This week I went along to an APM branch meeting in Yorkshire. It was hosted at Leeds University and the main speaker for the evening was James Butler from Program Framework. James’ presentation was called ‘A sustainable approach to portfolio management’ which focused on the competitive advantages organisations are striving for and how portfolio management helps with that. The presentation went on to include the people aspects in portfolio management and also how technology can help to sustain a portfolio management approach.
There were two standout parts of the presentation;
Pace of Change
An organisation wants to have the competitive advantage and ultimately this competitive advantage is speed driven. In order to get to market quicker, reduce overheads quicker, implement policy changes quicker, change needs to happen quicker.When organisations need to change quickly they need to be able to steer the big ship that is the corporate world in the right direction – taking their employees with them. In terms of project management, when an organisation needs to change to remain competitive it stands to reason that the organisation’s strategies also need to change. When the strategies change, that means the programmes and projects within the organisation also change (and the priorities of what to do and when)
James showed an interesting video which demonstrates just how the world is changing and just how quickly it is happening:
For an organisation to respond quickly to change and to ensure they are ahead of the curve, portfolio management is seen as the right thing to do in terms of linking organisation strategy to programme and project delivery.
Bringing the People With You
You are probably already acquainted with change management and the challenges that brings – especially with people. I think this, from Strategies for Managing Change sums it up very well:
The single biggest reason for the astonishingly high 70% failure rate of all significant change initiatives has been the over-emphasis on process rather than people – the failure to take full account of the impact of change on those people who are most impacted by it – the failure to recognise that organisational change is inextricably intertwined with personal change.
So a portfolio management approach has to take into account the people within the organisation however within the whole project management area we seem to be more focused on process rather than the behavioural aspects of managing change.
James shared an approach to behavioural change which included:
- Give people a purpose for change
- ‘What’s in it for me?’
- Gain the right skills
- Understand how each person involved will undertake their role
- Manage conflict
- Manage constructively
- Good process, not bad bureaucracy
- Ask the question, why are we conducting this process? Is the output necessary?
- Role modelling
- Lead by example – demonstrate collaborative behaviours.
- Reinforce the right behaviours
If an organisation is thinking about adopting a portfolio management approach to managing their strategies, prioritisation of programmes and projects being delivered and the people required to drive through the change, what else do they need?
The rest of the presentation concentrated on technology – specifically using Enterprise Project Management (EPM) tools such as MS Project Server (others being Planview, Primavera etc). I was particularly impressed with the portfolio management aspects to the system but that’s a post for another day 
Image By Phillie Casablanca
