In a previous blog post, I commented on doing portfolio management ‘by hand’ to learn the processes before adopting a robust portfolio tool. In a recent discussion on LinkedIn, one consultant commented that this most successful PPM software implementations occurred when companies took a phased approach to ease in the new solution. The first phase involved simpler tools to allow the organization to become familiar with portfolio management, followed by the full implementation with the advanced PPM capabilities.
After reading this I felt that there was a lot of wisdom in such an approach. Firstly, it gives the organization time to develop their own portfolio processes without the burden of learning a new tool upfront. Secondly, it allows stakeholders (ie. Project managers, steering team, etc) to understand portfolio processes and be comfortable using them. Third, based on the early experience with project portfolio management, the organization will better understand their own requirements for a full fledged tool.
In a great article on IT Project Portfolio Management, Jonathan Feldman asks organizations to consider the problem they are trying to solve and start with high level data rather than getting too detailed. “If you know what the end goal is, you can start to quantify how close you are to that goal”. Great advice as this too points to the need for a phased approach to implementing portfolio management.
What are your lessons learned with your portfolio management implementations?
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