Top 6 Lesson’s from My Years in Project Portfolio Management

I’ve spent the majority of my career in some form of project portfolio management. I started my career in corporate finance, then moved into managing a capital project portfolio, to then in the last four years managing the technology portfolio. Throughout all the years there’s been common challenges, managing a portfolio when it comes to strategic planning and optimizing a company’s resources, both financial capital and operating budgets and human capital is a hard task.

Here’s 6 lessons I’ve learned over the years:

1. There will be resistance. No one wants to ranks projects, it’s not easy, and it can mean a project someone really wants gets ranked last. Implementing a process means that the loudest in the room, or the person with the best sales pitch may no longer get to move ahead with their projects. A process means that all projects are looked at equally, and people can feel their power is taken away.
2. Change Management is Key. Implementing Project Portfolio Management is a big change, and can’t be taken lightly. Whatever change management methodology a company followers, effort needs to be put in to support such a major change.
3. Rules Before Tools. I worked with Kelvin White for years, and one of his favourite saying was “rules before tools”, and I love it. People often jump straight to what tool can do this for me, when really the work needs to be done first, tools can help at the end, but they aren’t a shortcut for the work.
4. Communicate, Communicate, Communicate. You need to shout from the rooftop, over and over again. People are busy, so whenever it comes to project portfolio management communicate over and over again the process and the why. 
5. You Aren’t Going to Make Everyone Happy. We want to think that by applying a consistent and transparent process that people will understand how projects are picked and when they are planned people will understand and accept, but that’s not always the case.  There is never enough resources to what everyone wants, when they want it, and that is always hard to accept. 
6. Project Management Maturity. You can have all the best processes and framework setup to manage a portfolio, but if the inputs into your portfolio aren’t mature, project portfolio management is going to be a challenge. Inputs into the portfolio are key to enable successful portfolio planning and management.

Project portfolio management can be both a fun and rewarding job, but at the end of the day it’s just a process and can’t solve the worlds problems. If you enjoy a challenge and bringing benefits to an organization you’re in the right profession!