Reply to: Portfolio Management

[voron]

Not if you keep selling yourself for free. From now on everyone who will approach you for anything will be charged at 700 quid a day.

Ah, that's where I've been going wrong all these years! Good idea.

[Francko]

Don't worry, Franco, our consultancy is nicely establishing its network

Not if you keep selling yourself for free. From now on everyone who will approach you for anything will be charged at 700 quid a day.

[Chico]

Ancient and voron - good stuff thanks. It is nice to know its not just code monkeys and support drones who frequent this board but IT professional who are business aware. Keep up the good work.

[voron]

hey, voron is not for free (although he has the habbit of giving himself away in return of nature favours)!!! He is on 700 per day plus my commission of 100. Leave your account details in my personal box.

Don't worry, Franco, our consultancy is nicely establishing its network

You just continue to charm the female managers with your Italian ways and everything will fall into place

[voron]

How long did it take?
I've done it for a few clients. It has taken approximately nine months each time.

Operational Challenges?
Actually, operationally it's reasonably straight forward. The time has always been swallowed by politics. If you are starting with a fresh portfolio then so much the better, but if not, the routine usually runs like this...
Audit client and assess what is wrong. Client is completely screwed, prove this with evidence. Client is in denial. Eventually client accepts reality and listens to proposal. Client talks about proposal. Client talks some more about proposal. Yet more discussion, all the time agreeing it is what's needed...skip forward four months of talking...
Audit projects in the portfolio. What are they really up to? Do they have funding? Do they have a properly defined and argued business case? Do they have staff? Do they have a proper plan? How does the project relate to the other projects? This has traditionally been another political issue, as PMs do not want anyone looking into their personal kingdoms and telling them what to do (or discovering that they actually don't have very much work). This requires careful management, but if you play it right you can get the information you need.

After you have this information you can start to manage them. Some projects are candidates for early termination, others can be joined together as they duplicate work, etc.

Now, depending on the client, a PMO can be developed to oversee the portfolio. Capacity planning and matrix management can be introduced.

What benefits did it deliver?
For a start it eliminated a lot of flab and waste due to projects being padded. It reduced the number of dud projects being initiated. It increased the successful delivery rate of projects. It also made projects more efficient through matrix management, so there was a direct cost saving there.

How before I could quantify these benefits?
Quite a few benefits were realised immediately (e.g. removing excess staff from projects, making budgets more realistic, scrapping duds), but others had to wait until projects finished (e.g. successful delivery).

[ancient]

Ancient thanks for the link. Any real life experience of the said subject?

- Identify the stakeholders and key decision makers
- Start an awareness campaign of what Portfolio Management is and the benefits it can bring, e.g. give the stakeholders and decision makers a presentation (What, Why, How, What else?)
- Identify what needs to change in terms of how programmes and projects are currently governed
- Create a board structure – probably chaired by the CIO, and the key business unit leaders
- Get the organisation to understand and prioritise what it must do, should do and could do, and prioritise these.
- Define the criteria for IT investments
- Identify constraints e.g. does demand exceed supply capability, resources budgets.
- Baseline current projects, and ‘can’ those projects that are adding little value or ROI
- Think about the existing organisational structure e.g. is it federated? Do any functions need to be centralised?
- Be prepared for power struggles, people loosing autonomy, some knuckle breaking, realignment of budgets etc.
- Gain buy-in before trying to implement the approach
- Look at Portfolio project management tools
- Define your next steps (two weeks before your contract renewal )

[Francko]

From concept to working reality - how long did it take? What operational challenges did you face? What benefit it brought once delivered and how long until you were able to quantify these benefits?

Cheers

hey, voron is not for free (although he has the habbit of giving himself away in return of nature favours)!!! He is on 700 per day plus my commission of 100. Leave your account details in my personal box.

[Chico]

From concept to working reality - how long did it take? What operational challenges did you face? What benefit it brought once delivered and how long until you were able to quantify these benefits?

Cheers

[voron]

Would you care to share?

I thought I just did

Okay, to specifics. What specifically do you need to know?

[Chico]

Would you care to share?

[voron]

OK Voron... any real world experience?

Yes, of course.

[Chico]

OK Voron... any real world experience?

[voron]

..hence my question on real world experience and anecdotes..

And hence my prior post
As I said before, I believe portfolio management is a largely untouched area in terms of well documented methods. Looking at the OGC page, what does it really say? It's just woolly, high level promotional stuff...
"projects are difficult and complex, you need to use methods otherwise you are screwed, methods are good". How many times have I evaluated a client's so-called change/project/programme/benefits/ICT strategy to find it is exactly that? Lacking in any real substance.

If you liked the OGC comments, fine, we can work along those lines. What you need is a Business Architect. Luckily, I am available at £700 p/d
But seriously, you need a structure akin to programme management, but remember the projects aren't working towards an ultimate outcome, so be cautious on the benefits management.
Align operational and strategic goals? Fine, a structure for that can be developed. Establish a group responsible for strategy. New idea? Fine, let's evaluate it and see whether it fits the strategic goal: yes? Good, develop further and produce a business case. No? Okay, is it a corporate enabler? Yes, good, develop further and produce a business case. Still no? Reject it.

And so we go on....business case approval, forming a team, execution....

How do the teams report? I think this really depends on the nature of the organisation, what structures are already in place. Certainly you need some sort of PMO function.

And so we go on...

[Chico]

..hence my question on real world experience and anecdotes..

[voron]

Ancient thanks for the link. Any real life experience of the said subject?

I would be a little cautious about OGC material. It's main application is the public sector, and they have never implemented anything.

Creating theory is easy. Translating it into reality is the difficult part.