Portfolio and Programme Management

Overview

Increasingly, project management is seen as a mechanism for the implementation of organisational strategy.

Organisations are undertaking large numbers of projects concurrently, in an effort to provide linkage between strategy and real organisational change.

Organisations need to develop a portfolio approach to undertaking projects, identifying the criteria for project selection and prioritisation and applying it to the range of possible projects to ensure that strategic intent is realised. Portfolio Management is concerned with ensuring that we are doing the right projects.

While it remains important to get the basic project management disciplines right, the issue is also to find a way to co-ordinate all these projects and the contention for resource between them. The solution to this lies in the practice of Programme Management, the management of multiple projects, taking advantage of economies of scale, knowledge reuse and resource management.

Topics Covered

The material covered in the Short Course will be the latest practice and theory of advanced project and programme management. This area of theory is currently still evolving – tempered by practice and development in the field.

The Short Course  will cover advanced project and programme management using an interactive approach including case studies, class discussion and worked examples.The specific areas to be covered are:

1. Framework – An overview of the benefits of portfolio and programme management (PPM), the components of PPM and the various types of programme.
2. Portfolio Management – The Strategic Perspective looks at the key elements of Portfolio Management, project valuation methods and documents, the stage gate and balanced portfolio project selection methods.
3. Organisational Structure and Capacity Planning discusses basic Portfolio and Programme Management roles, responsibilities and reporting structure. It also considers capacity planning and multi-project resource allocation in a constrained environment.
4. Programme Level Quality – Project Management Maturity. Looks at the opportunities in a programme management environment to introduce quality initiatives into project management.
5. Knowledge Management – Repeatable Success. A key component of Quality Management is the trapping and disseminating of best practices.
6. Tool Time – Planning and Reporting. A look at the mechanics of planning and control at Programme Management level and the tools available to assist.
7. Getting Started. A pragmatic how-to guide on getting a Portfolio and Programme management initiative off the ground.

Who should attend

• Mid-level or senior managers responsible for the implementation of strategy in a reasonably large and complex environment
• Resource managers responsible for providing personnel to work in a multi-project environment
• Programme managers responsible for managing and overseeing a portfolio or range of projects
• Programme administrators or senior project managers who wish to develop a better understanding of the context in which they operate
• It is assumed that the participant will have a working knowledge of basic project management disciplines, to the level of the Project Management Short Course

Examples of types of Programme Management of projects

• The directing of a portfolio of projects which benefit from a consolidated approach
• The management of a portfolio of projects towards one specific objective
• The management of a series of projects within an organisation and for the same client
• The management of a portfolio of projects all of which aim towards the corporate objective

Outcomes

At the end of the Short Course , you will

• Have an understanding of the various aspects of programme management and advanced project management
• Be able to apply the discipline to your own organisation
• Position yourself to improve the quality and rate of project success within your organisation.