Scarcity of resources is always one of the primary constraints of the business world. Organizations have always been trying to do more with fewer resources. On top of this, deploying these limited resources to maximize the returns is one of the key management challenges. As most capital investment go in the form of projects, organizations need to manage projects portfolio so as to better manage resources and business risks. Many organizations today manage multiple projects and they have to maximize the return on (project) investment. To realize these results effectively, they have to deploy resources across the projects as and when they are required. It's a tall order especially in the IT industry. However, Project Portfolio Management (PPM) shows the way. It provides a high level of visibility over projects while ensuring rich functionality and seamless integration of all projects regardless of their complexity. Project experts define PPM as "a management process designed to help an organization acquire and view information about all its projects, then sort and prioritize each project according to certain criteria, such as strategic value, impact on resources, cost, and so on." In short, PPM takes a holistic view of all projects of a business by managing projects within budget by allocating limited resources.
In
general, the PPM starts with the developing of a comprehensive list of inventory
for all the projects concerned and required information on the same, including
the projects' names and its objective, estimated cost, duration, the linkage between
the projects and the organizational strategy, etc., once the required initial
information is created, the PPM process requires the departmental heads to examine
each project and prioritize them. In the process, some will be marked as high
priority ones and receive extensive support, followed by the moderate projects
and some others may be kept on hold or be dropped entirely from the list. |
