Sustainability In Project Portfolio And Program

Introduction 

Adoption of a project portfolio management (PPM) is aimed at improving the strategic gains in order for an organization to achieve its success and sustainability of goals Jonas, 2010). Its focus is towards benefits maximization having developed around a centralized view

Unclear circumstances exist in knowing whether there exist a specific PPM for adding more value as compared to others (LaBrose, 2010).

• Organizational view on the PPM introduction

Pipeline management view. The organization view PPM introduction as a pipeline management in terms its ability of aligning the process of making decisions for a finite resource development within the specified time.

Resource management view. A greater view of PPM to be a resource manager is attached by an organization for an efficient and effective resource deployment (Meskendahl,2010).

Current project management and the scope.

Steps involved in project management include;

 i:  The groundwork. This involves identification of key project stakeholders, benefits and metrics identification (Jonas, 2010).

1. Requirements for project clarity. This ensures that all the concerned stakeholders get a clear understanding concerning the project requirements (Jonas, 2010).

iii. Scheduling and risk planning.

1. Communication plan.  Communication at every project phase is crucial for project success and its visibility
2. Monitoring and control. At the commencement of the project, project managers track the progress and keep on passing communication to their seniors and also to their esteemed customers (Tuner, 2014).    
3. Delivering project artifacts in order to meet the milestone.

Scope for improvement 

Though the project can be complicate in nature, scope for improvement can be achieved through minimization of risks and errors (Beringer & Kock, 2013).

Incorporating sustainability criteria

Analytic tools can be used by an organization in assessment of its sustainability as well as being used in the broad management process (Teller, Unger & Gemunden, 2012). Risk assessment tools, environmental justice which are friendly, analysis of benefit-cost mechanism as well as the evaluation of ecosystem are some of the major potential tools which can be used by the organization in incorporating the criteria of confirmed sustainability (Jonas, 2010). Integration of the assessment sustainability and the process of management into decision policies-making involves making a summary of the key outcomes of the valuation basing on trade-off analysis that gives a highlight on the impressions on very imperative social, economic goals and environmental objectives. This is an important step which is shadowed by results presentation to the hands of decision makers (Tuner, 2014).

These assessments, sustainability and management, ought to incorporate confident key characteristics which include, but not limited to;

1. System-based and all-inclusive; alternative option analysis ought to be inclusive of an integrated valuation of the consequences of social, economic and environmental factors
2. Intergenerational: The long-termed penalties must be gaged besides the more instantaneous consequences.

• Collaboration and direct involvement of the stakeholders: There should be a complete involvement of the stakeholders through the entire process.

The requirements of conducting an assessment on the life-cycle should be focused primarily on the full social suite, environmental as well as economic impacts. A much length of time is taken to complete a formal analysis of sustainability therefore, an organization ought to provide a matched-level with a deep analysis of the scale of consequences of the immediate judgements at hand (Laslo, 2010).

 This process ought to be carried out for the foremost decisions with a greater influence on several sustainability pillars. Such a deep analysis should never be undertaken under minor routines but an approach which is systematic in nature could be considered for addressing sustainability (Killen & Hunt, 2010).

Decision making is required in matching of the detail, latitude and the intensity. This challenge can be overcome by having a screened evaluation scope. This can be achieved by applying the assessment tools to programs and to the policies of the organization (Beringer, Jonas &Georg, 2012).

 The approach of screening evaluation determines if it is paramount to undertake the assessment as the first step of the process. Such policy would have great influence on the three pillars-economic, social and environmental pillars (Killen, Jugdev, Drouin & Petit, 2012).

Opportunities and threats.

• Likely successes experienced

An organization that has adopted project portfolio management enjoys five key sorts of benefits;

1. Improved decision making. The first issue of concern of project portfolio is its drive towards a better decision making for an organization. With a better handle on post project metrics, prediction of the future aspects becomes much easy for example, when the organization is well conversant with the things happening in its present project portfolio, it can evaluate the projects that are less contributive in meeting the corporate objectives. A combination of a project portfolio and solid technology allows the organization in modeling several circumstances of making sure that projects added will add to commercial objectives and not drag down supplementary projects (Teller & Kock, 2013).
2. Risk minimization. An organization which has adopted project portfolio enjoys the benefit of minimal risks because one of the paramount ability of a portfolio is the avoidance or reduction of exposure to risks. Such risks include financial, misdirected efforts, resource utilization   among others. After the reduction of governance threats, building a framework for accountability for ensuring a correct step of compliance, becomes the goal (Jonas & Gemunden, 2013).

• Resource maximization. Due to a greater notch of visibility, on the internal and external levels, high possibility for the organization to gain control over projects. Reduction in the organization’s projects costs is important in a centralized approach through the removal or reduction of a duplicate effort (Turner, J. R. (2014)).

1. Value prove to the stakeholders. A stakeholder is anyone who has bestowed an interest in a project. A lot of benefits accrue when a functional portfolio is perceived and achieved by an organization. It is possible for stakeholders to access the information they need freely and easily without necessarily sorting numerous data which is very irrelevant and at times, confusing (Kaiser, El & Ahlemann, 2015).  
2. Enabling of a repeated success. The project portfolio demonstrates an environment which contributes to repeatable success which can be predicted. Moreover, technological framework is provided in order to allows an organization to repeatedly meet its business objectives (Meskendhal,2010).

Challenges likely to be faced. 

1. Constant monitoring makes the team members uneasy. Because project portfolio requires that a constant and regular monitoring be done and also requiring them to have a deeper know-how concerning the progression of the project.  
2. What to expect is not clear. The management of the organization has got no hint of what to anticipate from the schemes. This failure of identifying a right project is what makes it a liability(LaBrosse,2010).

• Dynamic changes are what bring unclear understanding among the staff. As it has become a norm, dynamic changes in any organization faces resistance to adoption.

1. Immaturity on the side of the project management to be in courtesy of project portfolio management. As the level of maturity increases, the easier the implementation of the project portfolio and the vice versa is true.
2. No early-stage identification of risks. This is due to the fact that it has to follow a series of channels before it is noticed.

Possible solutions to the challenges

Some of the problems experienced can be either solved by trying to eliminate or minimized to a greater instance. Some of the possible solutions to the above challenges include;

1. The organization ought to know its capabilities. The project portfolio functions may be so popular, but they must suit the infrastructure and the protocols of the organization
2. Sharing the necessary knowledge with teams of relevance concerning the benefits as well as the values of the project portfolio. This also includes the way of providing higher outcomes through often evaluation of the process aimed at lessening the resistance (EPMC& Enterprise Portfolio Management Council, 2009).
3. Encouraging senior management to agree on using common or the same protocols for their projects which fall under an identical portfolio in order to enable faster institutionalization of the process.
4. Concerning resistance to change, a platform where open dialogue is conducted by those resisting change. It is the role of the management to ensure those in resistance are provided with an enabling environment for raising their risks and other important concerns (Jonas,2010).
5. Doing the work in phases instead of one shot in order to incorporate new trends and emerging customer needs.
6. Having a manual back-up. In order to avoid sole dependency on the PPM tools, leveraging of manual control should be done in order to achieve better results.

Development of the plan

1. Key elements of a plan to introduce PPM
2. Centralized view. Current inventory preparations are the 1^stpace in adopting PPM approaches into an organization. This is preferably done via a central point which is responsible for collection, analyzation and distribution of information formatted commonly (Meskendhal,2010).
3. Financial analysis. Professional metrics are done in order to capture risks associated with assets as well as capturing returns. Multiple techniques are created to adequately help in measuring project financial value (Beringer & Kock, 2010).

• Risk analysis. Failure of assessing risk for an individual project and aggregate risk for the project’s portfolio are the main reasons as to why there is project failure. A portfolio is built on the overall risk with a portfolio reward but not only one feature being considered.

1. Reduction of inter-program resource competition is the main advantage of PPM as it turns overlapping of a program to interdependencies which are productive.
2. Scarcity of human resources, budgets, capabilities of the staff and infrastructure are the four major constraints types.
3. Selection and prioritization. Project selection for composing a portfolio must ensure proper addressing organization strategies.

Type of PPM model

I strongly propose that a P3O model be used.  P3O is an abbreviation (Portfolio, Programmes and Project Office) which is a decision-enabling besides support delivery structure inside the organization. It explains whether the right thing is being done, whether the right way is followed and whether the business is getting the right benefits or not(LaBrosse,2010).

Reasons for choosing P3O model

• Provision of control and organizational governance. This model support governance by scrutinizing to ensure return of portfolio investment via delivery of effective management.
• It provides a relevant, accurate information which is timely to help in supporting decision making.
•  Embedding industry, PPM and gateway assurance for the best practice and learnt-lesson sharing.

Implementing PPM

In implementing a PPM in an organization, the plan should be placed surrounding the key elements that bring great impact to each stage in the organization and also basing on the challenges facing the organization (Meskedahl,2010). Below is a three-stage of implementing PPM;

First stage: Portfolio inventory

Here, the following processes are fixed:

• Administering a centralized project
• Procedures for evaluating procedures
• Resource constraint implementation

                      Second stage: Portfolio administration

Installation of the below processes is paramount at this stage:

• Categorizing the project
• Customer impact evaluation on the PPM results

Organizations have adopted well defined objectives at this stage.

Third stage: Portfolio optimization

Installation of the processes below is important at this stage;

• PPM committee
• Financial worthiness assessment for the portfolio
• Project interdependencies management
• Project benefits track.

The respondents of this stage have a claim that all the PPM aspects have increased returns on the project investment.

Tools and Techniques

1. Analytic tools and techniques. These help in organizing the confusing metrics growth into 3 bigger categories and later help in determining the importance attached to such categories to an organization. Such categories include cost versus value, strategic alignment and continuous assessment.
2. Charts for Capital vs. expense. For organizations managing both capital as well as expense budget, a simple comparison helps in ensuring budgetary problems cannot be discovered afterwards.

• Portfolio value and cost. Helps in tracking the relationship of the cost of producing work and the investment return.

I therefore recommend the organization to use Capital versus expense tools because it is through this evaluation that it get to know the deficits and the surpluses and also provides a mechanism for solving such issues (Heising, 2012).

Impacts of PPM to an organization.

Positive impacts.

• Inventory maintenance of projects
• It provides a clear declaration of the objectives of an organization
• Information consolidation concerning the standardized project analysis
• Project interdependencies.

Negative impacts. 

• Different intensities of adopting PPM. This impact the working culture negatively
• Causes adoption resistance especially due to an improper know-how of PPM structure by the workforce of an organization.
• It gives the senior management a headache of absorbing the role of PPM in benefit and the purpose evaluation (Beringer & Kock,2013).

Conclusion 

An organization should adopt a PPM framework. Three stages of adopting PPM have been shown using a clustered analysis. Correlation of benefits accrued from PPM adoption and the challenges show a significant positive attribute on the projects returns as well as negative impact on the related problems which are concerned with the project

References

Beringer, C., Jonas, D., & Georg Gemünden, H. (2012). Establishing project portfolio management: An exploratory analysis of the influence of internal stakeholders' interactions. Project Management Journal, 43(6), 16-32.

Beringer, C., Jonas, D., & Kock, A. (2013). Behavior of internal stakeholders in project portfolio management and its impact on success. International Journal of Project Management, 31(6), 830-846.

EPMC, Inc., & Enterprise Portfolio Management Council. (2009). Project portfolio management: A view from the management trenches. John Wiley & Sons.

Heising, W. (2012). The integration of ideation and project portfolio management—A key factor for sustainable success. International Journal of Project Management, 30(5), 582-595.

Jonas, D. (2010). Empowering project portfolio managers: How management involvement impacts project portfolio management performance. International Journal of Project Management, 28(8), 818-831.

Jonas, D., Kock, A., & Gemünden, H. G. (2013). Predicting project portfolio success by measuring management quality—a longitudinal study. IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management, 60(2), 215-226.

Kaiser, M. G., El Arbi, F., & Ahlemann, F. (2015). Successful project portfolio management beyond project selection techniques: Understanding the role of structural alignment. International Journal of Project Management, 33(1), 126-139.

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Killen, C. P., Jugdev, K., Drouin, N., & Petit, Y. (2012). Advancing project and portfolio management research: Applying strategic management theories. International Journal of Project Management, 30(5), 525-538.

LaBrosse, M. (2010). Project?portfolio management. Employment relations today, 37(2), 75-79.

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Teller, J., Unger, B. N., Kock, A., & Gemünden, H. G. (2012). Formalization of project portfolio management: The moderating role of project portfolio complexity. International Journal of Project Management, 30(5), 596-607.

Turner, J. R. (2014). Handbook of project-based management (Vol. 92). New York, NY: McGraw-hill.

Unger, B. N., Gemünden, H. G., & Aubry, M. (2012). The three roles of a project portfolio management office: Their impact on portfolio management execution and success. International Journal of Project Management, 30(5), 608-620.