Portfolio Project Management

The paper is divided into three sections, the first of which will establish a timeline of events. This project background will serve as a case study for the analysis in the following section that will be structured such that each of the previously mentioned facets will be independently analyzed and contrasted with project management principles. Finally the paper will conclude with a summary of the analysis and recommendations based on

In the current business environment, the demand for project managers is ever growing. In short, project management is a provisional project constrained by time, cost and scope (A guide to the project management body of knowledge, 2013). Between the immense organization, optimization, and communication assets skilled project management brings to a project, it is easy to see why project management is a booming field of study. Furthermore, project management can be both financially and personally rewarding when long term milestones and goals come to fruition.

Successful organizations are always looking for ways to improve process and procedures, increase revenues and profits, while staying relevant in today’s business world. Strong leadership is the backbone of any organization and is the catalyst for driving a culture of innovation and change. Organizations looking to make small or large-scale changes typically do so through the implementation of work projects. Projects are collaborative efforts carefully planned and designed to achieve a specific goal. According to Young (2010), “projects take careful planning, and a successful project is one that is done on time and within budget” (p.344). Project management is the activity of planning, organizing, motivating, and controlling resources, while monitoring procedures and timelines, and usually has an assigned project manager (PM). Organizations such as Apple are known to have many projects in motion at any given time. This many projects happening simultaneously can be extremely complex, expensive, and taxing on resources, but somehow Apple has managed to implement project after project with huge success.

After completely reading the Study, Environmentalism among College Students: A Sociological Investigation, I found that Lang and Podeschi effectively “set the stage” and provided relevant background information on the topic and relevance of their research. I thought their introduction was well constructed, giving the reader an idea of the focal point of the research and the researcher’s intentions. In their introduction, Lang and Podeschi stated the recent trends in Americans awareness about environmental issues and the varying attitudes and behaviors based on a number of social and cultural variables. Which provided the relevance of their study.

Strategic management assists with determining projects that are continuing in a company. Project management and portfolio management progress through the strategic management which assists in the development and strengthening the processes. Strategic management assists with determining projects that are continuing in a company. Portfolio management will support the organizations program and overall objectives. The organizations strategy with the performance in the resources and strategies involved.

Using project management offers a business a way for dealing with considerably lowered phase times. With businesses operating internationally projects that can have an effect on the company as a whole are not easy to manage without a proper line of attack. For this, project management would help cross functional teams to be more successful.

The implementation of a project portfolio management initiative relies on the integration of massive change within the company, meaning that the organizational effort to implementing this approach might be met with resistance. One common barrier is revealed at the level of senior management. In a specific context of a construction firm in which I was previously employed, the executive managers were focused on profitability and operational efficiency, understood as the ability to maximize benefits while minimizing costs (Gaspar, 2005).

Organizations leaders are facing difficult challenges because of the rapid changes in government and technology, which has created pressure in organizations. The aforementioned changes have made way for a new type of management; project management, far different from the traditional structure for managing. This document will describe the definition of a project. The paper will also touch basis on the basic phases of the project life cycle and their purposes, and why it is important for organizations to use project management to accomplish tasks.

Project Portfolio Management (PPM) is the centralized management of the processes, methods, and technologies used by project managers and project management offices (PMOs) to analyze and collectively manage current or proposed projects based on numerous key characteristics.

The IT portfolio management process rationalizes an organization’s suite of IT applications to meet its business needs. IT portfolio managers analyze existing applications, current and future projects to identify gaps and risks within an organization’s IT portfolio. Project portfolio management (PPM) ensures that projects have a set of objectives, which when followed brings about the expected results. Therefore, PPM can be used to bring out changes to the organization which will create a flexible structure within the organization in terms of project execution. In this manner, the changes would deal with risks the appropriate way to accomplish the strategic goals for the organization.

Project management has grown beyond the confines of simplistic canned applications into a discipline that is in large part process, combined with common sense and inspiration. The process of Project and Portfolio Management (PPM) derives from the practices common to project management, as expressed in applications and tools developed to help project managers collaborate with project team’s cross-enterprise.

Works with other project managers in other departments and maintain a relationship to perform effective tasks for the projects and evaluate the impact of existing portfolio on projects.

"As its name implies, project portfolio management groups projects so they can be managed as a portfolio, much as an investor would manage his stocks, bonds and mutual funds" (Solomon 2002:1). As an international paper purveyor, Scott Paper sells a wide range of products in a variety of markets. To manage new product development, it analyzes projects according to four distinct categories in its system of portfolio management. The first category pertains to supply chain issues, or issues related to product cost, manufacturing feasibility and shelf life. The second category relates to market opportunities such as customer demand, value proposition and instrumentality. The third rates the product's alignment with overall brand positioning and the fourth rates the product's ability to respond to competitive threats and responses. Project management does not simply make it easier to manage projects in a logistical fashion. "Discussions aren't just about how much a project will cost, but also about its anticipated risks and returns in relation to other projects. This way, entire portfolios can be jiggered to produce the highest returns based on current conditions" (Solomon 2002:1).

The second major process that is heavily examined in projects is portfolio management. This is an essential area to be observed by managers because projects in countless organizations are performed in an ad-hoc manner. Further, managers often select various processes in an informal decision making process as a result of some internal requirements.

The business environment of today is complex; thereby faster decisions have to be made and better allocation of resource is essential with a clearer focus of the future. This poses a major problem to senior management because organizations consist of a changing mix of large and small projects which brings new challenges in prioritization of projects, resource planning and monitoring (Elonen and Artto, 2003). According to Engwall and Jerbant (2003) cited in Kaizer et al., 2015, the number of available project alternatives far outnumber the projects an organization can handle at a given time with its limited resources, and making the right choice from all these alternatives is rarely easy. Mankins and Steele (2005) cited in Meskendahl (2010) posits that only 63% of strategies’ potential values are realized by firms and Johnson (2004) cited in Meskendahl (2010) reveals that about 66% of corporate strategy is never realised. Nonetheless, Hrebiniak (2006) cited in Meskendahl (2010) states that making strategy work is more difficult than making strategy itself. In other words, it is difficult for firms to put strategy into action. This is where Project portfolio management (PPM) comes in. Building on this, the aim of this essay is to evaluate PPM elements in an organization, discuss the tools and criteria used to support the decision making and evaluation of project success, and consider the significance of PPM for other organizations that may want to consider it.