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

Putting It All Together

This chapter has outlined a project portfolio management life cycle using an agile strategy. At regular intervals (I recommend at least quarterly) the performance of each project in the portfolio is assessed against the planned performance for the just completed cycle. Adjustments to the project contents will be made in order to maximize the expected business value from the next cycle of the portfolio. Adjustments can be of several types:

• Some active projects will be continued for the next cycle.
• Some active projects will have an increase in resources.
• Some active projects will be revised.
• Some active projects will be postponed.
• Some active projects will be canceled.
• Some active projects will be judged complete.
• Some postponed projects will be reactivated in the portfolio.
• Some new projects will be added to the portfolio for the next cycle.

Care must be taken to not change the contents of the portfolio more than common sense would suggest. Too much variation in contents from cycle to cycle can turn out to be counterproductive.