Project portfolio management – Therersquo;s more to it than
what management enacts
Abstract：
Although companies manage project portfolios concordantly with project portfolio theory, they may experience problems in the form of delayed projects, resource struggles, stress, and a lack of overview. Based on a research project compromised of 128 in-depth interviews in 30 companies, we propose that a key reason why companies do not do well in relation to project portfolio management (PPM) is that PPM often only covers a subset of on-going projects, while projects that are not subject to PPM tie up resources that initially were dedicated to PPM projects. We address and discuss the dilemma of wanting to include all projects in PPM, and aiming at keeping the resource and cognitive burden of doing PPM at a reasonable level.
Keywords：Managing programmes， Managing projects，Organisation resources， Strategy
- Introduction
At any given point in time, most companies engage in many projects. Some of these projects may relate to product development and marketing, others relate to changes in work processes and production flows, while yet others relate to competency development, strategic turns, the implementation of new IT systems, environmental issues etc.
A key managerial task is to dedicate resources across all of these projects (as well as do daily work) and consequently,management across projects (project portfolio management (PPM)) is critical to company performance.This paper is based on a large-scale qualitative study,which shows that many project-oriented companies do not perform well when it comes to PPM. This relates to the inability to accomplish projects that are initiated. In particular, we identify the following problems:
(1) Projects are not completed according to plan (or they even peter out during their project life cycle);
(2) Management and employees feel they lack a broad overview of on-going projects (especially when the number of on-going projects increases as more and more projects are not completed according to plan);
- People experience stress as resources are continuously reallocated across projects in order to make ends meet.
These observations are especially interesting because the companies were included in the research project because they were supposed to be especially,experienced in PPM, and because they actually engage in PPM according to the extant body of literature on PPM. For example, part of the companiesrsquo; PPM included an effort to pick the best projects on the basis of explicit or implicit criteria, and an effort to allocate sufficient resources to these projects.
However, despite efforts,to practice lsquo;goodrsquo; PPM, these companies experience severe problems in relation to PPM – especially in letting enough resources go into the lsquo;rightrsquo; projects. The purpose of this paper is to confront PPM as advocated by normative theories with actual PPM practices. Hence, the purpose is to confront PPM theories with PPM as perceived by managers and other employees for whom PPM is part of, or affects, their work conditions.
However, in this paper, we are more interested in PPM as enacted by companies than in universally true perceptions. Hence, we adhere to Weickrsquo;s [1–3] notion of enactment as the preconceptions that are used to set aside a portion of the field of experience for further attention. In regard to PPM, enacted projects are thus the ones management sets aside for further attention (i.e. PPM). As such, we focus especially on ways actors define or enact projects [4] and make sense of how to manage the sum of the projects. Drawing on this perspective, we account for findings that suggest why companies that do engage in PPM still experience problems.
2. Project portfolio theory
This paper draws on Archer and Ghasemzadehrsquo;s [5, p.208] definition of project portfolios as lsquo;lsquo;a group of projects that are carried out under the sponsorship and/or management of a particular organizationrsquo;rsquo;. Henceforth, we define PPM as the managerial activities that relate to
(1) the initial screening, selection and prioritisation of project proposals,
(2) the concurrent reprioritisation of projects in the portfolio,
(3) the allocation and reallocation of resources to projects according to priority.
For quite some time researchers have suggested that low completion rates for new product development (NPD) projects and new product failure relate to resource deficiencies in key areas [6,7]. Furthermore, while a host of researchers [8–10] have focused on the dimension of PPM that concerns processes relating to selection of projects to be included in the portfolio, research e.g. [11] also increasingly focuses on the day-today management of the project portfolio.
3. Methodology
Over a period of two years, we did empirical research on how companies manage their entire range of projects, e.g. renewal projects, strategic projects, IT projects, departmentally specific projects, and production based projects. In relation to the selection of companies to be included in the empirical study, a key criterion was that the study should cover a wide variety of industries. As a result, the empirical study covers 30 companies from industries as diverse as, e.g. mobile telephone communications, finances, energy, pharmaceuticals, toys, software, and foods.
However, due to the fact that we were looking for companies, where the amount of on-going projects suggested they were engaged in PPM, the study is biased towards larger companies as well as companies that define at least a substantial part of their activities as projects. The degree to which the companies participated in the study varies. Hence, half of the companies are labelled lsquo;inner circlersquo; companies due to the fa
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