Comments on: Communicating IT’s value using Project Portfolio Management

By: Eric D. Brown

Eric D. Brown — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 20:39:12 +0000

Thanks for the insight Chris. True…there is no silver bullet but the tools can definitely help if applied right.

By: Chris Morgan

Chris Morgan — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 19:06:53 +0000

Well, I have seen that HR functions that really act as a business partner are able to articulate what they do in a way that really means something to the rest of the organisation. This could take the form of a balanced scorecard approach that highlight some key metrics. This generally divides up HR's activities into transactional stuff (processing new starters etc) and real value add stuff (working with the business on projects etc).

There's no 'silver bullet' but all of these tools can help raise awareness and understanding across many organisations….

Chris

By: Eric D. Brown

Eric D. Brown — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 14:04:56 +0000

Hi Chris,

Thanks for stopping by.

I hadn't thought about using PPM tools for other areas of the organization but now that you mention it, it makes perfect sense.

Your example about HR is right on the money. HR can provide a lot of value to an organization but many don't understand what HR really does. Using PPM tools and other methods to communicate the value that HR delivers makes perfect sense.

Have a you seen any organizations that have taken this approach?

Thanks
Eric

By: Chris Morgan

Chris Morgan — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 11:03:15 +0000

Eric - interesting post, thanks. I think there are many other funtional departments that would also benefit from the same approach. For example it is often a mystery to the business what HR really do and they are subsequently one of the first areas to be cut when times are hard. Chris http://learn2develop.blogspot.com Chris Morgan's Recent post...Blue Monday....it's up to you...!

By: Eric D. Brown

Eric D. Brown — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 17:22:15 +0000

Hi Mike – thanks for stopping by.

You are right on the money as always. PPM tools can be burdensome to setup, but once they are in place and working, they can provide a lot of value.

My comments are scary but many times true. In my experience, many IT leaders barely understand what their teams do…and that makes it difficult to help the rest of the organization understand what IT does.

By: next_connect

next_connect — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 17:14:23 +0000

A few years back I worked with an org that used MS's Project Server which seemed to do a good job of managing the individual projects as well as the overall portfolio. These days I'm trying to deploy project sites in SharePoint (MOSS) which gives a collaboration and tracking space within the a project team and then provide mechanisms to aggregate that data across the project portfolios for a given group, division, or across all units.

There can be a lot of value gained from the information, but it can take a lot of time to get everything setup. There seems to be a lot of overhead at first, but once in place it reduces duplication and makes reporting so much easier.

One of the biggest project impacts I've seen is with resources shared across multiple projects. When projects are managed and tracked individually it can be hard to see future risks. What if the same resource is working a critical issue on two projects? What if the combined allocation for a resource is 300%? You can only see these issues when looking at everything at once.

Your quotes and comments about management not knowing what IT does is scary. As outsourcing becomes more prevaliant roles will change. Even if you outsource development, you should still have a tech lead in house to validate what they are doing and make sure it fits into your environment. This also means internal QA, PMs and perhaps Analysts are needed.