Project Portfolio Management (PPM)

Project portfolio management is the management of the organization’s projects so as to maximize the contribution of projects to the overall welfare and success of the enterprise subject to internal and external constraints by maximizing the project value, balancing the portfolio and aligning it with overall company strategy.

Initially, someone at the company has a project idea. That person should assess his or her initiative from three aspects—project value, desired portfolio balance, and strategic alignment, and capture all of this information in a business case.

The business case is then submitted to the portfolio selection committee whose mandate is to reevaluate the project according to the approved company’s scoring model, portfolio balance requirements, and strategic alignment prerequisites. If the project is approved, the project manager is assigned, and from this point, both project management and PPM run concurrently. The “job” of the project management is to ensure that the project is delivered on time, on budget, and with only minimal defects, while the “responsibility” of PPM is to verify at the end of each stage that the assumptions made about the project value, balance, and strategic fit are still true.

Download: Project Portfolio Dashboard