The core of every enterprise, are its operations. But it is the projects that provide the ability to endure, fuelling operational activities with innovation, adaptivity and growth. Without projects any enterprise would eventually stagnate and fail.

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As important as projects are, without a proper governance, they can be more destructive as no projects at all. That is why a solid Portfolio Management is essential to insure not only that all projects are orchestrated to achieve goals that are in line with the strategic vision, but also to avoid wasted effort and confusion.

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Portfolio Management is less a separate discipline, but instead activities that assist the success of the enterprise by maintaining the governance, which is the umbrella under which all aspects of projects are carried out. 
 

• Portfolio Management - has a direct involvement with senior management and has the authority to prioritize what is to be done (and what not), based on capacity, budget, and strategy consolidated from all the functions below.
   

• Idea Management - takes advantage of the enterprise`s most valuable resource, the workforce. Those working at an operational level have the best perspective to see opportunities for improvement. Idea management captures and verifies these ideas. Approved ideas then become demands.
   

• Demand Management - is comprised of the activities to qualify and quantify approved ideas. If a demand is feasible and is in line with the corporate strategy, then plans can be made at a very high level including financial footprint, return on invest, workforce capacity, as well as a rough timeline… all the ingredients for a valid business case. Approved demands become projects.
   

• Project Management - contains all the effort involved in the planning and implementation of approved demands. Whether technical, financial chronical, or social, within project management the full bandwidth of challenges are faced. Although, projects can be classic waterfall or agile, their goal is the same... the successful implementation of their deliverables. Successful projects generally transition ownership of the deliverables to operations.
   

• Project Management Office (PMO) - is generally involved in assigning the project manager to approved demands and supplies project managers with guidance and support during the entire project lifecycle. After project closure, it is the PMO that archives project documentation and dismisses the project team. As the PMO is a direct link to the project manager, so is it in direct communication with portfolio management, delivering reports on all active projects.
   

• Portfolio Financial Management - can either be a part of portfolio management or a separate controlling entity in its own, however, the activities are the same... constant monitoring of the overall portfolio budget based on plan, actuals, and baseline. The portfolio financial management is also directly involved with the yearly fiscal planning. Portfolio financial management is also generally owner of the time tracking tool to obtain actual effort spent on projects.
   

• Workforce Management - can be exclusively for managing the capacity of project resources in a matrix environment or can be used to manage the capacity of the entire RUN, GROW, TRANFORM capacity. From a project perspective, workforce management insures that a soft-booking takes place in the demand phase and a hard-booking is agreed to during the project phase. Workforce management is also responsible for mediating any changes to the timeline. Furthermore, workforce management tracks the skills of resources and escalates if bottlenecks or unavailability is determined. If combined with short-term and long-term roadmaps, workforce management can insure stable capacity and skillset availability, never-the-less, a solid partnership with HR is the cornerstone to successful workforce management.

 

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