Program & Portfolio Management

Transcription

1 Program & Portfolio Management A Series for PMO Leaders How PMO leaders govern their world with portfolio planning, project tracking, and portfolio monitoring

2 How do PMO leaders of today govern their world, when they do not possess full sovereignty within their company? You must collaborate and negotiate for resources, budget, and even status across the organization. Requests are made. Projects are chosen. Resources are allocated. Funds are applied. Progress is tracked. Program health is assessed. Portfolio impact is measured. Yet it s up to you the PMO leader to ensure the company realizes benefits faster with the selection, execution, and ultimate success of the portfolio. What are the most important or valuable tools and processes you could have to empower you and your PMO? To elevate you to greatness instead of obsolescence within your organization? What are the jewels in your (PMO leader) crown? Program & Portfolio Management: A Series for PMO Leaders has the answer. Today s successful PMO leader takes a three-pronged approach to program and portfolio management: portfolio planning, project tracking, and portfolio monitoring. These three, critical capabilities or jewels of program and portfolio management embody critical tools and tactics vital to portfolio (and PMO) success: Portfolio Planning: Measure twice, cut once has never been truer than for the PMO leader. A successful set-up of the portfolio from the workflow and forms inherent to demand intake, to the strategic scoring and prioritization of projects; from juggling resource availability, allocation, and optimization, to funding the best mix of projects to comprise your portfolio bolsters the PMO s ability to execute. Project Tracking: It s up to the PMO leader to know the big picture in a world of detail minutiae, and ensure the timely and on-budget completion of the carefully-selected projects within the portfolio. The tracking of project status tasks, milestones, risk, scope, and resources, as well as project and nonproject time and expenses is vital to keeping your portfolio on-track. Portfolio Monitoring: Business leaders expect a PMO leader to provide project and program health reports, including status on milestones, risks, costs, resources, and the organization as a whole. And as that leader, you need to trumpet, or continually emphasize, the impact of your projects and programs. Strategic impact, benefits realization, and value are of utmost importance to your business leaders and the relevance of your role and the PMO. Managing a PMO isn t without its challenges. Program & Portfolio Management: A Series for PMO Leaders explores the PMO leader s most common challenges within the broader program and portfolio management landscape. Each chapter identifies multiple, frequently-encountered, challenging scenarios, your motivation to address them, plus tactics and PPM tool features to conquer them. And you ll notice recurring, end-to-end capabilities, such as resource and project management, are covered contextually in each chapter, as they play vital roles throughout portfolio planning, project tracking, and portfolio monitoring. One of the traits of a great leader is the ability to recognize and overcome challenges. Program & Portfolio Management: A Series for PMO Leaders presents suggestions to better govern your PMO world. And with the portfolio planning, project tracking, and portfolio monitoring jewels securely embedded in your crown, take your rightful place at the head of your PMO supported by a flexible and adaptive project, program, and portfolio management tool to serve the goals and objectives of the organizations you support. Changepoint

3 Chapter 2 Project Tracking Unified project workspace Time and cost tracking Project collaboration Project summaries PMO leaders are tasked with knowing the big picture and reporting on it. Armed with the responsibility of keeping an eye on in-flight projects and how they positively (or negatively) impact the portfolio, the PMO leader needs quick and easy visibility into project and program status. This insight helps the PMO leader to keep the portfolio on-track and executives informed, and the organization as a whole transforming in response to digital disruption. The project manager s world is made up of detail minutiae tasks, milestones, risk, scope, and resources, as well as project and non-project time and expenses that must be governed. Timeliness and accuracy of the data are essential to keep projects and programs on track, and status reporting for the PMO leader current. Such is the duality of project management. Somewhere between project tracking and program status, the two must meet and collaborate. Both PM and PMO leader must ensure the timely and on-budget completion of the carefullyselected projects within the portfolio in their own ways, and support their individual KPIs. But project tracking isn t the only challenge: as organizations mature, your PMO (and your PPM processes) are expected to develop and grow as well. As Mbula Schoen, Senior PPM Research Analyst at Gartner states, in more mature organizations efficiency is key, as management seeks to establish a reliable process for project tracking and reporting [and reduce dependency on the skills of key performers to get work done.] 1 The inevitable shift of the organization s needs as it transforms and matures, or even on a project-by-project basis can spell trouble for PMOs without a PPM solution, or for those currently locked into an inflexible or outdated PPM tool. PMOs in their infancy may only require resource management and time/cost tracking assistance from a solution, while mature organizations utilize a more comprehensive set of capabilities, including demand intake, project and portfolio management, and reporting. Both PMs changepoint.com/products/daptiv 3

4 and the PMO leader benefit when data is integrated from the PM s tool of choice, and potentially automated via Jira or Microsoft Project, into a single, unified workspace that provides the right level of detail required by each role. Wherever your organization s maturity level may be, it in no way reduces the importance of a PPM solution that provides both the fundamentals of project management and project tracking, as well as the flexibility to meet your business needs at any level of maturity, and the sophistication to grow and evolve with your organization over time, ultimately enabling you to become a truly adaptive PMO. The following are some of the most common project tracking challenges for today s PMs and PMO leaders at all levels of organizational maturity, plus practical, real-world solutions that allow project managers and PMO leaders to seamlessly work together towards a healthy portfolio that provides value to the organization. SOLVE MY PMO LEADER CHALLENGE: Everyone wants to work within their preferred project management tools and with their own processes, so no one is on the same page Due to the intricacies and complexities of modern project management, it s vital that teams, stakeholders, and PMOs are aligned on all aspects of the project. But the greatest hindrance to uniting business units is individuals and teams desire to work within their own tools, and with their preferred methods: essentially, people working how they want, and the way they want, to produce the best results. The problem, of course, is that this creates a proliferation of project management tools across a company, leaving the enterprise landscape both siloed and fractured. And if teams, project leaders, stakeholders, and your PMO aren t on the same page when it comes to project execution (and if the project isn t laid out and tracked properly from planning to project close), the chances of failure greatly increase. I M RESPONSIBLE FOR: Accommodating the needs of multiple project teams so they can work how they want to deliver the best outcomes To truly have the best chance at success, PMO leaders and PMs need to effectively and accurately track tasks, documents, calendars, discussions, time, and budgets within the context of each project. But with widespread tool proliferation, legacy systems, and different teams working across multiple methodologies from Waterfall to Agile and everything in between it can feel nearly impossible for PMs and PMO leaders to unify teams and inspire them to rally around the successful execution of the same projects. changepoint.com/products/daptiv 4

5 SO I NEED: The flexibility to manage project execution with a process that meets the needs of the project teams A cross-enterprise PPM solution that integrates with other tools currently in use would not only unify teams around a common goal the successful execution of projects but also keep everyone who touches the project on the same page. When that same PPM solution meets the classic project management needs of time tracking and reporting, but also manages information resources, project/program and portfolio execution, and information from start to finish, it helps teams stay on the same page throughout the project lifecycle. This helps PMO leaders standardize their day-to-day processes, while also freeing up their time to focus on the greater demands of the business. THE FIX: A unified project workspace Daptiv PPM provides an efficient way to both plan and execute against projects. Serving as a common aggregation spot, PMs can track and keep teams on task, and information is readily available for reporting to stakeholders, both detailed and roll-up. Daptiv PPM provides governance around and visibility into multiple execution methodologies, acting as a single source of truth for all project execution data. This allows PMO leaders and PMs to stay on top of the logistics of project execution at all times ensuring on-time, on-budget, project delivery every time while still having the flexibility to meet project team needs, allowing everyone involved to work how they want and in the way they want to deliver the very best project outcomes. changepoint.com/products/daptiv 5

6 SOLVE MY PMO LEADER CHALLENGE: So much project data, so little time Continuous project oversight is how organizations at any level of maturity ensure that a project is tracking successfully against the original project plan. And although PMO leaders and PMs work towards on-time and on-budget project delivery, variables still exist in execution from project to project. PMs need to be able to track, monitor, and analyze every aspect milestones, risks, timelines, costs of their projects, to truly ensure successful project execution. But all too often, tool proliferation, teams working in siloes, and lack of the proper PPM technology leaves PMs in the position of chasing down people, teams, and scattered information, only to lose hours (or days) collecting important project data and manually creating updates and reports for stakeholders and teams. Keeping PMs and PMO leaders in sync around metrics and KPIs as opposed to detailed tasks is difficult: each needs project oversight, but at different altitudes. Without a single workspace, communication and collaboration break down. I M RESPONSIBLE FOR: Collecting metrics, KPIs, and tracking and monitoring statuses, issues, risks, and time for more effective project execution To successfully support their organizations, PMO leaders and PMs require a consistent method for reporting on the progress of initiatives. Good PMO leaders and PMs regularly generate easy-to-understand progress and status reports to enable teams and stakeholders to track and monitor projects, especially when it comes to demonstrating how a project is tracking against milestones, dependencies, assumptions, scope, and risks. However, the critical element of project tracking is most often challenged by a lack of effective reporting capabilities, and the fact that individual project teams have different ways of reporting statuses. The archaic processes of manually collecting metrics, meticulous data entry, and creating summary reports for executives are fraught with risk and resource cost, as decentralized, siloed information makes it all too easy to present stakeholders with outdated or inaccurate information. This can lead PMs to focus efforts in the wrong areas, thus missing key metrics, milestones, warnings, and risks. SO I NEED: The ability to manage project details in one location In an ideal world, you wouldn t have to chase down vital project data in order to communicate to project teams and report key metrics to stakeholders. Instead, you d know the status of your portfolios at all times, and be able to provide up-to-date information and data with ease. changepoint.com/products/daptiv 6

7 PMO leaders and PMs need the capabilities at hand to give business leaders a window into which projects are meeting corporate strategy and business goals, without losing time manually collecting data and creating updates and reports. A PPM solution with real-time project tracking and dynamic dashboards in a single workspace would help PMs and PMO leaders facilitate project organizations and communication, both to stakeholders and across project teams especially when the dashboards within the workspace have simple visual reporting capabilities that track and report on vital data points such as tasks, documents, milestones, risks, costs, and hours. Additionally, real-time project tracking not only to track progress, but also having the ability to instantly share project data would not only keep stakeholders, teams, and your PMO on top of project statuses in your portfolios, but also encourage organizational collaboration. Real-time tracking and visual reporting across a dynamic set of dashboards would allow the PM to identify and mitigate project risk, and the PMO leader to pivot quickly in the face of unplanned changes before they negatively impact the portfolio. THE FIX: Flexible, configurable, extensible project workspaces Within Daptiv PPM s workspaces, configurable templates, project dashboards for PMs, and portfolio dashboards for PMO leaders make it simple to drive the project lifecycle from concept to close. Daptiv PPM can be configured by user type and the unique ways they manage their contributions to projects, programs, and the portfolio. This is important because PM and PMO leaders KPIs are different; while each must successfully operate within their own responsibilities, communication and collaboration between them are paramount. For example, Daptiv PPM makes it easy to configure workspaces to meet your specific needs for portfolio management and project tracking by providing consistent analysis and real-time reporting on project delivery and overall portfolio health. That means PMs and PMO leaders can track vital project metrics in a single workspace, and effectively communicate around project expectations such as velocity, constraints, issues, and risks, while also having the ability to accurately and effectively report on the KPIs, plus operational and financial metrics that stakeholders require. changepoint.com/products/daptiv 7

8 SOLVE MY PMO LEADER CHALLENGE: The investment of time and energy of assembling project data can detract from the big picture Visibility into task status, time, and cost is difficult to achieve. Not only is manual data entry and reporting inherently risky to project success, but it s also a time-consuming and expensive process that often leads to a further disconnect between PMO leaders and stakeholders. But even PMO leaders and PMs working within PPM tools risk wasting time, trying to amalgamate data from disparate work management tools utilized cross-department and cross-company. In both cases, micro-managing tasks and over-reporting take the focus away from where it should be on the project itself and create further divisions between the PMO and the rest of the company. As Gartner notes in its recent Leadership Vision for 2018: Program and Portfolio Management Leader research report, delivering data all the time with little thought to how the data will aid in quick decision making, and what answers that the data provides to senior management, is just not very helpful. 2 To keep senior leaders looped in with what s happening within projects and save valuable time, PMO leaders and PMs need to abandon the traditional PPM practice of meticulous data entry in the PPM tools that no one but the person entering the data fully understands or really cares about, understand the kind of data and information that leadership is truly seeking, and provide just enough of the right data...about ongoing initiatives, keeping it simple [enough to] give directional guidance. 3 I M RESPONSIBLE FOR: Compiling all information in one place and quickly assessing where things stand When your job as a PM or PMO leader is to manage initiatives from start to finish and control project progress, resources, risks, financials, scope, and quality, you need a way to efficiently manage all project data, including task lists, resources, change requests, and more. You also need the ability to track tasks, monitor and track projects in their entirety, oversee calendars, and facilitate communication within the context of each project. To avoid wasting time and bogging down leadership with information that creates confusion rather than clarity, you need a way to compile all project information in one place, quickly assess where things stand, and customize project summaries for an at-a-glance look at project components. This not only gives stakeholders exactly the kind of information they need, but also saves you time from being sidetracked by endless task management and ongoing data entry, allowing you to keep your focus where it needs to be: on the project itself and its impact on the portfolio. changepoint.com/products/daptiv 8

9 SO I NEED: An end-to-end process for reporting on the project lifecycle While PMs need an end-to-end process for managing the project lifecycle from initiating, planning, and executing, to monitoring and closing projects the PMO leader needs to quickly assess the status of the projects and programs in-flight. A PPM solution with a holistic and integrated approach comes with more benefits than just time-saving efficiency: the right PPM tool can help PMO leaders and PMs manage multiple types of teams, processes, tools, projects, and work styles and methodologies, and report on the right kind of data. THE FIX: Gain an organized approach to managing projects and programs The Project Summaries and History feature within Daptiv PPM makes it easy to plan and deliver on end-to-end initiatives, greatly simplifying the entire project management and tracking process. With all of the information in one place, PMO leaders and PMs can customize project summaries, quickly assess and manage tasks, resources and risks, and access historical data to monitor project progression and answer whether execution is on track. This organized approach to managing projects, programs, and operations is not only transparent and predictable, but also provides the necessary governance to oversee all aspects of projects, and allows PMO leaders and PMs to be seen as true collaborators within the organization, both as informed coaches to project teams and trusted partners to business stakeholders. changepoint.com/products/daptiv 9

10 SOLVE MY PMO LEADER CHALLENGE: Tracking time and costs for multiple projects and teams is time-consuming for team members and PMs, and often inaccurate In the age of digitalization, time is of the essence, which can present extra challenges when it comes to tracking time and costs for multiple projects and teams processes which are both time-sensitive and require transparency. Business leaders must align projects to corporate objectives and keep a close eye on their spend, without wasting time and effort finding out a given project s financial status and how it rolls up including OpEx. Team members undermine the accuracy of time spent on a project when timesheets are not regularly and accurately completed. I M RESPONSIBLE FOR: Keeping OpEx and CapEx on budget It s up to PMs and PMO leaders to accurately estimate time and budget for labor and other costs during project planning stages, and dynamically track and adjust material expenses throughout the life of a project. One of the most challenging aspects of project management is balancing the alignment of projects to corporate objectives with the ongoing process of cost tracking: that is, estimating budgets, staying on top of project and team expenses, and continually updating forecasts and changes through all phases of the project lifecycle. SO I NEED: A time and tracking interface that is easy to use, and a cost-tracking capability that brings in data from financial systems PMs and PMO leaders tasked with tracking time and expenses for projects and teams need a PPM solution that provides easy compliance for team members to submit time. A mobile time-tracking application provides timeliness and accuracy of OpEx data, and improves visibility into actual, planned, and budgeted project plans. This intuitive, cost-tracking interface provides multiple levels of reporting in real-time. Keeping it simple is best, and the ability to easily create time and expense budgets, as well as monitor detailed financial forecasting and project budgets in real time, would enable managers and stakeholders to understand the status of all costs both resource and financial associated with any given project. Changepoint

11 THE FIX: Timely and accurate time tracking and cost reporting For resource managers, project managers and project team members who need to track time for projects and teams, Daptiv PPM provides vital visibility with its intuitive time and cost-tracking interface. Multiple levels of reporting enable managers and stakeholders to understand the status and analyze the impact of course correction. Daptiv PPM makes it easy to create multiple dashboards to provide at-a-glance views of data, either by project, portfolio, or user, so that anyone can track planned and actual expenses, or alternately use a more sophisticated three-tiered model for tracking capital orders, purchase orders, and invoices. The built-in labor rate functionality, combined with material expenses, even lets you calculate labor cost estimates. You are armed with a complete, up-to-date, and accurate picture of project finances, helping ensure the ontime, on-budget delivery of all of the projects in your portfolio. With Daptiv PPM, the PMO gains visibility from Agile, ERP, ITSM or other systems, while still managing overall project and portfolio data. The integration of disparate project data such as financials, resources, and projects, provides more executive visibility into tasks, time, and costs through reports and dashboards. Changepoint

12 PROJECT TRACKING: A PMO PARTNERSHIP IN PROJECT DELIVERY AND PORTFOLIO BALANCE PMs and PMO leaders know that to be truly successful at navigating the ups and downs of projects in today s complex digital business landscape, companies can t afford to mismanage or incorrectly track their projects. But it s not uncommon for bystanders in the organization those not in the PMO to underestimate the importance of tight project management, or view it as strict governance that hinders productivity and timely completion of projects. Conversely, some consider it the most important discipline within the PMO a stand-alone silo that gets the work done. PMO leaders can empower their PMs by providing a tool that will increase communication across project teams, reduce the reporting effort, provide more time to manage projects, and improve the PM s ability to anticipate project barriers before they impact the cost of the project and portfolio. With the partnership of PMs and the increase of on-time, on-budget project delivery, the PMO leader is better prepared to balance the entire portfolio management process. The acknowledgment of each important contribution to achieve the strongest portfolio impact improves the relevance of the PMO within the organization, and provides the PMs with the personal and professional recognition that drives them each day. A PPM solution that integrates multiple tools and processes, enables speed and efficiency with rich visualizations, and real-time reporting on all project data, provides end-to-end task management throughout the project lifecycle, and supports time and cost-tracking benefits every contributor within the PMO. The right PPM solution can catapult the PMO to cross-company collaborator status instead of governance police. As organizations grow and change due to digital disruption, the path to transformation will be paved by projects. The expectation is for the PMO to adapt and evolve, which includes utilizing a PPM solution that is flexible enough to grow and change with the company. At any level of maturity, the key to success begins with a flexible PPM tool that sets up projects (and your PMO) for success every time, allowing you to become truly adaptive as you continue to provide value and rise to power within your organization. 1 Schoen, Mbula. Four Types of PMOs that Deliver Value. Gartner, June Schoen, Mbula. Leadership Vision for 2018: Program and Portfolio Management Leader. Gartner, August changepoint.com/products/daptiv 12

13 About Daptiv PPM & Changepoint Daptiv PPM is a highly-configurable SaaS application for managing projects, programs, and portfolios from start to finish. Gain control around planning, adapting, and delivering the right projects with Daptiv PPM. To learn more, visit or call Changepoint provides Program and Portfolio Management, Enterprise Architecture, and Professional Services Automation solutions that transform business by giving executives, management, and teams new ways to collaborate, align investments, and drive IT transformation and business growth. Gain visibility, mitigate risk, and accelerate capacity and velocity in today s changing business landscape with Changepoint. changepoint.com/products/daptiv 13