In part 1 of this posting we were discussing the question of if portfolio management can improve the chances of organisational success?  To answer this I began exploring the OGC guide Management of Portfolio™.

Having explored the guide, it:

• Provides a language for the ritual
  • “A Portfolio is the totality of an organisations’ investment (or segment thereof) in the changes required to achieve its strategic objectives.”
  • “Portfolio Management is a coordinated collection of strategic processes and decisions that together enable the most effective balance of organisational change and ‘business as usual’.”
• Gives questions that the ritual needs to answer
  • Are we doing the right things?
  • Are we doing these things right?
  • Are we realising all the benefits in terms of more effective services and efficiency savings from the changes we are implementing? Read more

I was with a colleague recently; discussing the question of can portfolio management improve the chances of organisational success? The insight that my colleague gave me was based upon the quotation that I had never heard before by Brian Quinn (“Strategic Planning R.I.P.”).

“A good deal of corporate planning …… is like a ritual rain dance. It has no effect on the weather that follows, but those who engage in it think it does. … Moreover, much of the advice related to corporate planning is directed at improving the dancing, not the weather.” Read more

In recent postings we examined the formula P+M=O where the P is people, M is motivation and the O is opportunity.  In the process we looked at the need for project managers and organisations to have a vision of their futures… answering the “What do I/We want to be when we grow up?” question. We then looked at organisational and personal vision as the answer. People + Motivation = Opportunity.

Here I want to speak to opportunity. Opportunity created by the project you are managing. Read more

In my most recent blog, I used the “What do you want to be when you grow up?” catch phrase  to express my belief that project managers must have a longer term plan and defined goals for their personal and professional growth. Going through and codifying this thought process is part of formulating your own personal vision. Read more

Welcome back!

So let’s start with the first step.  It’s what I call “what do you want to be when you grow up” it’s part of the formula outlined in the first post.  Here we focus on the P…people in the People + Motivation = Opportunity formula.

I believe if we know what we want we have a really good chance of getting it.  However in my opinion we as project managers often don’t really know what we want.  We may feel we know but we really don’t.  So how do you find out?  Easy. Answer this question “What do you want to be when you grow up?”

As Lewis Carroll famously said “If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there.” Read more

‘Our customers really love us, so they don’t care if their projects are late and don’t work.’

Is this what you think? Is this what your project ‘customers’ are really saying?

How about this?

‘We figure it’s more profitable to have 50% overruns than to spend 15% on project management to prevent them.’

Do you ever get to hear that one? Read more

1. Introduction

Now that the integrated model has been developed, and the commonalities and differences between the domains have been investigated, these ideas will be used to develop a revised set of terms to take into account the fact that all of the domains are part of the project family.

2. Proposed Approach

At the most basic level, we have the “supplier project”: this is classic view of a project as described in PMI’®s Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge. The triple constraint of time, cost and scope is a valid measure of success for this type of project. That is to say that delivering what is requested, as requested is exactly what is required. In a way it can be compared with buying an article in a shop: you decide when you need it, whether it can do what you want, and how much you are allowed to spend on it. Read more

1. Introduction

In part, 2, the following model (Figure 1) was explained and the analysis of the roles and responsibilities was provided.

The roles and responsibilities are complementary, with commonalities and differences in the way in which they are carried out, as explained below. Read more

1. Link

The first part of this article explained the need for developing a concept of a “project management organisation” which integrates the different management focus of each of the four domains: portfolios, programmes, projects and operations. From one point of view, this allows the distinction between portfolios, programmes and portfolios to be ignored so that all of the teams are “doing project work”; at a more detailed level, the roles and mindset of each domain must be recognized since it determines the objectives and therefore the key roles in each domain.

These roles are described below. Read more