Programme or portfolio formulation

Introduction

As one of the classic project management categories, which is defined as ‘projects, programs, subsidiary portfolios, and operations managed as a group to achieve strategic objectives.’ (PMI,2017, p.15). The projects portfolio under the current completive environments background become more complexity, and many projects work in the cross-platforms cooperation no matter it is a simple programme or vast mega-project, the project portfolio management is needed. Considering the success of project factors, the initial preparation that leads a direction to the targets is critically important.

The impact of the early and front-end of the PPM process

According to the study of Heising (2012) presented that there is portfolio management called ideation portfolio management. In the early and front-end of the project portfolio management, it could generate and manage ideas for a perspective of the project portfolio management. This ideation portfolio management (IPM) effectiveness is positively related to project portfolio success. It is mentioned that there are four constituent constructs for the project portfolio success as a second-order construct. (Heising, 2012, p.586) 1. The economic success; 2. The strategic fit; 3. The portfolio balance; 4. The preparation for the future.

With the description of Heising (2012) about the impact of the IPM for the success of project portfolio management, the early and front-end efficiency is suggested to be considered with these three research streams:

1. Consider A product development to be a disciplined problem-solving process;

2. Consider the idea on the cost and time;

3. Consider the idea screening and selection process.

The third one that many companies consider idea screening and selection process as the key project success performance indicators. Archer and Ghasemzadeh (1999) evaluated the state of the art in project portfolio selection methods, and they suggested an integrated framework in helping the decision of selection project portfolio and support of portfolio selection activities.

According to the figure 1 from the study of Archer and Ghasemzadeh (1999, p.211), the ‘Pre-screening’ stage stands the seconds step after the ‘project proposals’, it can offer the high-level guidance to the portfolio selection process. With these activities in this stage of ‘Pre-screening’ which includes `Strategy Development' and `Methodology Selection', the IPM (ideation portfolio management) applied their methodology and strategy would great effectively supporting that third research stream from Heising (2012, p.589).

The measure for success

Regarding the project portfolio success, Shao (2012) listed these four factors of the success of projects 1. Delivery capability; 2. Organisational capability; 3. Marketing capability; 4. Innovative capability, it could easily find there are many similar dimensions compare with above the impact of the early and front-end of the PPM process. Such as the organization (Culture), the marketing and the innovation three of four are related to the work of IPM. Therefore, more and more organisation wisely invest more money, time on researching in the early and front-end stage with this ideation portfolio management.

Conclusion

All in all, most of the projects are purposed to be a success, so the organisation and companies would take every effort to get it. In order to correctly researching and collecting the information for decision support, it is better to apply a proper specific scenario because of the ‘Unique’ feature in every project. It also the reason should take more time on researching.

References

Archer, N. & Ghasemzadeh, F., 1999. An integrated framework for project portfolio selection. International Journal of Project Management, 17(4), pp. 207-216.

Heising, W., 2012. The integration of ideation and project portfolio management—A key factor for sustainable success. International Journal of Project Management, 30(5), pp. 582-595.

Project Management Institute, 2017. A guide to the project management book of knowledge (PMBOK® Guide). 6 ed. s.l.: Newton Square.

Shao, J., Müller, R., & Turner, J. R. (2012). Measuring program success. Project Management Journal, 43(1), 37–49.