Project Portfolio Component Support
Gain senior management support and approval for the removal of obstacles to the progress of project portfolio components. Be responsive to project and programme managers who have escalated issues to the portfolio level. Attend project meetings to show support and be particularly responsive to agile projects.
Improvement Planning
Practices-Outcomes-Metrics (POM)
Representative POMs are described for Project Portfolio Component Support at each level of maturity.
- 1Initial
- Practice
- Rely on staff expertise.
- Outcome
- Portfolio management staff provide assistance to project and programme management staff.
- Metric
- Number of staff with expertise to support project portfolio components.
- Practice
- Leverage professional networks and emulate successes.
- Outcome
- Project portfolio component support follows working practices that are known to be effective and that can be deployed quickly.
- Metric
- Number of approaches and methods adapted from external sources that are used to support project portfolio components.
- 2Basic
- Practice
- Develop processes and procedures for communicating project portfolio component issues to portfolio management.
- Outcome
- Filtering and routing of the many issues that can arise across the portfolio components improves, with fewer help requests being reassigned or returned.
- Metric
- Number of issue types or categories addressed by procedures.
- Practice
- Act promptly on reported project portfolio component issues.
- Outcome
- The portfolio is better able to support projects using agile methodologies and the overall process tends to become more agile.
- Metric
- The time it takes to resolve project portfolio component issues.
- 3Intermediate
- Practices
- Document/record project portfolio issues.
- Ensure the order in which issues are dealt with is determined by the sequence in which they arose and by the priority of the portfolio component to which they relate.
- Outcome
- Issues raised to portfolio level are dealt with in a benefits order and a balance is maintained across portfolios, which ensures there are no roadblocks.
- Metric
- The time taken to resolve issues, classified by their priority level.
- Practice
- Clarify roles and governance boundaries for project portfolio issue management.
- Outcome
- When staff understand the scope of their authority and that of those around, above, and below them, issues will be sent to the level best authorized to deal with them.
- Metric
- Number of issues that were redirected for decisions.
- 4Advanced
- Practice
- Use advanced sophisticated methods to analyse component assistance requests.
- Outcome
- Repeat issues are identified, Q&As can be put together, and generic solution automations can be considered.
- Metric
- Number of recurring issues identified.
- Practice
- Resource and/or optimize portfolio management to ensure responsive and effective support structures are maintained.
- Outcome
- Component support will not become a bottleneck or a cause of stoppages.
- Metric
- The time taken to resolve issues, with indications of variance from average times.
- 5Optimized
- Practice
- Develop project oversight and monitoring capabilities that can detect many project problems and put a proactive set of supports be in place — e.g. earned value, S-curve analysis, etc.
- Outcome
- Potential issues are identified and dealt with before any disruption occurs.
- Metric
- Number of automatically detected project portfolio component issues.
- Practice
- Extend support to and receive support from the wider business ecosystem, as appropriate.
- Outcome
- A wider set or resources are available to enable resolution of issues.
- Metrics
- Numbers of instances of assistance provided to stakeholders in the wider business ecosystem.
- Number of instances of assistance received from stakeholders in the wider business ecosystem.