Project Portfolio Management: A View From The Management Trenches

Chapter 3. Are We Investing in the Right Things?

Shortly after his call with John, Bill contacted one of his colleagues in the EPMC, Christine Jones. She had almost as much experience of PPM as he did and he had recruited her into the EPMC right after it was founded. Chris (as she preferred to be called) was a genius at research and so he asked her to look into the situation at Acme. Two days later she got back to him.

"Hi John," Chris said as she entered the office. "I've found some very interesting things about Acme and your college buddy John. You two should have a really interesting evening."

"That's great," said Bill. "So what exactly have you found out?"

"Well, did John mention that he was the VP for Project Portfolio Management at Acme?"

"Yes, he did—said he's been there for six months", replied Bill.

"Correct. He's been in that role six months," said Chris. "The press release announcing his appointment mentioned that a primary goal would be to get projects moving through their pipeline. They have aggressive growth plans that are generating a lot of projects to support the growth goals. However, I'm guessing that he may be running into problems since Acme is still rumored to be well behind on most of its big projects and initiatives."

"Well, that probably explains why he's so keen to meet with me," said Bill.

Chris continued, "All too often, the people put in charge of portfolio management don't know much about what it is and how to get it done. Many of them are coming ...