Project portfolio consultancy

Reasons for portfolio management – survival of the fittest

Operations have been systematised, the company is well established in a well-known market, things are stable. Why not just keep things the way they are? The most critical factor is necessity! If you want to survive as a successful organisation, your ability to renew yourself must be just as strong a competency as your ability to make operations run effectively.

This is widespread knowledge and this is why many organisations initiate huge amounts of development efforts - from the core of the organisation and from each individual unit. As a result, most of the efforts are ineffective and exhausting for those who make them. At worst, we see organisations develop the same thing in different departments. As a solution, some choose to keep up the steam with a poor work environment, capsized projects and an endless fight for resources. Others choose to take up the challenge and professionalise the development efforts so that these are mastered on equal terms with the operation of the company.

A need for focus, prioritisation and navigation
The wisest people are humble towards the task, they define the challenges, the objectives and the road to these and use external experts whenever sensible. The outcome is a new, flexible organisation that is better able to set the agenda itself, but that is also better at adapting quickly when necessary. Some typical challenges along the way are clarification of roles between the portfolio and the steering committees, draw on resources in the portfolio and the same resources elsewhere, and the use of project models in the organisation. Can you do this? Do you need to gather the strongest project managers? How do you make continuous room for all the new projects if these turn out better than the other ones? What are the closedown criteria? Etc.

We would be pleased to have a non-committal meeting with the management of your company to determine where you are at, what we imagine your challenges to be, etc. Please contact.......... If we decide to enter into a cooperation as your consultant, sparring partner or executing project manager (link til konsulenter), we will, as a natural part of our approach, make sure that you are able to navigate a stable development of the portfolio management afterwards. This is a discipline that needs to be adjusted according to the company’s direction and size on an ongoing basis.

Must-win battles
One of several effective methods used by Mannaz globally when enabling a successful strategy implementation of company portfolios, is the ”Must-Win Battles” method. This is a globally recognised method that ensures focus and takes the current value of the business case so seriously that ongoing project closedowns become an equally crucial parameter for success, as completion of the most valuable projects. Only ”Survival of the Fittest” – i.e. the most capable projects business-wise – make it all the way. This, however, requires courage and a solid basis for decision.

Through this approach, competencies for prioritising, establishing and completing the portfolio as part of the consultancy, is strengthened/built up. Transformation management is equally integrated into all initiatives, as such strong focus will inevitably create just as much active resistance as cooperation in the organisation.
Portfolio committee – the company’s strategic forum

Portfolio committee, project forum and portfolio board are some of the names for the upper strategic forum that must ensure that the appropriate efforts are initiated and navigated on an ongoing basis.

The challenge connected to establishing such a committee is typically the distribution of roles between the portfolio board and the project management teams. It is about distinguishing between daily operational decisions and strategic development initiatives, daring to close down projects, making timely decisions based on a clear business case instead of waiting until it is ”past due”, and it is about being able to reorganise new projects or changing strategies in a balanced way during the process, because one learns from experience, etc.

Contact Mannaz
You are welcome to contact us for a non-committal discussion about your experiences related to your situation. Please contact:

Public companies:
Principal Consultant Jesper Mathisen, tel. +45 4517 6010
Principal Consultant Leif Godsk, tel. +45 4517 6015

Private companies:
Principal Consultant Leif Godsk, tel. +45 4517 6015