3 Steps to Create Your Project Portfolio Roadmap

When you are focused on results and work in a fluid project environment where expected results change frequently, it is very important to identify and manage all coordination points. Does your project portfolio plan reflect the realities of your organization at the enterprise level? Are interdependencies between projects and other organizational milestones evident?

Flatter, more agile organizations with vanishing middle management levels typically require increasing levels of motivation and responsibility. It is essential for project portfolio managers to adopt an enterprise view and interest. A project portfolio management roadmap ensures you are off to a solid start.

A key to my success as a project portfolio manager is to make the time to collaboratively develop a project portfolio roadmap as the first step in the planning process. The roadmap helps me see the enterprise environment in which the project portfolio lives. The result is a much more accurate and complete schedule, and therefore, a more accurate budget and maximized resource allocations.

Once in place, I use the same roadmap as an effective communication visual supporting progress and status updates. I leverage a cross-functional diagramming approach (also known as 'swimlanes'. A roadmap is not a timeline; target and actual dates are reflected in the roadmap, but roadmap components are not visually represented in a linear fashion.

Here is how I do it.

Step 1: Identify the interdependencies between projects in the portfolio.

If circumstances permit, consider a manual, in-person approach for this step.

I invite my program and project managers into a room with a white board or wall and lots of post-it notes and markers.

Each program gets a lane on the board; each project in the program is elaborated within its program lane.

The post-it notes are labeled with each major phase of the project and the project’s result, then placed and sequenced on the white board.

Interdependencies are indicated by lines between post-it notes (and occasionally, between programs).

Reflect general status in the roadmap by segmenting it into Pending, Active and Complete sections. Everyone should agree on the placement of projects in those three categories.

Step 2: Identify the interdependencies between the portfolio and the enterprise.

Super-charge the already powerful roadmap by including external milestones. Does your organization have an annual meeting when most of the staff allocated to the project portfolio are unavailable? Is there a need to comply with a new regulation or other mandatory requirement with a fixed deadline? How does fiscal year-end affect your organization?

Step 3: Digitize the roadmap.

If you implemented the manual, in-person approach to project portfolio roadmap development, capture the roadmap electronically. This frees the project portfolio manager to focus on higher-value activities. This can be something as simple as Microsoft Visio, or in your favorite enterprise project management tool.

The resulting roadmap may look something like this:

You will know your roadmap is valuable when stakeholders leave their seat to get a closer look.

Not only is this approach one of the best ways to proactively identify and mitigate schedule risk, everyone leaves the room with a clear understanding of how their project and program must come together to effectively deliver the project portfolio’s strategy. I have found developing a roadmap to be a very unifying experience.

What’s your favorite technique for gaining an enterprise perspective of your project portfolio?

Want to elevate your project management game, learn why I knew I wanted to be a project manager in 8th grade, or meet over coffee? Need a 30-minute free consultation on whatever ails your project??Schedule time with me!

Jan Schiller, ex-PMP, PSM1, FLMI, is a partner with?Berkshire Consulting, LLC. She specializes in revealing the path from where an organization is to where they want to be. Jan delights clients by transforming strategy into results with project management in the financial services, investment, health, beverage, learning management, wholesale printing and life sciences industries. She has helped her clients with the adoption of project management best practices; streamlining business processes; complying with regulations; achieving competitive advantage, innovating effectively, getting things done despite turbulent times, creating a fantastic customer experience, migrating to an industry-standard platform, maximizing productivity, and wrangling projects. In addition to being quoted in?PMNetwork Magazine, she's also discussed how to develop a PMO Project's scope statement on?Phoenix Business RadioX?and contributed to?PMWorld360's digital project management magazine.