Project portfolio management- different organisations have come up with different concepts for this term. The term has been used interchangeably to signify similar phrases such as strategic project management or IT project management.
IT portfolio management is different from project management.
What Is IT Project Portfolio Management?
Managing IT projects involve meeting the pre-determined budget, schedules, and delivery criteria per project.
However, Portfolio Management has the larger objective of enhancing and optimising the total outcome of all related IT projects by consistently balancing risk, expenses, and ROI. With PPM, you can optimise your overall management of resources and infrastructure.
The project portfolio isn't a collection of projects having similar requirements, objectives or belonging to a similar category. It is a specifically structured collection of projects that demonstrates the bigger picture of value to organisations than any particular project.
Although there's a fair overlap between portfolio components such as teams, leaders, enterprise release management tools, materials or objectives, portfolios never represent random categorisation of projects.
Various misconceptions have emerged about portfolio management pertaining to the roles and responsibilities, the techniques used and various other aspects.
In this blog, we'll discuss some prevalent myths about portfolio management.
3 Common Myths About Portfolio Management
Myth 1- Any Business head or team lead can be a project portfolio manager
Many experienced managers and budding professionals include" project management" as a skill in their resume or LinkedIn profile without having formal training, education or exposure to actual PPM.
Managing portfolios and managing projects and programs are vastly different. Almost all projects have a finish date. However, virtually all portfolios generally don't have any expiration or end date and need to be managed indefinitely. The aim of portfolio management is to optimise business value.
IT portfolio management is focused at a strategic level that assists in translating strategy into execution and results.
Some major responsibilities of a portfolio manager include:
- Develops portfolio processes
- Process accountability
- Establishing effective communication and education
- Portfolio reporting and analytics
Myth 2: IT Project portfolio managers are actively involved in the projects and program nomination, prioritisation and alignment with your organisational strategy.
A PPM, in extremely rare cases, has singular decision-making authority for project selection, prioritisation, and strategic alignment.
This is the collaborative responsibility of the PPM, stakeholders and most importantly, the portfolio governance team. This misconception is due to the understanding that just like project managers are responsible for managing end-to-end projects, Portfolio Managers should manage all the major decisions within the portfolio.
PPMs are typically responsible for the portfolio management processes. However, the direct power to select, prioritise, and align projects according to your organisation's business strategy lies with the senior leaders' portfolio governance team.
Myth 3: To qualify as a portfolio manager, you'll need to first become a project manager
This statement is only partially true. Project managers can qualify as portfolio managers with specific training and experience. But it's not necessary that a PPM needs to be a project manager first.
For portfolio management, you'll need a varying skill set from project management. Portfolio Analysts will not require project management expertise for becoming successful and high-performing Portfolio Analysts.
Experienced and senior portfolio analysts with desired skill set often progress to become Project Portfolio Managers.
Hire project portfolio managers with relevant experience in the portfolios you're venturing in for optimal outcomes.
