New techniques in project portfolio management don't stifle innovation with excessive phasing and gates

Abstract

Managing multiple ideas, candidate initiatives and in-flight projects across diverse business units is a large challenge for major organizations. Overseeing global demand for projects as well as resource needs, risks, issues, compliance and value measurement requires an enterprise-class solution. Accompanying this solution are need-to-know executional dashboards that effectively serves a diverse range of stakeholders and purview roll-ups. This thesis intends to identify several processes, enablers and key success factors that effectively usher in project development efforts through their gates and phases. The arguments presented conclude that managing a pipeline of ideas, candidates, and projects-in-flight can be successfully aided by applying new techniques in Project Portfolio Management (PPM). Configuring such solutions can leverage methods that harness project prioritization, execution and monitoring. To gain maximum effectiveness, the formal and less formal influences that shepherd initiatives must not stifle bottom-up creativity, user innovation, intrapreneurship, developer agility or change management. Newer commercial offerings of PPM solutions improve upon the frameworks that simplify portfolio governance and empower enterprise innovation.