Setting up Project Portfolio Management

Project Portfolio Management or "PPM" as it is known, is a hot subject among organisations who are engaged in Project Management / execution activities. 

PPM helps organisations to avoid 're-inventing the wheel' every time. According to Wikipedia definition:

"Project Portfolio Management (PPM) is the centralized management of the processes, methods, and technologies used by project managers and project management offices (PMOs) to analyze and collectively manage current or proposed projects based on numerous key characteristics. The objectives of PPM are to determine the optimal resource mix for delivery and to schedule activities to best achieve an organization’s operational and financial goals ― while honouring constraints imposed by customers, strategic objectives, or external real-world factors.
PPM provides program and project managers in large, program/project-driven organizations with the capabilities needed to manage the time, resources, skills, and budgets necessary to accomplish all interrelated tasks. It provides a framework for issue resolution and risk mitigation, as well as the centralized visibility to help planning and scheduling teams to identify the fastest, cheapest, or most suitable approach to deliver projects and programs.
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Thankfully there are well developed on-line tools and expert support readily available to those who are aiming to set-up PPM in their organisations. ITM Platform is one of the industry leaders in this segment.

ITM Platform offers practical and powerful project management solutions. Besides being an intuitive project management software, it offers portfolio management , projects programs, services and resources. ITM Platform is 100% scalable, which enables organizations to manage projects, tasks and staff as needed. 

Portfolio management and strategic planning integrates naturally with the daily operations of project management and online services, offering an effective mechanism to control the planning and implementation of projects. It is one of the best solution for managing online projects: for performance, usability and scalability .

FREE WEBINAR with ITM PLATFORM:

ITM Platform is organising a free webinar to those want to know more about PPM and how to set it up in their respective organisations. 

ITM Platform has implemented our project management solution in over 300 organizations. And want to share the lessons they have learned with you to help you develop and improve your project-oriented organization.

What you will see during 45 min?

• Design of a project-driven organization.
• Change Management.
• Basic Configuration of ITM Platform.

When? JUNE 16th at 10 am (Boston, Eastern Tine Zone)

How to register? Click Here:https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/regist…/9108160085963125507

Its a great opportunity for learning and I recommend PM Karma readership to attend.
Please let me know your reviews in the comment box below. Thanks!

The 5 Goals of a project manager - Guest article by Jason Westland

As a Project Manager, you need to manage people, money, suppliers, equipment—the list is never ending. The trick is to be focused. Set yourself 5 personal goals to achieve. If you can meet these simple goals for each project, then you will achieve total success. So read on, to learn...
 

The 5 Goals of a Project Manager

These goals are generic to all industries and all types of projects. Regardless of your level of experience in project management, set these 5 goals for every project you manage.

Goal 1: To finish on time

This is the oldest but trickiest goal in the book. It’s the most difficult because the requirements often change during the project and the schedule was probably optimistic in the first place.

To succeed, you need to manage your scope very carefully. Implement a change control process so that any changes to the scope are properly managed.

Always keep your plan up to date, recording actual vs. planned progress. Identify any deviations from plan and fix them quickly.

Goal 2: To finish under budget

To make sure that your project costs don’t spiral, you need to set a project budget at the start to compare against. Include in this budget, all of the types of project costs that will accrue, whether they are to do with people, equipment, suppliers or materials. Then work out how much each task in your plan is going to cost to complete and track any deviations from this plan.

Make sure that if you over-spend on some tasks, that you under-spend on others. In this way, you can control your spend and deliver under  budget.

Goal 3: To meet the requirements

The goal here is to meet the requirements that were set for the project  at the start. Whether the requirements were to install a new IT system, build a bridge or implement new processes, your project needs to produce solutions which meet these requirements 100%.

The trick here is to make sure that you have a detailed enough set of requirements at the beginning. If they are ambiguous in any way, then what was initially seen as a small piece of work could become huge, taking up valuable time and resources to complete.

Goal 4: To keep customers happy

You could finish your project on time, under budget and have met 100% of the requirements—but still have unhappy customers. This is usually because their expectations have changed since the project started and have not been properly managed.

To ensure that your project sponsor, customer and other stakeholders are happy at the end of your project, you need to manage their expectations carefully. Make sure you always keep them properly informed of progress. “Keep it real” by giving them a crystal clear view of progress to date. Let them voice their concerns or ideas regularly. Tell them upfront when you can’t deliver on time, or when a change needs to be made. Openness and honesty are always the best tools for setting customer expectations.

Goal 5: To ensure a happy team

If you can do all of this with a happy team, then you’ll be more than willing to do it all again for the next project. And that’s how your staff will feel also. Staff satisfaction is critical to your project’s success.

So keep your team happy by rewarding and recognizing them for their successes. Assign them work that complements their strengths and conduct team building exercises to boost morale. With a happy motivated team, you can achieve anything!

And there you have it. The 5 goals you need to set yourself for every project.

Of course, you should always work smart to achieve these goals more easily.

Jason Westland has 15 years experience in the project management industry. From his experience he has created software to help speed up the management process. If you would like to find out more information about Jason’s online project management software visit ProjectManager.com.

New interviews of mine in "Stepping into PM"

Soma - a promising and creative new generation blogger has posted another interview of mine here : titled as "Sneak peek into the life of Project Manager's- Pt 1"

The second part of the interview is given here:  Sneak peek into the life of Project Manager's- Pt 2

(Many project managers have been interviewed here by Soma and mine is located at the bottom most of each page)

These were posted some where in January.. how ever I could not update my readers any time earlier.. sorry for that.

Enjoy the interview!

Caution - Twitterholic crossing!

Readers - Thanks to all those who commented/mailed/tweeted me their comments on my Twitter-Toons.

Here comes the last one.

I dont really wanna make tonnes of them... so here we go: 

{Click the image to enlarge}

Enjoy!

Becoming a better PM with Twitter for Dummies!

Click the image to enlarge, I'm sure you will enjoy it.

{Cartoon by Sreejith Kesavan , source image credit: free online grafix- various sources}

 

  

  

Enjoy!