What Is Project Management Anyway? (Negative perception of project management)

Some unfortunate misunderstandings do project management courses, most of the list of favorite activities somewhere between the rubbish out and deliberately put off the big toe, which is somewhere between boring and painful.

And 'boring

The first misconception that it is incredibly boring "real work". Distraction from whatever your current vocation, you are probably involved in it because you enjoy and are good at it. Take your timefar from what you normally do to focus on project management is not easy to correct.

The reality is that without an adequate concentration, all I could really work for what are nothing more than the accumulation of a beauty, but does not help anyone if it is not what the customer needs will cost twice as much as expected or is over a month late.

So, at worst, we should all agree that it is a necessary evil. By the end of this book, I hope to convince you thatSkillset an incredibly useful both inside and outside of work, and can really help you to present your other skills.

It takes too long

The second criticism that the sight of the people of PM units, it takes an enormous amount of time. This may be true. If you try to do all the work that the traditional project management takes time, you can certainly feel that the management of your projects is in a completely.

What we need is a balance between scienceand the art of project management.

It 's too difficult

The negative perception, which is simply difficult. I personally believe that anyone can take these skills and this significantly. I also believe that many people have already learned a hard discipline in their current jobs. So why project management is so scary?

Although it is easy to argue that most people need to manage a project from one speciessome point in their life, is not an area that is usually covered in school or in college.

Another reason for the perception that it is so difficult that many project management tools are complicated! The first time I open Microsoft Project I was stunned, what was I meant to do? Finally, I borrowed someone else's existing project plan and adapted slowly to learn the quirks of the software. Since then, the number of project documents that Isaw it written in Excel, PowerPoint, or text file further convinces me that many project management tools are simply too complex for most people.

Management also can own the world jargon, full of acronyms, slang and jokes. In fact, some executives are based on this, a strain of terminology, their jobs seem mystical.

Approaches and tools that will be discussed in subsequent chapters are all easy to understand and easy to use. Youmay find that you can activate different muscles than you in your normal working day to day, but will have the advantage of a stronger feeling in your normal activities as well. More importantly, you will get a qualification that is becoming increasingly important in today's world.

From Project Management to Portfolio Management

"Organizational portfolio" or "projects portfolio" is a collection of projects or programs and all the additional activities existing within an organization, brought together to ensure an effective management of all the activities within the organization fully coordinated with its strategy.

The main goals of portfolio management are to provide a broad overview of organizational activities focusing on the strategic goals and to support decision making based on all the projects within the organization.

Meticulous management of each of the "portfolio components" is crucial, but it does not necessarily ensure the realization of all of the organizational goals. This requires integrative management of the projects making up the projects portfolio, which relates to the mutual impact of the projects, resource constraints and priorities.

Organizational project management and portfolio management are closely connected. A project constantly receives strategic information from the portfolio it represents, and provides the portfolio with "on-site information".

The Project Manager measures the planned vs. actual in relation to budget and content scheduling, and reports to the Portfolio Manager. By contrast, the Portfolio Manager prioritizes and connects among the projects. The flow of information in both directions leads to the process, in which project management and portfolio management are bonded in order to make sure that the right resources are allocated to the right project, or, to put it simply, that the organization invests most of its efforts into the right place.

Portfolio management represents a continuous business process, which is focused on two major phases: portfolio planning and monitoring and control over its progress. The process is cyclically recurrent, in compliance with the organizational policy.

During the project planning phase, the projects that will lead to revenue maximization or will best serve the organization's strategy are selected. The availability of information relevant to the strategy the portfolio is supposed to support, is checked, and the measurement method, by which the projects related to the portfolio will be measured, is also defined. This is supposed to create uniformity in project management processes and their measurements, enabling the organization to benchmark its future projects objectively.

After the portfolio has been established and endorsed by the senior management, it has to be monitored and controlled. At this phase one has to make sure that the portfolio is functioning according to the pre-defined organizational processes. For example, the portfolio can be checked for the availability of the projects, in which the net present value (NPV) is higher than a specific value, or the return on investment (ROI) is not lower than the minimal value defined. Moreover, control processes check the progress of all the projects according to plan, for example: schedule compliance, resource overload, etc.

In order to make control procedures simple and effective, a portfolio manager has to have an easy access to the updated project overview, which can be obtained from a uniform and integrated system.

This system is supposed to contain general information on the projects within the portfolio and to enable one to perform analysis on the organizational level, and not only the standalone project level.
Such a system can allow for performing "What if" analysis for assessing different alternatives and providing an information basis for the best business decisions within the organization.

Microsoft has developed the EPM (Enterprise Project Management) application aimed at supporting organizational portfolio management. Based on MS Project, EPM presents an overall solution to portfolio management based on an organization-wide resource pool and on a broad overview of all the projects.

PME TEFEN has developed the "PME- Portfolio Dashboard" - a tool based on EPM solutions, which enables any organization to manage its portfolio in an effective way aimed at reaching the organizational strategy goals.

The "PME- Portfolio Dashboard" provides a summary of all the project data in addition to the one existing in EPM. This is intended for supporting the most senior managers of the organization in decision making processes by providing the mean figures of all the projects performance. The possibility of obtaining "on-line" updates enables the management to respond rapidly to the cases, in which the organizational efforts are not directed to the "right" projects.

In a single view, the tool centralizes all the principal measurements of the portfolio after the mean figures of the projects managed by the system have been derived. This is how the tool assists project progress monitoring and resource overload management, including scheduling, costs and risks.

If a problem with one of the metrics surfaces, the manager can do "Drill down" for projects negatively affecting this metric and single out the task causing the problem.

This is, basically, how the organization's management can obtain the most current data relevant to locating a problem at any given time and make the best decision, which will constitute a dynamic response to the changing needs of the organization and the market.

Organizational portfolio management is essentially an integral part of organizational management. The right project management serves as a basis for portfolio management. While until recently PMI has focused on standalone project management, this leading body of project management is currently addressing the broader issue of portfolio management.

PME TEFEN specializes in customizing and implementing project management methodologies and tools and will assist your organization in achieving higher performance levels and executing the right portfolio management processes that will effectively bring the strategy of your organization towards its full realization.

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