Project Portfolio Management: A View From The Management Trenches

9.4. THE PROCESS FOUNDATION

It is important to have a good understanding of what the existing process is and how the process was put into place. When trying to set up the foundation for process success, it's best to learn as much as possible from what has worked previously and what has not. There are lessons in those experiences that should afford any new initiatives with a significant head start in avoiding processes that did not work well previously. Even though the organization's environment may change and people in the organization may change, the lessons learned will still be valuable. To that end, it would even be advantageous to tap into people in the organization that have some history with the process.

Assuming that the key success factors described in the previous chapter have been performed—the sponsor team has conducted a kickoff meeting and a team has been identified to work on the PPM project—it's time to address the process foundation. We recommend using a process-based approach to help establish a solid foundation for process success. A three-step process model—defining the current state, identifying the issues and opportunities, and then describing the desired future state—is an effective means of establishing the process foundation. In the first step, where the current-state processes are identified, the primary objective is to ensure that all of the current processes and their intended benefits and reasons for existence are discussed and understood. At first ...