Following on from the PMO Book Club last month, in this post, PMO Flashmobber Juliet Doswell writes a review for one of her favourites. From the title alone I'm sure there are a fair few of you that are thinking this might be a worthwhile purchase :)
It's Let it Simmer – Making Project, Portfolio and Program Management Practices Stick in a Skeptical Organisation. It's currently £13.60 on Amazon and Juliet gives it a 5/5 rating. Take a look at the book here.
Take a look and see what she thinks.
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Organisations that excel at investing in change use a goals-driven portfolio.
They prioritise their goals, invest more in their priority goals, and choose projects that can achieve those priorities as efficiently as possible.
A goals-driven portfolio provides the foundation for agile investment decisions.
As rapidly as the market changes, as new ideas emerge, and as today’s projects vary in their probabilities of success, business leaders and portfolio managers can re-appraise the organisation’s investment choices.
They can decide what to keep the same in the portfolio and what needs to change – to achieve the goals they are investing in, at the speed they need to achieve them, and with the least possible risk.
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Have you ever experienced a tipping point with your PMO? Has there been a single event, a point where you can look back and say, “Yes, it was here when things really started to change”
It’s the APM awards soon and another of the finalists for the newly formed PMO of the Year Award is the Portfolio Office at the Open University. Susie Palmer-Trew is the Portfolio Office Manager and we caught up for a chat about what’s been happening for her and the PMO team of five, who sit within the Strategy and Information Office, supporting major change.
The tipping point for the Portfolio Office here took place in October of 2016, but it took almost seven years to get to this point. Was it the seven-year itch that tipped the balance? More an accumulation of experience and determination to do the best work they can for the 170,000 customers they have across the University.
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In many organisations, infrequent consideration of business strategy and annual budgeting cycles results in static portfolios often created 6-18 months ahead of the initiation of the Programmes and Projects they contain. In this session, Ed and Barbara explore how to create and run portfolios of projects, programmes and business as usual initiatives in an agile way.
For Portfolio PMOs the Agile Portfolio Management approach covers key areas including agile portfolio budgeting; prioritisation and blending; governance and fulfilment.
Some of the themes explored will be:
The Agile Organisation and how it can help CEOs and other senior executives reach their goals, do more for less and be competitive and responsive in an a constantly changing world.
What is Agile Portfolio Management, how it contributes to the agile business, how it differs from traditional portfolio management.
Key tips on how the PMO can contribute to make Agile Portfolio Management work in your organisations
Takeaways:
Understand the core themes of Agile Portfolio Management
Take away practical tips on how Agile Portfolio Management works in reality
Understand the role of the Portfolio PMO in Agile Portfolio Management
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The PMO Mini-Masterclass on Portfolio Prioritisation - Building a Scorecard to Help Prioritise Initiatives was all about learning from another organisation’s PMO – Carnival UK – and how they are managing a Portfolio PMO.
The session was held at Carnival UK in Southampton and was carried out by Jess Richardson and Tom Harvey.
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The Portfolio Management Office forms the bridge between the organisation’s strategy and its change portfolio. It enables delivery of the strategy and serves to prove and improve delivery of change.
Providing these services in an investment bank is a challenge. This is an environment which demands pace and tangible outcomes; it is subject to extraordinary external pressures and scrutiny; and it is where the need for portfolio management is increasing.
The way we provide portfolio management into this environment needs to quickly mature to remain valuable. A critical factor for a successful Portfolio Management Office is to show measurable value in the way it forms the bridge between strategy and the change portfolio.
Takeaways:
How bridging strategy to the change portfolio drives PMO value
How the investment banking as a relative newcomer is influencing PMO practises
How maturing at pace should become business as usual for the PMO
The Video
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