Focused Value of Project & Portfolio Management

You are the Program Management Office (PMO) Director of a successful Fortune 1000 company.  You have spent years developing processes and standards to deliver projects on-time and on-budget.  You may have also introduced strategic value by implementing project/program prioritization and selection processes to support your company’s annual planning & budgeting cycle.  And you have likely implemented some tools and fancy reports.  You have likely gotten swept up in the tyranny of the urgent, chasing after the latest program in the ditch awaiting rescue. Meanwhile, you are trying to keep pace with the latest Project and Portfolio Management tools and how you might bring more standards to the organization to minimize risk of program delivery failure.  You know what problems exist, but you simply cannot prepare the business case to articulate the cost-benefit to your boss so that you can finally make needed improvements.
But how do you take it to the next level?  How do you bring focused value of Project & Portfolio Management (PPM) to make game-changing impact to your organization?

1. Case for Change – Begin by developing a clear picture of the challenges you are facing and what the impacts could be if you do not improve.
2. What is the burning platform?
3. What challenges exist with how things are today?
4. What opportunities are there for improvement?
5. Why do we need to change?

• Art of the Possible – Next, take the time to research and explore what successful organizations are doing to address these challenges.    
• What does good look like?
• Are there leaders in our sector or across sector that we might model?
• What are the leading practices, and which apply most to our situation?
• What changes can we make to gain the largest positive change to our business?

• Future-State Vision & Roadmap – Take a good look at where you are now and what the vision looks like, not just for an ideal organization, but considering what you know about your company and what might be possible.
• How do we expect to evolve and transform (over what time period and to what level of competency?)
• Which capabilities need attention first, second, third?
• How quickly can we implement change, while considering adoption?
• Implementation Plan – Finally, develop a pragmatic plan that starts to move you in the right direction.
• How do we take the first steps to implement the future-state roadmap?
• What is the timing and commitment to execute the implementation plan?
• How do we sustain the change and continue to improve once the implementation team has departed?

Developing an actionable PPM Capability Roadmap is essential to bringing focused value of Project & Portfolio Management to your organization.  It serves as a blueprint for your PMO and guides the organization toward the areas that will bring the biggest improvement and return on investment.

EPMA helps organizations refine their project management approach by simplifying how they manage work. Our goal is to bring complete visibility and accountability across the entire organization through innovative technology solutions strategically aligned with the business. A growing division of EPMA is our Project Management Analyst (PMA) staffing service. If you have PMs experiencing the above challenges, leveraging a PMA can open communication, master the manipulation of the tool, and remove the administrative burden from the PM, allowing them to focus on what they do best.

We hope you enjoyed our Focused Value of Project & Portfolio Management. For more information on how we can help you and your project management team, send us an email

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