How to achieve excellent performance in project-based organisations by Soren Porskrog

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Soren Porskrog, believes that whilst we have undertaken projects for thousands of years, today, project, programme and portfolio management appear to be becoming a competitive imperative to many organisations due to the global trends of the need to continuously reduce costs, keep up with the speed of change and deal with discontinuous technology shifts.

There has been a dramatic growth in project management as a management concept and it is now widely accepted that organizational success depends on ‘doing the right things’ (effectiveness) and ‘doing things right’ (efficiency). In other words organisations need both the right strategy and then to follow up with correct implementation.

Doing the right projects, the right way and doing it consistently in the right combination is the key to efficient and effective strategic performance.

The right combination of projects is concerned with portfolio management. Selecting the right projects is the job of programme management and doing things the right way relates to project management.

Soren concludes by saying that the three management disciplines of project, programme and portfolio management are the keys to organisational success when implementing strategies.

Preventative Medicine (Keeping Project Managers on their Toes)
By Liz Goodman

Liz Goodman argues that delivering flawless project execution to stay ahead of the competition is no longer enough to sustain a competitive edge in a tight economy. Organisations are therefore looking for a different type of project manager and acknowledging that project managers are more than purely technical experts. They are now looking for project managers who understand change and have experience of successfully delivering change.


Capability-led portfolio management by Graeme Wood

These days business priorities change so rapidly that some executives are struggling to align project work to organisational strategy. Often they are struggling to get clarity of what really matters to the business so they can work out their project development priorities. On the other hand, if inadequate information is provided to financial managers of what benefits a project will provide to the organisation, they in turn will struggle to know which project to approve and which to knock back.

Graeme Wood proposes that a whole picture view should be used to drive priorities and that clear criteria for project selection and prioritisation are in place. The governance process for decision-making should be clear and streamlined. In addition, the organisation’s business plan should be an accurate reflection of what we plan to deliver and performance should be regularly reviewed.

He concludes by saying that portfolio management is about engaging stakeholders and being able to influence them to make the right decisions by providing the whole picture view and by balancing strategy and operations carefully.