Management of Portfolios

If the portfolio approach is too technical it can hinder the flexibility desired by top management. Instead, one should push to implement the portfolio from a business approach that sees the value contributed by each project. Accordingly, one must partly look at the project capacity as a politically determined entity.

Portfolio management is better managed when looked at from an organisational perspective, as the portfolio selection is political.

There is a strong tendency among the company’s management (and middle management) of initiating more projects for the operational team than it can handle. In those situations, the quality of the deliveries will not improve by demanding specific project methods. The framework conditions that the projects have in the company must be adjusted to influence the project level. Therefore, fruitful changes would involve management through portfolio management. Governance and portfolio control are primarily about three things:

• Priorities: Who should prioritise what, why, when, and how?
• Transparency: Distinctly, who oversees what, when, and how to finance and the specific details of the projects?
• Overview: To create an overview of the overall program and project portfolio and the overall status of the individual projects.