Effectiveness in Project Portfolio Management

Today project managers are increasingly being tasked with managing multiple projects within an organization, which can take the form of a project portfolio. Managing this portfolio effectively is key to the success of the organization… and the project manager. However, substantial questions persist about truly effective project portfolio management. How do you define "effectiveness?" How do you measure it? What are the critical factors that impact success? Join project management researcher-practitioners from Pennsylvania State University and the Stevens Institute of Technology as they go inside five different organizations from across the business spectrum in search of the answers. These dramatically different organizations, which ranged from financial services and telecommunications, to technology and government-based R&D, all shared one thing: the reliance upon effective project portfolio management for their success. In this landmark study, researchers were granted unprecedented access to internal documentation and key personnel, which enabled them to assemble the inside story of how project portfolios were actually managed, and identify what worked and what didn't. Using this understanding and a comprehensive literature review as a foundation, they created an empirically grounded definition of project portfolio management effectiveness. With this definition in hand, they were then able to identify the five critical process, organizational and human factors that impact project portfolio management effectiveness and propose common-sense criteria for accurately measuring it. This concise work is a must read for any project manager who is facing the challenge of managing more than a single project…and who is intent upon success.