Portfolio Management

OverviewSometimes work seems to combine unlimited needs with limited available resources. A situation like this sets up a world of immediate crises, rapidly shifting priorities, and reactive instead of proactive management. And these difficulties make it hard to focus on anything except the task right in front of you. But managing work on a portfolio level takes projects, programs, and portfolios, and groups them together to facilitate their management. This ensures that they produce the planned benefits and meet the strategic business objectives that you're striving toward. Managing from a portfolio perspective can give you both the high-level and wide-angle viewpoints needed to bring all the work under control. Portfolio management, as set out by the Project Management Institute (PMI(R)), can reduce the chaos by enabling an organization to do the right work at the right time. Portfolio management processes help to ensure the organization addresses the projects and programs that are the most essential to strategy execution and effective corporate performance. While projects and programs are critical to organizational success, portfolio management extends beyond the simple completion of these components and focuses on strategic objectives and outcomes. It changes how people work together - even across organizational boundaries - to accomplish project- based work. Whether you are currently a portfolio manager or are just interested in the ideas involved in portfolio management, an increased understanding can give you a high-level perspective about how your work contributes to your company's goals. This high-level view is what portfolio management is all about. Instead of viewing projects and programs in isolation, it allows you to consider the dependencies and interactions among these portfolio components, as well as between them and other organizational areas.between them and other organizational areas. This book is aligned to PMI's(R) The Standard for Portfolio Management. The Standard for Portfolio Management expands on the work presented in A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK(R) Guide) and the Organizational Project Management Maturity Model (OPM3(R)). The Standard for Portfolio Management is PMI's(R) companion to the PMBOK(R) Guide. The Standard shows the links between portfolio management and program and project management, and between portfolio management and the organization. Just as the PMBOK(R) Guide sets out the good practices for project management, The Standard for Portfolio Management presents a documented set of processes showing generally accepted good practices in the area of portfolio management. In this book, you'll be introduced to the core concepts involved in portfolio management. You will discover how important it is to understand the management of portfolios, as well as learn about the relationships between portfolio management and project and program management. You will also find out about the role of portfolio management within organizations, and about the roles and responsibilities of portfolio managers. You will be introduced to the links and relationships between portfolio management and organizational strategy, governance, and operations, and learn how metrics and reporting relate to it all.