Categories: PPM, Project Management, Resource Management

by Clarity by Rego

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Categories: PPM, Project Management, Resource Management

A Plan to Win

Icon of target with arrow in center, representing a bullseye, or target achieved.
“A goal without a plan is just a wish.”
— Antoine de Saint-Exupéry¹

Project Portfolio Management (PPM) is a business framework that supports success! It connects organizational objectives with everyday work – making goals a reality – not just wishful thinking.

Project Portfolio Management Definition

The Project Management Institute (PMI) distills Project Portfolio Management into the following:

“PPM focuses on doing the right projects at the right time by selecting and managing projects as a portfolio of investments.”²

At its core, PPM is an operating model that helps organizations successfully reach their goals. It is a strategic approach to prioritize, manage, and improve the best portfolios of investments,* align all work with business objectives, and maximize resources.

* “Investments” can also be referred to as projects, business as usual (BAU), services, products, competence areas, etc. In this article, we will use the term investment.

PPM Example

Let’s imagine it’s your mission to have a great weekend. You may not realize it, but you use a small scale of Project Portfolio Management to make your goals a reality!

You know you need to accomplish some things:

  • Go grocery shopping
  • Put snow tires on the vehicle before driving to the mountains
  • Pick up your family at the airport, 10:30 AM Sunday

You also want to accomplish some things:

  • Go skiing Saturday
  • Prepare an amazing Sunday dinner
  • Finish the book you’ve been reading

To achieve these goals, you need to proactively define, plan, prioritize, schedule, and monitor your skills (competence), resources (workforce), cash flow, and delivery.

As you cannot fulfill all your goals at the same time, you will define priorities while also considering what resources you have or can obtain, and dependencies (tasks that must happen before others).

For example, examining just one part of your overall “great weekend” goal – prepare an amazing Sunday dinner – you need to know your cooking competence, decide on your menu, go shopping for ingredients, establish the cooking timeline so everything finishes on time, somehow fit in picking up family members at the airport, evaluate if there is someone who can help you, understand the limits of your budget, and balance any delays or unforeseen obstacles. You want the meal to be tasty, nutritious, and satisfying to each person.

PPM Terminology

Now, let’s connect our example with Project Portfolio Management terminology, and see how these terms fit together.

It’s important to understand “portfolio” in the PPM context.

  • A portfolio is a collection of work (initiatives, programs, and investments) that are managed and synchronized to achieve strategic goals.
    • Remember, terminology can vary between institutions.

 

 

 

 

Category
Definition
 Key Characteristics Examples
Initiative
 A high–level strategic goal that drives affiliated programs and investments.  Broad scope.

May involve multiple programs or portfolios.

Often driven by executive leadership.

 Personal: Enjoy a great weekend, defined as a fun and active weekend.

 

Business: A company-wide initiative to improve customer experience, leading to programs for digital transformation and AI-driven support
Program
A collection of related investments managed and coordinated to achieve broad objectives.
 Focus is on strategic alignment.

Investments within a program may be interdependent.

Managed by a Program Manager.

 Personal: Prepare an amazing Sunday dinner.

Business: A “Digital Transformation Program” that includes investments for a mobile app, website redesign, and cloud migration.
Investment A temporary effort with a defined scope, timeline, and goal.   Has a clear start and end date.

Delivers a specific outcome.

Managed by a Project Manager.

 Personal: Go shopping for dinner ingredients.

Business: Developing a mobile app feature for online payments.

Data Quality

The PPM framework relies on accurate, organization-wide data management. This centralized data provides a transparent picture of all investments and their progress. Informed with a big-picture view, leaders can improve decision-making, streamline efficiency, and achieve strategic goals with confidence.

As you can imagine, a specialized tool can help immensely with the heavy data lifting of PPM.

💡 PRO TIP: Review this helpful resource: Considerations for Purchasing Project Portfolio Management Software

With valid transparent data and the PPM methodology, organizations (and people planning great weekends) can:

  • Ensure all work is aligned with business goals and prioritize the investments that produce the most value. (And for our personal example – Determine which of these activities is going to contribute the most to having a fun and active weekend.)

  • Balance resource allocation effectively across multiple investments. (Do you have what you need? If not, how can you get it or succeed without it?)

  • Make informed decisions regarding investment performance, risk management, and outcomes. (The snowstorm came before you installed the snow tires on the car. Should you still drive to the mountains? Or is snowshoeing in your neighborhood a better option?)

Project Management vs Portfolio Management


The key difference between Project Management and Project Portfolio Management is their scope, focus, and purpose. While both disciplines contribute to business success, they operate at different levels within an organization.

 

 

 

Category
Project Management (PM)
 Project Portfolio Management (PPM)
Scope 🎯
Individual investment, completion of specific deliverables.
Multiple portfolios / programs across the organization,
prioritization and alignment with business goals.
Focus ♟️
Complete a single investment,
including planning, scheduling, budgeting, and resource allocation.
Strategic decision making,
including prioritizing portfolios / investments, balancing resources, and managing interdependencies.
Purpose 📋
Successfully complete a specific investment on time, within scope, and on budget while handling risks.
Maximize business value by ensuring the right portfolios / investments are performed at the right time with acceptable resource allocation.
Who Oversees Tasks?
Project Manager (PM):
responsible for planning, tracking progress, managing risks, and ensuring investment completion.
Portfolio Manager or Project Management Office (PMO):
Selects portfolios / investments that are aligned with strategic goals, ensures resources are available, and mitigates risks across portfolios.
Managing Dependencies
Manages task dependencies within an investment: sequencing, resource constraints, and alignment with milestones.
Manages cross-investment schedule and business dependencies to avoid bottlenecks and conflicts of shared resources, overlapping timelines, IT integrations, and business related dependencies.
Risk Management
Identifies and addresses investment-specific risks that impact the investment’s timeline, budget, or scope.
Evaluate portfolio-wide risks to balance: multiple high-priority initiatives, resource constraints, and potential conflicts between investments.
Decision Making
Decisions are made at the investment level, focusing on the scope, schedule, and resource availability for that investment.
Decisions are made at the organizational level, to ensure all investments align with business objectives.

You can learn more about project management here: What is Project Management?

Benefits Of Project Portfolio Management

The PPM framework supports long-term success by helping businesses meet their strategic goals, optimize resources, and make better decisions to increase return on investment (ROI). By using PPM best practices, your organization can move from reactive decision making to proactive strategic planning.

  • Align investments with business goals, ensuring all work – from the lowest level investment to the highest level portfolio – is prioritized correctly and delivers real business value.

  • Optimize resources across multiple investments, to ensure that you have the right resources – including people – to complete investments on time and within budget.

  • Make informed, data-backed decisions supported by data visibility and insights into investment performance, risks, and outcomes.

Let’s explore these key benefits and discover how PPM can drive success for your organization and key stakeholders.

1. Align Investments with Business Goals

Project Portfolio Management helps businesses stay focused on what matters most. With visibility across all investments, leaders can easily see which investments are aligned with strategic goals, and adjust work as needed to achieve the best outcomes.

They can also simultaneously track multiple investments and dependencies across departments. This empowers them to ensure the right initiatives move forward at the right time. Prioritizing the highest-value work helps businesses pivot and can increase ROI.

Stakeholder Benefits

The following stakeholders might express the impact of PPM’s ability to align investments with business goals in the following ways:

Icon representing: What is Project Portfolio Management to me, as an Executive Leadership / CFO stakeholder. An illustrated professional man wearing a blue shirt and white tie, working on a laptop. He has a focused expression, representing productivity and engagement in a business or technology-related task. The background features a simple circular design.Executive Leadership / CFOs: ‘Now that we have PPM, I know exactly which investments are the most profitable. I have a clear view of my cash flow and data-driven insights that show where our money is making the biggest impact. We can forecast future trends and fund the correct initiatives with confidence!’

Icon representing: What is Project Portfolio Management to me, as a Portfolio Managers and Strategy Teams stakeholder. An illustrated professional woman with curly hair and glasses, wearing a pink blazer over a white blouse. She has a confident and approachable expression, representing leadership and collaboration. The background features a simple circular design.Portfolio Managers and Strategy Teams: ‘PPM gives us a precise, strategic view of all our investments, so we can prioritize the investments that will bring measurable progress. No more gut-feeling decisions, just smart and strategy-aligned choices backed by data.’

Icon representing: What is Project Portfolio Management to me, as a Business Unit Leaders and Department Heads stakeholder. An illustrated professional man with brown hair, wearing a light blue sweater over a white collared shirt. He is holding a tablet and looking at it with focus, representing digital productivity and engagement. The background features a simple circular design.Business Unit Leaders and Department Heads: ‘Instead of fighting for resources or struggling to justify priorities, PPM helps me keep my team focused on the highest-impact initiatives. I’m also able proactively manage potential resource bottlenecks and business dependencies. What a relief! Now, I can methodically advocate for the right investments at the right time.’

Icon representing: What is Project Portfolio Management to me, as a Finance Teams / Controlling stakeholder. An illustrated professional woman with short brown hair, wearing a blazer over a white shirt. She is smiling, with a large blue money bag, stacks of cash, and coins in front of her, symbolizing financial management or budgeting. The background features a simple circular design.Finance Teams / Controlling: ‘Budgeting used to feel like a high-stakes guessing game, but PPM has made it easy to determine which investments are financially viable and strategically sound. We see plans, forecasts, and actuals in one place, and can prove that every dollar we allocate supports our company’s financial goals.’

Icon representing: What is Project Portfolio Management to me, as a Customer Experience and Product Teams stakeholder. An illustrated professional woman with long hair, wearing a blue blazer over a white shirt. She is focused and engaged, looking at a podium with paper folded over the top. The background features a simple circular design. Customer Experience and Product Teams: ‘PPM saves so much time and effort! Now we have confirmation that the products that we are developing are the correct products. By aligning investments with customer needs and strategic roadmaps, we can efficiently create valuable deliverables.’

2. Optimize Resource Allocation

PPM helps businesses ensure they are assigning the right people to the right investments at the right time. Resources are allocated effectively by utilizing visibility into capacity, availability, and skill sets. Over-allocated and under-allocated resources are clearly identified and can be adjusted to prevent delays and burnout.

PPM can accelerate delivery timelines, as investments are not hindered by limited resources. It also provides a comparison of estimates and actual work, to improve future outcomes.

Stakeholder Benefits

The following stakeholders might express the impact of PPM’s ability to optimize resource allocation in the following ways:

Icon representing: What is Project Portfolio Management to me, as a Resource Managers stakeholder. An illustrated professional woman with shoulder-length brown hair, wearing an orange blazer over a white shirt. She is holding a laptop in one hand while gesturing with the other, appearing confident and engaged. The background features a simple circular design.Resource Managers: ‘PPM is a game changer! I can finally see the full picture of who is available, who is overbooked, and where skill gaps exist. I don’t have to scramble to staff last-minute investments. Instead, I can proactively plan and make sure that teams are balanced and workloads are manageable.’

Icon representing: What is Project Portfolio Management to me, as a Project Manager stakeholder. An illustrated professional man with short brown hair, a mustache, and rosy cheeks, wearing a light gray shirt with a green tie and a small pocket. To his left, there is a calendar icon with an orange-circled date and a small pie chart, symbolizing planning and scheduling. The background features a simple circular design. Project Managers: ‘Before we had PPM, I felt like I was flying blind – constantly crossing my fingers that my team had the capacity to deliver on time. With PPM, I can see resource availability and potential bottlenecks before they become a problem. PPM makes it easy to reach the resource managers to adjust resource allocation.’

Icon representing a Business Unit Leaders and Department Heads stakeholder. An illustrated professional man with brown hair, wearing a light blue sweater over a white collared shirt. He is holding a tablet and looking at it with focus, representing digital productivity and engagement. The background features a simple circular design. Business Unit Leaders and Department Heads: ‘Juggling resources across multiple investments used to be so chaotic. But PPM helps us allocate resources strategically and make sure our teams are working on the most critical investments without burning out.’

Icon representing a Finance Teams / Controlling stakeholder. An illustrated professional woman with short brown hair, wearing a blazer over a white shirt. She is smiling, with a large blue money bag, stacks of cash, and coins in front of her, symbolizing financial management or budgeting. The background features a simple circular design. Finance Teams / Controlling: ‘PPM gives me a clear breakdown of our total resource CapEx and OpEx costs, including labor, contractors, software, travel, training, and more. Knowing these numbers, we don’t get hit with budget surprises. We can maximize spending with smarter financial planning.’

Icon representing: What is Project Portfolio Management to me, as a Change Management and Adoption Teams stakeholder. An illustrated woman with short brown hair and glasses, wearing a yellow blazer over a white top. Two gear icons float around her, symbolizing problem-solving, operations, or technical expertise. The background features a simple circular design. Change Management and Adoption Teams: ‘Shifting resources for new investments or restructuring efforts used to be so painful – with confusion, delays, and resistance at every turn. Now, PPM helps us manage transitions smoothly and strategically, so that teams have the resources they need when priorities inevitably shift.’

3. Informed Decision Making

PPM supports smarter, faster, data-based decision making based on wholistic insights. With increased visibility into investment performance, risks, and outcomes, leaders gain actionable insights.

These insights equip leaders to take calculated risks and anticipate future challenges. Businesses can pivot and stay ahead of change, instead of reacting to crises with proactive risk management at the portfolio level. Leaders can utilize scenario planning for accurate forecasting, and develop a clear roadmap for the future to ensure long-term success.

Stakeholder Benefits

The following stakeholders might express the impact of PPM’s ability to support informed decision making in the following ways:

Icon representing: What is PPM to me, as an Executive Leadership / CFO stakeholder. An illustrated professional man wearing a blue shirt and white tie, working on a laptop. He has a focused expression, representing productivity and engagement in a business or technology-related task. The background features a simple circular design. Executive Leadership: ‘With PPM, I no longer rely on scattered bits of information or gut instincts – I have consolidated data that is easy to visualize and analyze. I can confidently make strategic decisions that drive measurable, meaningful outcomes.’

Icon representing: What is PPM to me, as a Portfolio Managers and Strategy Teams stakeholder. An illustrated professional woman with curly hair and glasses, wearing a pink blazer over a white blouse. She has a confident and approachable expression, representing leadership and collaboration. The background features a simple circular design. Portfolio and IT Leaders: ‘PPM makes investment planning fun! Before making a major decision, I can reduce risk by modeling different scenarios and comparing trade-offs. Supported by strong data, we can confidently commit to the best investments.’

Icon representing: What is PPM to me, as a Finance Teams / Controlling stakeholder. An illustrated professional woman with short brown hair, wearing a blazer over a white shirt. She is smiling, with a large blue money bag, stacks of cash, and coins in front of her, symbolizing financial management, budgeting, or risk. The background features a simple circular design.Finance and Risk Management Teams: ‘Finally, we have a clear view of costs, forecasted costs, and risks across all our investments! PPM surfaces data that helps us see potential financial impacts down the road, so we can proactively adjust our budgets instead of spending the time and effort to fix overspending later.’

Icon representing: What is Project Portfolio Management to me, as a Compliance and Risk Teams stakeholder. An illustrated woman with long brown hair, wearing an orange shirt, pointing toward a circular target icon with a bullseye. The icon represents focus, precision, or goal-setting. The background features a simple circular design. Compliance and Risk Teams: ‘Adhering to regulatory requirements is so much simpler with PPM. It provides information that helps us identify risks early, enforce compliance, and keep investments aligned with industry standards.’

Icon representing a Business Unit Leaders and Department Heads stakeholder. An illustrated professional man with brown hair, wearing a light blue sweater over a white collared shirt. He is holding a tablet and looking at it with focus, representing digital productivity and engagement. The background features a simple circular design.Business Unit Leaders and Department Heads: ‘PPM is our fast-pass to avoid nasty surprises. The data-backed insights help us forecast resource needs, prevent bottlenecks, and plan smarter, so we can keep our teams focused on delivering results.’

Does Your Organization Need PPM?

Take a moment to assess your organization, from wishful thinking to reality:

  • Do you know which portfolios, initiatives, programs, and investments to prioritize to achieve your organization’s strategic goals?

    • Can you demonstrate why an investment should be pursued, citing specific alignment with organizational goals?
    • Are you able to compare “apples to apples” priorities across departments, and determine which one provides the most value?

  • Can you prove that your resource management is optimized?

    • Is resource allocation simple and transparent?
    • Can you easily track and adjust resources on the fly?

  • Are you confident to take informed risks and forecast outcomes?

    • Do teams have consolidated insights into investment progress and resources?
    • Do you have a clear road map for the future, and the ability to forecast scenarios?

Does it seem impossible to make all of these outcomes a reality?

The good news is that you’ve taken the first step to resolving these challenges! Understanding Project Portfolio Management is the foundation to increase success across your organization.

An illustrated group of five diverse professionals standing together, smiling, and high-fiving in a celebratory gesture. Surrounding them are icons representing PPM productivity and teamwork, including a clock, bar chart with an upward trend, calendar, and gears. The background features abstract design elements, reinforcing themes of collaboration, efficiency, and success.

Conclusion

Project Portfolio Management (PPM) is the key to ongoing organizational success.
PPM is an operating model that helps organizations consolidate big picture data. This helps businesses successfully reach their goals by:

  1. Prioritizing, managing, and improving the best portfolios of investments (“Investments” can also be called: projects, BAU, services, products, competence areas, etc.)
  2. Aligning all work with business objectives
  3. Optimizing resources

PPM relies on high quality data, which supports leaders with accurate insights, empowering them to make informed decisions faster. Specialized PPM tools are designed to help with every aspect of PPM to maximize efficiency and support better business outcomes.

Additional Resources

¹ https://operational-excellence-hub.com/15-project-management-quotes/

² Oltmann, J. (2008). Project portfolio management: how to do the right projects at the right time. Paper presented at PMI® Global Congress 2008—North America, Denver, CO. Newtown Square, PA: Project Management Institute.

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