To have a robust and worthwhile annual planning effort requires a lot of preparation and planning on the part of project managers, business owners of the projects, IT, and the PMO. We recommend setting a standard for the information to be reviewed for each project. At a minimum, all projects should have a “business case” / ROI, tangible and intangible benefits, a basic budget, and a high-level estimate of hours/effort. The executive team will need to provide the strategic goals and objectives for the organization and the portfolio budget for the year by LOB or organization. The Executive team will also need to force-rank the projects so that there is general agreement on which projects are more critical than others. We have developed approaches to force ranking and will suggest some considerations and techniques in an upcoming blog in this series. Throughout the planning sessions, the executives should expect to review all projects at a high-level and then discuss and debate them to finally force-rank them according to how they align with the organization’s goals and objectives. They will need to make some not so easy decisions about what can and cannot be tackled within the annual portfolio budget. The team should also consider resource needs and key resource availability for the year (this will help resource planning for the year). The result of the planning session should be a high-level portfolio roadmap with the order of various projects in time, and the high-level costs and resource requirements. Although time-consuming, the end-product, a well thought out annual portfolio plan, is well worth it. It sets the course for your portfolio of projects, provides your organization with clarity around the strategic goals and objectives and how the projects align with them and “fit” in the timeline for the year.
Take a look at our first post in the series: An Overview of Portfolio Planning & Management (PPM)
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