Software Project Selection and Review Processes

This topic discusses the relation between project portfolio management and project management. The following business process diagram illustrates the selection and periodic review processes.

1. The portfolio manager gets the latest strategic goals and enterprise architecture from the enterprise architecture tool in preparation for a project selection exercise.
2. The queue of project proposals is prioritised and set of projects that maximizes the expected business value subject to the cash and people constraints is approved for execution. See comment re Initial Estimate With Risk
3. Each approved project is sent to some project manager for initiation.
4. The project manager initiates the project, performs the initial planning, and begins execution. The project may use an iterative method. Here a project executes 3 iterations before the next portfolio review.
5. After the first quarter completes, it's time to review the portfolio. The portfolio manager refreshes the strategic goals and enterprise architecture. The business environment may have changed since the last review.
6. The portfolio manager gets the actuals for all the projects in the portfolio. Some projects may have closed already. Others will still be executing.
7. The portfolio manager reviews the portfolio. Each project is assessed. Are the goals and architecture still aligned? Are the costs and schedule on track? Is the project still valuable. The result of the assessment may be to continue the project as is, give the project more resources to accelerate, reduce the resources to allow a more valuable project to proceed, or terminate the project beforeit completes.
8. Projects that pass the portfolio review continue to execute and the review process repeats again next quarter.

Comments

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-- AndyBerner - 14 Apr 2009

I've added some thoughts about this: InitialEstimateWithRisk

-- AndyBerner - 14 Apr 2009