First, we'll cover important project management fundamentals - we've gone through an overview of them with three infographics and we've also discussed the most popular project management methodologies and the differences between projects and operations.
Today, we'll go through another foundational topic: projects, programmes and portfolios.
A lot of people don't know the difference between these and intercept them, making their work less focused and less specific which in turn leads to an organisation that's not as well organised as it should be so that it's efficient and effective.
Let's take a quick look at these three terms:
Put another way, projects fit within larger programmes, which themselves fit within portfolios.
Now, let's take a look at the specifics for each :
With the above differentiation, professionals start to specialise the more experience they earn. For example, the PMI (Project Management Institute) has courses and certifications for each three: Project Management Professional, Program Management Professional and Portfolio Management Professional. Each one requires a specific number of work experience hours, for example, the program one requires more than the project one etc.
I am Project Management certified which believe me wasn't easy to get: I needed to do a whole week of full-day training, at least three years of experience in project management and prove these three years with examples to be allowed to take the test and then the test itself is really tough.
But as a professional, how does your job differ if you focus on projects, programs or portfolios?
In essence, the project manager manages the project team that has been assigned to deliver this unique product or service and ensures that the team meets the project objectives. In essence, the project manager leads the project from conception through to final delivery.
The success of this endeavour is measured by product and project quality, timeliness, budget compliance and degree of satisfaction in the eyes of the stakeholder who will benefit from the completion of this project.
Project managers monitor and control the work of producing the products, services or results that the project was undertaken to produce but the project manager is not responsible to execute the work - that's the project team's responsibility.
Here's a list of tasks that a project manager typically performs:
Programme managers manage the programme staff and the different project managers, providing vision and overall leadership.
Success here is measured by the degree to which the programme satisfies the needs and benefits for which it was undertaken, i.e. whether the related projects meet their shared objectives.
Programme managers manage the progress of programme components to ensure the overall goals, schedules, budget and benefits of the programme will be met which includes prioritising the different projects under the programme, managing their progress incl. timelines and budgets and planning for dependencies and issues.
Here's a list of what a programme manager typically does:
Portfolio managers manage or coordinate portfolio management staff, program and project staff who may have reporting responsibilities into the aggregate portfolio.
Success here is measured in terms of the aggregate investment performance and benefit realisation of the portfolio.
Portfolio managers monitor strategic changes and aggregate resource allocation, performance results and risk of the portfolio for each program and project underneath it.
Here's a list of what portfolio managers typically do:
Here's what you need to remember:
I hope by now you understand the differences between projects, programmes and portfolios a little bit better.
In my series, we'll focus on the work of project management but as you can see, project management is foundational to both programme and portfolio management.
How is your business organised across projects, programmes and portfolios?