster. Your competition will be left behind in winter, as only 62% of organizations have strategic programs that meet their original goals and business intent. Sounds like the rest are a bit frozen.
If you’re ready to thaw out your PMO through improved portfolio and resource management (PRM) and continuous planning, I have the perfect reading list for you. Below, I have compiled our top assets related to PRM that will help you get started. It’s as easy as 1, 2, 3…or should I say 7, 8, 9.
2018 Portfolio and Resource Management Spring Reading List
- The Top 7 Reports for IT PMOs– Learn why the PMO needs to focus more and more on innovation, agility, strategy, and stakeholder engagement. Here’s a brief look at the first two reports referenced in this eBook:
- Investment and Capacity Planning – “Planning isn’t an annual, once-a-year process anymore; it’s on-going and dynamic, and your ability to anticipate change shows how agile you are.”
- Financial Planning – “[Spreadsheets] don’t have real-time actuals or forecasts, so they will probably be outdated by the time you do get them all consolidated anyway.”
- 8 Steps to Optimize Strategic Portfolio Management– Gain the visibility necessary to adapt to changing market conditions by applying agile techniques and incorporating feedback to strategy and execution. The first two steps in this Forrester report are:
- Determine and understand the goals and outcomes you want to achieve.
- Get the right people in the room for quick clarification and alignment of goals and objectives.
- 9 Key Ingredients for PMO Success– Your PMO should no longer be narrowly focused on project execution. Here’s a glance into this whitepaper’s first two ingredients for success:
- Outcomes/goals/customer focus – “Speak the language of executives and customers to better align the organization toward customer and business stakeholder needs.”
- Executive involvement – “Ensure the data from reports and systems is being used, and that executives are actively engaged in new methods.”
- Building a Business Case for Project Portfolio Management– After reading through the first three assets in this list, learn how to present a strong case to executives for project portfolio management in this whitepaper. Your chances are good, as 74% of CIOs say it’s “challenging to balance business innovation and operational excellence.” In fact:
- “CIOs who have adopted portfolio management have seen a 4x increase in speed of implementation of projects and initiatives.”
After implementing the strategies from the above assets and presenting a strong case to management for PRM, you’ll have the ability to enable Agile delivery of products and services, support continuous planning, improve collaboration, and better win, serve, and retain customers (and that’s just the beginning). Your PMO will be in full bloom after just a few weeks.
For more information on how to get started with portfolio and resource management solutions, visit https://www.planview.com/. Which asset did you find most helpful from this reading list? Let me know by leaving a comment below.
