PORTFOLIO OPTIMIZATION: BACK TO THE BASICS Kathy Schwalbe, Ph.D., PMP May 2010.

PORTFOLIO OPTIMIZATION:BACK TO THE BASICS

Kathy Schwalbe, Ph.D., PMPMay 2010

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Outline

What is project portfolio management?

How do you organize project portfolios?

What techniques are used to optimize portfolios?

How can @task help you optimize portfolios?

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What is Project Portfolio Management?

Project portfolio management is an emerging business strategy in which organizations group and manage projects and programs as a portfolio of investments that contribute to the entire enterprise’s success

While project management focuses on doing things right, project portfolio management focuses on doing the right things

Components of a portfolio can be measured, ranked, and prioritized

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Project Management Vs. Project Portfolio Management

*Schwalbe, Information Technology Project Management, Sixth Edition, and An Introduction to Project Management, Third Edition, 2010

Tactical Goals Strategic Goals

Project Management•Are we carrying out projects well?•Are projects on time and on budget? •Do project stakeholders know what they should be doing?

Project Portfolio Management•Are we working on the right projects?•Are we investing in the right areas?•Do we have the right resources to be competitive?

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Best Practice

Why is it that some companies, like Proctor & Gamble, Johnson and Johnson, Hewlett Packard, and Sony are consistently successful in New Product Development (NPD)? Because they use a disciplined, systematic approach to NPD projects based on best practices 65.5% of companies performing the best at NPD align

projects with business strategy vs. 46% of companies performing the worst at NPD

65.5% of best performing NPD companies have their resource breakdown aligned to business strategy while only 8% of worst performing companies do.*

*Robert G. Cooper, “Winning at New Products: Pathways to Profitable Intervention,” PMI Research Conference Proceedings (July 2006).

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What Went Right?

Jane Walton, the project portfolio manager for IT projects at Schlumberger, saved the company $3 million in one year by simply organizing the organization’s 120 IT projects into one portfolio. She found that 80 percent of the organization’s projects overlapped, and fourteen separate projects were trying to accomplish the same thing. The company canceled several projects and merged others to reduce the newly obvious redundancy*

A 2009 study found that a comprehensive project portfolio management tool “is likely to provide an ROI of more than 250%”**

*Scott Berinato, “Do the Math,” CIO Magazine (October 1, 2001).**Craig Symons, “The ROI of Project Portfolio Management Tools,” Forrester Research (May 8, 2009)

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More Good News

ROI of implementing portfolio management software by IT departments: Savings of 6.5 percent of the average annual IT

budget by the end of year one Improved annual average project timeliness by

45.2 percent Reduced IT management time spent on project

status reporting by 43 percent and IT labor capitalization reporting by 55 percent

Decreased the time to achieve financial sign-off for new IT projects by 20.4 percent, or 8.4 days*

*Michael Kringsman, “ROI Study” Product Portfolio Management Yields Results,” ZDNet (March 7, 2008)

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And Some Bad News

Many organizations are still at a low-level of maturity in terms of how they define project goals, allocate resources, and measure overall success of their information technology portfolios Only 20 percent of survey respondents agreed

their organizations monitor portfolio progress and coordinate across inter-dependent projects

Just two percent felt their organizations were very effective at measuring performance of the overall portfolio**Borland Software, “Organizations Making Progress with IT

Management and Governance but Still Face Significant Challenges according to Borland Survey,” Borland Press Release (August 28,2006)

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How Do You Organize Project Portfolios? Five levels for project portfolio

management1. Put all your projects in one database2. Prioritize the projects in your database3. Divide your projects into two or three

budgets based on type of investment4. Automate the repository5. Apply modern portfolio theory, including

risk-return tools that map project risk on a curve

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Sample Approaches for Creating a Project Portfolio

The following figure illustrates an approach where there is one large portfolio for the entire organization. Sections of the portfolio are broken down to improve the management of projects in each sector

The IT projects are broken down into three categories: Venture: Projects that help transform the business Growth: Projects that help increase revenues Core: Projects that help run the business

Projects can also be mapped to show risk vs. value

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Sample Project Portfolio Approach*

*Schwalbe, Information Technology Project Management, Sixth Edition, and An Introduction to Project Management, Third Edition, 2010

Nondiscretionary Costs

Discretionary

CostsRis

ks

Val

ue/

Tim

ing

Venture:Transform

the business

Growth:Grow the business

Core:Run thebusiness

Overall Project Portfolio Categories IT Project Portfolio Categories

ITHR

MaterialsMarketing

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Sample Project Portfolio Risk Map

Why aren’t there any bubbles in this quadrant?

*Schwalbe, Information Technology Project Management, Sixth Edition, and An Introduction to Project Management, Third Edition, 2010

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Figure 3. Deciding What Fruit to Eat (www.xkcd.com)

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What Techniques Are Used to Optimize Portfolios?

Common “scores” for projects are related to strategy, finances, technology, risk, and market factors

@task focuses on being able to adjust the following priorities based on a given overall budget low cost high alignment high value low risk to benefit high ROI

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How Can @task Help You Optimize Portfolios? The following figures are from my book,

An Introduction to Project Management, Third Edition

After entering project and portfolio information into @task, you can easily change priorities like cost, alignment, value, risk to benefit, and ROI to make portfolio adjustments to meet different budgets

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@task User Guide Steps for Portfolio Management

Portfolio Optimization: After all portfolio projects were selected, they will be further optimized or prioritized according to the value, alignment, and benefit of the projects

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Accessing Portfolio Optimization

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Portfolio Optimization Screen

Click Portfolio Optimization. Notice the information at the top of the screen, including visual symbols like the Alignment gauge (at 59%) the ROI (at 484.4%), and the Risk to Net Value columns. Also notice the detailed entries made for each project in the portfolio.

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Adjusting Portfolio Optimization Entries

Click the check box by HR Training to unselect it since its alignment to business strategy was only 13% and it has a negative net value and ROI. Notice how the values and images at the top of the screen have changed, such as the Alignment gauge changing to 67%.

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Optimization Panel

Click the Optimize button under Project Prioritization to view the Optimization Panel.

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Setting Priorities and Entering a Budget Amount

Slide the High Alignment and High ROI options to the far right. Notice the score indicators changing by several of the projects. Click the Set Priority button to set these new priorities. Click in the upper left textbox labeled Enter Budget, type 500000, and press Enter. The project named Branch Merger displays in red, suggesting it for possible removal from the portfolio.

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Updated/Optimized Portfolio

Click the checkbox by the Branch Merger project to unselect it. There is now a positive amount of money remaining in the budget, the alignment gauge is at 73%, and the ROI is 514.1%.

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Questions/Comments?

Feel free to contact me at [email protected]

www.kathyschwalbe.com Special offer: Get 50% off my latest

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