Six Principles of Strategic Portfolio Management – Part 5: Inclusive, Collaborative Process
By Don Creswell
5 min study
In a previous article, we discussed the fourth principle of strategic portfolio management: “Embracing Uncertainty and Dynamics.” When we go through the process of analyzing all the possible dynamics that can come up during the life cycle of a project, we create the opportunity to adjust to the changes, rather than being surprised and negatively affected by them. Now, let’s move on to the fifth principle — that strategic portfolio management is an inclusive, collaborative process. Let’s explore the reasons why.
While many companies do a reasonably decent job of involving project managers and department heads in making decisions that will affect their teams, the process of portfolio management for some companies has focused on the needs of the C-suite executives and management first. Decisions that affect the teams working on projects may be made behind closed doors with little thought put into how those decisions would impact those teams. Access to the data that is used to make those decisions is limited to a privileged few, and project leaders are then handed these decisions with no voice in the process and given the daunting task of disseminating them to their teams, whether anyone liked it or not. By handling portfolio management in this way, stakeholders, project managers — and indeed all participants — are left feeling disconnected and disenfranchised from the process. The work is often viewed as large-scale drudgery and overall morale is negatively impacted.