What the PMI Says About Portfolio Management

What the PMI Says About Portfolio Management

"The Standard for Portfolio Management" published by the Project Management Institute (PMI) MBT Karani states that in order to be successful, the portfolio management team must:

1. Understand the organization's strategic plan.

2. Establish determining factors for managing the portfolio based on the strategic plan.

3. Consider all of the organization's projects, programs, and other portfolio components.

4. Follow agreed-upon processes.

The standard clearly articulates the importance of the relationship between strategy and project portfolio management!

Working Together By Thinking "Outside the Box"

Project managers develop plans to execute the projects in the portfolio, and then lead the effort to implement the plan. Likewise, program managers develop plans for their programs, but they do it for a higher level entity that contains many projects. In each case, the Project Manager or Program Manager "owns" his/her project or program. It naturally follows that portfolio managers "own" their respective project portfolios. The element that MUST tie the portfolio managers, MBT Tembea Coffee,program managers, and project managers together is strategy, which often requires some "out of the box" thinking on the part of the respective managers. Strategy needs to be the common thread through the project portfolio, programs, and projects.