Executive's Guide to Project Management: Organizational Processes and Practices for Supporting Complex Projects

What Is Agile Project Portfolio Management?

The complex project environment is one characterized by frequent change and high risk. In order for the organization to survive and thrive in this environment, the SMT will need to implement a project support environment that is flexible and supportive of creativity but with an eye on the expected business value of the portfolio and the projects it contains. With that as a given the next issue is how to spend resources in that environment in order to maximize the business value derived.

APPM is a logical consequence of complex project management and the agile movement. Agile projects are projects comprised of iterations and are continuously redirected to take advantage of the learning and discovery about the solution that arises from the work of the previous iterations. They are projects characterized by frequent change. The objective of a single agile project is to find and implement deliverables that maximize business value within time and cost constraints. Extend that same concept to the portfolio. Agile portfolios are those whose contents can change at regular intervals to take advantage of market shifts, competitor actions, as well as the learning and discovery that takes place among its current projects and newly proposed projects. So agile refers to the contents of the portfolio not to the type of projects in the portfolio. The objective of the portfolio is to maintain the contents of the portfolio in order to maximize the business ...