Innovate

Project Portfolio Management (PPM) is a proven process for improving overall project and organizational performance.  PPM is an approach to project integration that considers all projects as a single portfolio.  Projects and investments are balanced in terms of their objectives, benefits, costs, achievements, and risks and balanced to achieve the maximum return on investment.  PPM is being used more often in the public sector – OMB is encouraging Agencies to adopt a more portfolio-based approach.  PPM allows strategy to be communicated throughout the organization, equipping it to choose and execute those projects that support the strategy and killing those that do not.

In the absence of PPM, most decisionmaking concerning projects tends to be made on a tactical level (e.g., is a project on schedule?  Is a project on budget?  Is it keeping its stakeholders happy?).

The benefits of PPM have been demonstrated:

• Reduce project failure rates – 50% reduction in rates of project failure
• Reduces time to complete projects – up to 60% improvement in time taking to complete projects;
• Increases ROI – up to 15% improvement in overall ROI;
• Increases strategic alignment of projects with organizational goals; and
• Provides visibility into projects for senior management.

Innovate uses a simple five-step approach to implementing PPM:

• Know What You Have: Identify and inventory your projects;
• Confirm Goals and Priorities:  Make sure you know what are your goals and priorities;
• Put Someone in Charge: Assign responsibility for PPM;
• Evaluate/ Rank Projects:  Use simple schemes to asses & rank projects; and
• Kill and Control: Use PPM to recommend projects to eliminate and control projects