Project Portfolio

Term Definition
Project portfolio is a term that refers to an organization's group of projects and the process in which they are selected and managed. The project portfolio is strategically selected to advance the corporation's organizational goals.

Generally speaking, organizations will have an opportunity for far more projects than funding can support, so the selection process must choose a subset of projects to maximize the company's profit goals while obeying budgetary restrictions.  Concurrently, executives wish to manage the overall risk of the portfolio while ensuring that cash flow and other such requirements are satisfied.

The application of project portfolio management as it relates to Information Technology professionals provides the benefit of providing executives with a bird's-eye view of projects so they can spot redundancies, spread resources appropriately and keep close tabs on progress. Even more appealing to Chief Information Officers is that discussions are no longer about the costs of a project but the anticipated risks and returns in relations to other projects and the overall business objectives. In this way, portfolios can be managed to produce the highest rate of return.

Project Portfolio Management aligns an organization's desires with the resources to get it done. This injects realism into the organization's planning processes. Project Portfolio management enables enterprise wide planning and resource allocation. Project Portfolio management lets organizations view all the initiatives that are competing for resources. Once initiatives are defined, budgets and resources can be allocated and timelines established.

PPM software automates project initiation, capacity planning, time and expense reporting, charge back, and executive dashboards. The use of software in the PPM process can facilitate consistent project execution, automate project compliance with labor and industry regulations, improve resource utilization and reduce resource gaps, increase project visibility, workforce productive and operational effectiveness, facilitates real-time communication and decision-making and increases control over employee-related expenditures.

Area of Application
Knowledge Management
Portfolio

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