Governance Arrangements For It Project Portfolio Management

Due to the growing importance of IT-based innovations, contemporary firms face an excessive number of proposals for IT projects. As typically only a fraction of these projects can be implemented with the given capacity, IT project portfolio management as a relatively new discipline has received growing attention in research and practice in recent years. Thorsten Frey demonstrates how companies are struggling to find the right balance between local autonomy and central overview about all projects in the organization. In this context, impacts of different contextual factors on the design of governance arrangements for IT project portfolio management are demonstrated. Moreover, consequences of the use of different organizational designs are analyzed. The author presents insights from a qualitative empirical study as well as a simulative approach.

This book argues that the appropriate application of the principles and practices of corporate governance to organisational portfolio, program, and projects (‘3P’) governance brings about highly engaged, knowledgeable, and effective governance practices, which in turn substantially improves business case success. The book addresses all three layers of portfolio, program, and project within an integrated governance framework, and it answers the fundamental questions everyone involved in 3P governance must address: What governance structures (processes, functions, roles, responsibilities) need to be in place to ensure optimal portfolio investment outcomes? How do I know our portfolios, as structured, will deliver expected benefits and value? What should senior management be doing, acting in their portfolio governance roles, to deliver great portfolio outcomes? The book introduces and describes a number of important frameworks and models, designed not just for their practical application, but also to be easily comprehended by senior executives not comfortable with traditional ‘project speak’.

Understanding governance as it applies to portfolios, programs, and projects is growing in importance to organizations, because appropriate governance is a factor in the success or failure of strategic initiatives and portfolios, as well as an organization’s programs and projects. Implementing an effective governance framework can be challenging due to factors such as increasing business complexities, regulatory requirements, globalization, and rapid changes in technology and business environments. Many organizations do not have a consistent approach to portfolio, program, and project governance. PMI’s Governance of Portfolios, Programs, and Projects: A Practice Guide, developed by leading experts in the field, provides guidance to organizations and practitioners on how to implement or enhance governance on portfolios, programs, and projects. This practice guide provides definitions for governance in an effort to distinguish the different levels of governance and to identify their common elements.

Written by ten successful project portfolio managers from companies including AAA, Boeing, Franklin Templeton, Johnson & Johnson, Safeway, and the UK Government, this easy-to-follow guide takes you through the project portfolio management process. It's based on what actually works, giving you a clear road map and the tools needed to determine the optimal mix and sequencing of projects in order to meet your organization's goals. The book begins by explaining basic PPM principles and why PPM is more critical than ever for business success. This introduction is followed by a story, tracking the experiences of a manager new to PPM as he discovers the issues that all of us face in trying to get traction with our PPM initiatives. In answering the questions our story raises, the book then details each step of the PPM process, using cases and examples drawn from the authors' first hand experience to help you address such key questions as: Which projects should our organization invest in? How can we optimize our organization's capacity? How well are we executing the PPM process? Can our organization absorb all the changes that our PPM plan requires? Are we achieving all the expected benefits? The authors are all members of the Enterprise Portfolio Management Council, a group of senior portfolio management executives dedicated to helping organizations develop their own portfolio management capabilities. Now you can benefit from their collective wisdom and experience, and duplicate their successful results within your own organization.

Join project management researcher-practitioners from Pennsylvania State University and the Stevens Institute of Technology as they go inside five different organizations from across the business spectrum in search of the answers. These dramatically different organizations, which ranged from financial services and telecommunications, to technology and government-based R&D, all shared one thing: the reliance upon effective project portfolio management for their success. In this landmark study, researchers were granted unprecedented access to reams of internal project documentation and hours of one-on-one time with key personnel, from C-Suite and project management executives to front-line staff. This enabled the team to assemble the inside story of how project portfolios were actually managed in each of these organizations, and identify what worked and what didn't. Using this understanding and a comprehensive literature review as a foundation, they created an empirically grounded definition of project portfolio management effectiveness that can be applied to organizations of all kinds. They were then able to identify the five critical process, organizational, and human factors that impact project portfolio management effectiveness and propose common-sense criteria for accurately measuring it.

Effective project decision making is recognised as a key feature of successful projects. Ineffective decision making leads to project delay and failure. Project Governance takes readers through the logical steps required for the establishment of a project governance framework for a project or organisation. Starting with problems typical of ineffective project governance, it develops a set of principles designed to overcome these problems and builds a framework based on these principles. This comprehensive guide explains how to populate the framework effectively, provides the accountabilities and responsibilities of the main roles , and describes how to integrate the project governance framework into the organisation. Whether you are a project management practitioner or a student of project management, the lessons learned in this valuable handbook make for essential reading.

Without a governance structure, an organization runs the risk of conflicts and inconsistencies between the various means of achieving organizational goals, the processes and resources, causing costly inefficiencies that impact negatively on both smooth running and bottom line profitability. However, the frequency of projects failing to meet these corporate objectives has focused attention firmly on the process of project governance. In this book, Ralf Müller provides a well-researched framework to explain the different preferences organizations have in goal setting, along with the best-practices, roles and responsibilities related to governance tasks. This concise text is an important guide for project and programme managers, those managers concerned with corporate governance such as risk managers and internal auditors, project sponsors and project board members, as well as academics researching organizational and project performance. Project Governance is part of the Gower Fundamentals of Project Management Series. Practising professionals and project students will find in the fundamentals a definitive, shorthand guide to each of the main competencies associated with project management; a book that is authoritative, based on current research but immediately relevant and applicable.

Project Portfolio Management (PPM) goes beyond the typical project management approach to offer a set of proven business practices that can help executives, program managers, and project managers bring projects into alignment with the strategies, resources, and executive oversight of the overall enterprise. Step by step, this book shows how to take a project from the inception of a vision to the realization of benefits to the organization. Project Portfolio Management draws on project management expert Harvey A. Levine’s years of research and distills the knowledge and best practices from dozens of leaders in the field to show how to select and implement the projects that will garner the best results. Throughout this important resource, Levine tackles the many challenges associated with PPM, including Ranking value and benefits Determining the size of the portfolio pipeline Assessing the impact of uncertainty on projects and portfolios Understanding the benefit and risk relationship Establishing a portfolio governance capability Managing the portfolio to maximize benefits Implementing PPM