Project Portfolio Management: A View From The Management Trenches

2.3. LATER THAT AFTERNOON . . .

John was thinking that Bill's call might have been just what he needed. He pulled a piece of paper out of the printer tray and started to write down answers to the five questions. He wanted to get his thoughts together before meeting with Bill. It sounded like Bill had lots of useful experience of implementing PPM and he wanted to clarify what was really causing progress to stumble.

John started writing. Before long, his hand was flying over the pages. He sat in silence and scribbled away. These are his notes.

NOTE

Why did we start Project Portfolio Management?

• We wanted to handle the flood of project requests coming in from all areas of our business.

• Without any way to measure the value of projects to our organization, we were queuing everything up on a first-come, first-serve basis; not exactly the best way to set priorities.

• We also had a reputation for taking care of whoever yelled the loudest—and we had a lot of screamers!

Are we investing in the right things?

• I can't say that we are with confidence.

• We formed a Decision Review Board (DRB) charged with setting the direction for the project portfolio. This seems to have helped us get moving in the right direction and it seems to be effective.

• The DRB was charged with the responsibility for determining which projects were worth taking on and determining whether active projects were worth continuing.

• We have the commitment from the executive leadership team—they committed the top people in the organization ...