Today’s market is one of cut-throat competition and stringent market forces. Operating in these conditions makes it mandatory for companies to look for cost-cutting opportunities and maximize return on investment. They must invest their time and resources only in projects with the highest payout rates and avoid ones that might cause them to incur losses. That is where project portfolio management comes in.
Especially for companies working with multiple projects and clients at the same time, PPM has become an essential element. From choosing projects and prioritizing them, to setting targets and resource allocation, PPM can help businesses make the perfect mix of projects to avoid waste of resources. Find on this site an excellent PPM software tool to help you avoid any confusion or incurring losses while dealing with multiple projects at once.
PPM in itself is designed to fashion your project priorities and goals optimally. But this management methodology can be optimized further to ensure the company can reduce costs and maximize resource utilization. Read this article to find some tips to ensure success through project portfolio management.
What Is Project Portfolio Management?
The term project portfolio management has gained immense popularity in the business world over the past few years. As a management methodology, portfolio management can help companies organize, choose, and prioritize the projects they handle.
Project portfolio management refers to a management strategy that involves the PMO or project management office choosing projects based on their value to the business, prioritizing them based on urgency or needs, and managing them to meet the demands of the clients while ensuring optimal utilization of its resources. This strategy applies to business ventures or all scales but is especially useful in businesses that deal with multiple projects from various clients.
This management style involves multiple strategies. It includes clever management tactics like the agile methodology that entails dividing larger tasks into smaller chunks for a more flexible approach. PPM is ultimately motivated to achieve one goal, to ensure that the company’s resources are not led astray due to confusing management strategies.
How To Optimize Project Portfolio Management?
As you can certainly understand by now, Project Portfolio management is motivated towards making the management of your business venture smoother and more efficient. It attempts to reduce waste, increase efficiency and eventually lead to the best possible pattern of resource utilization.
However, even PPMs can be designed to be more productive to further increase your company’s return on investment. Some strategies you can adopt to reach this end are listed below.
1.Have A Clear Definition And Strategy In Mind:
When you start designing a portfolio, you must first identify and establish indices that would later be the basis of measuring your success. Therefore, start by defining and marking all your available resources and possible restraints that you might find along the way. The resources can include human resources, capital investments, and equipment at your disposal.
Restraints could include expenses, overhead charges, and other project timelines that might interfere with this one. Then, you must identify your targets. These should be measurable and attainable, although a limited amount of challenge does not harm. You must include a balance of quantitative and qualitative KPIs that define your expected objectives in terms of ideas, future deals, and opportunities.
2.Establish A Portfolio Dashboard:
Project portfolios include projects that meet their deadlines and objectives at their own pace, irrespective of the other projects going on simultaneously. When you have multiple projects on different timelines, you must have a dashboard to give you a quick overview of all the work going on.
This will make managing the task easier. That is because it allows you to anticipate delays, budget overruns, and unexpected risks so that you can react quickly and troubleshoot.
As a manager, the control over the project rests with you. But with an efficient portfolio, you can keep track of the multiple projects your team is dealing with. You can also be aware of whether your project goals are aligning with the goals that your company envisions for the bigger picture.
3.Cultivate The Habit Of Prioritization:
When dealing with multiple projects, a central aspect of portfolio management is prioritization. You must draw up uniform evaluation patterns to judge the potential value of a project to your company. You can then use this judgment in determining the priority of the project.
All members of your team, including leaders and base-level workers, must follow this attitude. In other words, everyone must learn to value projects based on their importance to the company. Cultivate this thought process among all your workers to ensure that everyone is on the same page and there are no delays or deviations.
4.Hire Experts:
When prioritizing projects, you must figure out which ones you are likely to complete and which are likely to fall behind for lack of time or resources. Make the doable projects more visible within the company.
Also, you must create a perfect array of resources within the company. If your team lacks any particular skill, you must make arrangements to hire experts to fill the void. Your team must possess the resources and skills required to complete the projects you undertake.
5.Visualize Emergencies And Prepare Yourself:
An essential aspect of portfolio management is preparing oneself for troubleshooting. As a manager, you must prepare to meet any obstacle between your team and a successful project.
Therefore, brainstorm all possible “what-ifs” and plan effective backup strategies for each. No matter what the situation, you should not be caught off guard. For instance, keep a little buffer time at hand while setting the deadline if you suspect a delay in delivery. Have backup resources ready at your disposal to help solve any unforeseen crisis.
Conclusion
Project portfolio management is a very effective way of handling multiple projects and deadlines at any given time for companies of any size and structure. However, planning the perfect portfolio strategies is essential to ensure proper planning and realization of goals. In the present-day market of competition and complex structural influences, being at the top of your game is a must if you wish to hold your own.
