Portfolio & Project Management

First of all, Portfolio & Project Management (PPM) is not the same as project management for individual projects. It is about how we manage the overall portfolio of projects we have, so we can see what we’re doing and can make informed decisions about prioritization. This supports an overall Operational Excellence approach to doing business.

A good PPM process will ensure we compare projects—from whatever source, using the same prioritization scheme—based on objective criteria, so when we add a project, or advance one to a new stage, or get new information on costs and benefits, or whatever, we can easily and quickly determine some priority score and slot our project into the appropriate spot on a single list.

And hey, things change in the world, so we may occasionally also change those objective criteria, and the system will ‘change everything’, so we’re still comparing equally.

• Will it prioritize/de-prioritize things? Yes.
• Will we need to assess resources? Yes.
• Can we use this to establish a ‘cutoff’ and see how much of our list we can work on now? Yes.

The idea of comparing on an equal basis helps us decide who works on what and when, and reduces the likelihood of proceeding with projects that no longer align with our goals.

With a single list, we want to know things about each project: is it a capital or expense item, throughput or reliability, Health, Safety, Environment, and Security (HSES), or something else (or some combination of these). But really, all those things are just pieces of categorical data for a particular project.

• Should we be able to sort on that stuff? Yes!
• Should we maintain dozens of separate lists to cover all the possibilities? No!

Look, there’s one resource pool to get things done, so have one list of tasks to accomplish. Oh, I can hear it now – no, we have multiple resource groups…we have process people to do X, project people to do Y, planners, schedulers, supervisors, technicians, and…whatever.

Yeah, OK, but all projects are broadly cross-functional. Come up with an idea, gather stakeholder input, design, estimate, obtain consensus with Finance, request and receive funding, build, train operators, train on maintenance and reliability, start operations, begin monitoring, and start maintenance. With some recycle loops in there, especially at the front end. Along the way, engage HSES, engage HR, and so on. It’s one resource pool, but depending on the project, different groups will be involved to different degrees.

Ah, but I’m drifting into individual projects – back to Portfolio Management. What things should a person consider when floating an idea? You can probably come up with a million variations of this, but here are a few to consider:

1. Is this aligned with the company's strategy? Is it taking us down a desired path? If it involves products or services, are these types of things we already make/do, or would like to do? There’s a continuum here from totally aligned to totally crossways. Know that and be prepared to discuss.
2. What are the HSES implications? Think about the possibilities. Is this project focused on impacting HSES performance and metrics by addressing risks? Or at the other end of the spectrum, this project has no impact on HSES. Or somewhere in between. Know the impact and know your metrics.
3. Financial impact. What’s the total value? If your company uses Return on Investment, Net Present Value, or another metric, have those figures calculated as well.
4. What’s the ease of execution and/or likelihood of success? What’s the project duration? How big a team is required? How many different functions need to participate? Are there any technical hurdles? What do stakeholders think, from “let’s do it” on one end to “I hate it and I’m working against it” on the other?
5. Can we use this elsewhere? Is this a solution that can be implemented in many places, or is it a total ‘one off’ with no applicability elsewhere?
6. Are resources (all of them) available?

If you are familiar with these concepts, we can discuss the project and then compare it to others. And yeah, it’s iterative. For example, if you’ve looked at a bunch of projects that all use the same resources, and then (based on all the other considerations) we decide some are better than others, then we can re-evaluate resources based on the selected projects. Same for other dimensions.

Ultimately, we’re trying to use these (and perhaps other) factors to compare lots of disparate projects on an equal basis to help us produce a simple snapshot of what’s going on, with relative priorities, contributions, and more across many dimensions.

For companies seeking an enterprise software solution to their project portfolio management challenges, the OESuite^® PPM Module by Operational Sustainability^® enhances planning, tracking, and collaboration on project portfolios by simplifying the resource, schedule, and cost management puzzle. With OESuite^®, organizations can:

• Specify scope, budget, and schedules for their project portfolio
• Track resource availability, utilization, and workload
• Track progress and identify risk with probability, impact, and mitigation plans

Connect with an OS expert to learn more.