When what organizations do is not unique, how they do it becomes their competitive advantage. Unless you are a Tesla or SpaceX, it is essential you actively manage your portfolio of strategic initiatives through risk and investment decisions and through a sharp focus on strategy implementation to succeed. Organizations with mature project portfolio management practices complete 35 percent more of their programs successfully. They fail less often and waste less money.
Effective project portfolio management requires a keen understanding of the relationships between strategy development and strategy implementation. The selected portfolio of projects and programs must collectively advance the organization. Project portfolio management, often referred to as simply portfolio management, is forward looking. If you can’t see the future of your organization by looking at your portfolio, you have no chance of getting there.
As the global advocate for project, program, and portfolio management, PMI delivers an annual thought leadership series on practices that help organizations make the critical connection between strategy development and strategy implementation. Our latest report provides insight into portfolio management approaches that are essential for the successful implementation of strategic initiatives. We thank the team that developed these reports—The Boston Consulting Group (BCG), The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), and Deloitte Consulting LLP.
In the series, we looked at portfolio management from the points of view ofexecutives and those responsible for the portfolio management function in organizations. This report identifies a direct correlation between portfolio management maturity and a specific set of practices that are being used by portfolio management leaders. These practices fall into four categories, as outlined in the following pages. We found that some organizations take portfolio management seriously and some don’t. Those who do are more successful.
I hope what you read here will encourage you to take another look at your organization’s portfolio management capability. We appreciate your attention because it’s together that we can do great things!
