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Components of a Successful PPM Deployment
A PPM plan should enhance the selection, delivery and communication of programs and projects across the enterprise within both the IT and business organizations. This can only be accomplished by implementing a best-practices approach to the processes of portfolio management. A holistic approach must be adopted using a refined list of proven portfolio toolkit components:
Project and business goal alignment. The fundamental goal of any suite of projects is to know what is to be accomplished in order to define what success means. An organization must spend the time to understand its business drivers so prospective projects can be culled to include only the meaningful ones that will accomplish legitimate goals.
Project selection and prioritization. Projects seldom stand alone - even if the effort does not affect other projects directly, it will affect the resource availability of other efforts. Therefore, the first step is to understand project dependencies. To do so, think of project suites (programs) rather than single projects. From there, program scenarios need to be selected and prioritized. Selection is typically based on factors of business alignment, ROI and obligation (regulatory, compliance, maintenance, etc.). Finally, programs must be reviewed on a regular basis to monitor changes in scope, dependencies and status.
Resource and capacity planning. Many organizations focus on project schedules and deliverables but fall short in their ability to manage resource capacity. A properly run PPM model must include resource planning and allocations. Otherwise, they stand the chance of picking the right projects but may run into resourcing conflicts. In those cases, issues are resolved by external resources that may spike costs out of line.
Project performance metrics. Now that programs are chosen wisely and staffed properly, an organization must still be diligent to run them effectively. The only way to manage this expectation is to define clear, standardized measures by which to compare performance. Typically, schedule and financial performance are measured on a regular basis, RAG (red/amber/green) statuses are visible, and flagged projects are reviewed in detail to uncover and solve the root issues.
Financial tracking and controls. It is not enough to manage projects from a schedule perspective. Many a project can be kept on track by adding resources and costs ... but this is not the goal of PPM. PPM's goal is to deliver projects on time and on budget. Complete PPM tracks a project work plan and likewise tracks the approved spend (budget), the expected spend (forecast) and the actual costs.
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