A portfolio contains projects, programs, and related information about the specific elements (e.g. project name, estimated resources, scope, risks, business justification, investment and ongoing costs, ROI, technologies employed, etc.) A good portfolio will make it easy for organizations to make sure their investments are well-balanced in terms of size, risk, and projected payoff.

Portfolio Management is an interrelated group of processes of evaluating, selecting, prioritizing and allocating limited resources to accomplish organizational strategies to realize maximum business value. Its primary purpose is to enable effective decision making and control and may range from enterprise-wide to specific areas such as IT based on business objectives. Through the application of iterative selection, prioritization and optimizing processes, effective portfolio management provides easy and reliable access to information on the full set of projects and programs required to transform the business. Portfolio management, focused on the high level and long term, ensures projects and programs contribute to business direction and overall success.

This course helps participants understand portfolio management best practices and it explores common pitfalls and how to avoid them. These pitfalls include initiating too many projects for the available resources, ineffective project prioritization, go-kill decisions made in the absence of solid information, and too many minor projects in the portfolio. These common pitfalls result in low impact projects and programs, projects that take too long to get to market, and higher-than-acceptable failure rates. The bottom line is that effective portfolio management can have a significant positive impact on how your organization introduces and manages change — the lifeblood for today’s fast paced, complex business environment.

Learning Objectives

Participants will gain practical skills to:

• Define the three process groups and five knowledge areas of portfolio management (PPM).
• Identify the processes of PPM including major activities that ensure maximum portfolio value.
• Relate the principles of PPM to organizational strategy and performance.
• Identify a best practice model for portfolio component selection, optimization, communication and risk management.
• Navigate the organizational change that is required to implement or improve your PPM process.
• Recognize the benefits and challenges of implementing PPM within the business.

Who Should Attend

This course is appropriate for individuals who:

• Plan, control or manage the execution of complex projects or programs made up of multiple projects
• Manage projects within programs
• Act as a functional manager, vendor or consultant who provides staff and/or services in a program-based environment

Prerequisite

There is no prerequisite for this course. It functions as a stand-alone course.

Materials

You will receive a course binder containing copies of presentation slides, case studies, exercises and suggested solutions.