Consultancy Report on Project Selection and Portfolio Management

A. Project Selection and Portfolio Management

For this assessment you have to choose one the following scenarios: 

You can select a company and a project you are working on or you have worked on in the past. If you choose this scenario your report should start with a short description of the company and project

In 2018 the Hilti Group (i.e., a multinational company that develops, manufactures and sales professional product for the construction sector), has decided after 20 years to update the IT software used by its marketing and sales employees and migrate from SAP to Salesforce (i.e., a new could-based CRM system). This change requires the migration of all information from the old SAP to the new Salesforce software and re-skilling of all IT, marketing and sales employees. The project is still running and by the time it will be completed, more than 20.000 employees across 23 countries will been involved and/or affected by this transformation. This project currently represents one of the biggest steps in Hilti’s digital transformation strategy to date.

Here are some additional resources for background information:

Scenario 3 – 

In the spring of 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the University of Cambridge, together with other UK Universities, suddenly migrated all its undergraduate and post-graduate teaching online. In the summer of 2020, the University of Cambridge announced that all lectures will be permanently online until the summer of 2021. This migration to online teaching requires a big change in the programs and modules structure and material, a re-skilling of lecturers and students. It also entails an increase of overall digital literacy including the adoption of software for online teaching and online exams and a re-thinking of the students’ experience. This represents one of the biggest projects that the University of Cambridge has run in the recent years.

You have been asked by the Chief Executive Officer of the company of your chosen scenario to provide a consultancy report about the project that is going to be delivered. The report must cover the following:

A. Project Selection and Portfolio Management Review the company website of your chosen scenario, examine its strategic goals and directions and, based on this research, explain what type of projects you would expect the company to pursue and provide reasons why. Afterwards, advise the company about which screening module you suggest using for the project selection (e.g., checklist, simplified scoring, analytical hierarchy, profile) and critically justify your recommendation

Finally, give recommendations to the company on how to effectively manage a project portfolio and explain why (e.g., you can use the project portfolio matrix or any other relevant frameworks or theoretical models to support your argument).

Please note, for this task you have to have to study the company of your chosen scenario and give them general recommendations on how to select projects and manage a portfolio of projects. You do not need to focus on the specific project presented in the scenario.

B. The Organisational Context

This part of the report focuses on the specific project presented in your chosen scenario. Based on your previous discussion of the company’s strategic goals and directions, critical discuss how, in your opinion, the project is linked to company’s strategic choice (you can use the TOWS matrix, or any other relevant frameworks or theoretical models to support your discussion). Once the link between company’s strategy and project has been defined, recommend the organisational structure (i.e., functional, divisional, project, matrix, hybrid, network or any other relevant organisational structure) that the company should adopt to increase the likelihood of success of the project. With the support of academic literature, critically discuss what would be strengths and weakness of the recommended organisational structure and the impact on the project.