An Example Portfolio Management Process

BEST PRACTICES WHITE PAPER

An Example Portfolio Management Process

Jenny Stuart, Vice President of Consulting, Construx Software Version 1, June 2009 Contributors Jerry Deville, Professional Software Engineer Tom Landon, Professional Software Engineer Portfolio management is the process of clarifying, prioritizing, and selecting the projects and features an organization wishes to pursue. It includes activities that ensure the development efforts are aligned with the overall business objectives of the company and enables organizations to effectively and efficiently determine which projects and features provide the most significant return on investment. This white paper provides an example portfolio mangement process and guidance for tailoring it to meet the needs of an adopting organization.

This white paper was downloaded from whitepapers

An Example Portfolio Management Process

Contents

Overview of Portfolio Management .....................................................................................3 Example Portfolio Management Process.............................................................................3

Terminology .................................................................................................................3 Process Overview ........................................................................................................5 Process Phase Descriptions ........................................................................................6

Phase 1?Initial Project Evaluation.........................................................................6 Phase 2?Detailed Project Evaluation ....................................................................8 Phase 3?Cross-Project Prioritization...................................................................10 Phase 4?Resource Allocation and Project Initiation............................................12 Tailoring Guidance ............................................................................................................14 About Construx..................................................................................................................16

Construx Software | Best Practices White Paper

2

An Example Portfolio Management Process

Overview of Portfolio Management

Portfolio management is the process of clarifying, prioritizing, and selecting the projects an organization wishes to pursue. It evaluates and prioritizes the features targeted for inclusion in specific product releases. It encompasses techniques to ensure the projects and feature sets are aligned with business objectives, that technical impacts are well understood, and that product releases include the highest value features.

A strong portfolio management process enables organizations to effectively and efficiently determine which projects and features provide the most significant return on investment. It aids technology-selection decisions, provides guidance to ongoing architecture work, enables capacity planning, and informs development decisions. The lack of an effective process can reduce the desirability of the end product because guidance on priorities is not shared throughout the organization. It can reduce development productivity because significant time, effort, and money is spent making decisions about priorities in the early or even the mid to late stages of a project.

Example Portfolio Management Process

This best practice paper outlines an example portfolio management process and includes guidance on how to modify it to support the unique needs of individual organizations.

The example is based on an organization in which the business is organized along product lines. The portfolio management process needs to evaluate project ideas to determine the highest value items for each product and for the business as a whole. The organization delivers new releases of each product to its customers once every 12 to 18 months. It actively manages the feature set to hit specific release dates. A three to five year development roadmap is maintained to provide visibility into the themes and marquee features of future releases. The roadmap is actively managed and evolved as the business needs change and evolve.

The tailoring section later in this white paper outlines some considerations for organizations that are modifying the example to work within different types of organizations.

Terminology

Before we describe the phases and activities of the portfolio management process in detail, some key terms and roles of this process need to be described. This process overview uses the following terminology:

Construx Software | Best Practices White Paper

3

An Example Portfolio Management Process

Table 1 Terminology

Term

Definition

Business Case

A brief summary of the proposed project. It discusses the high-level requirements, identifies the business owners, describes all relevant non-functional requirements, and lists impacted products.

Portfolio Management Team

The Portfolio Management Team (PMT) includes the individuals who drive the overall process and ensure the necessary work is occurring. It includes participants from the technical group, business analysts, business owners, and project management.

Steering Committee

The Steering Committee includes product managers, program managers, and technical representatives. The team represents the needs of the customer base, understands the needs of the business, and evaluates the technical implications of requests.

Steering Committee chair

The Steering Committee chair has the authority to make the final call on allocating specific projects into the roadmaps during the Steering Committee meetings. The Steering Committee chair is responsible for obtaining approval from senior management for the proposed roadmaps. The individual in this role has the following attributes:

Well-aligned with the company's overall vision

Able to distinguish when projects are in or out based on the vision

Skilled in conflict resolution

Trusted by senior management and given sufficient authority to make the necessary decisions

Respected within the organization

Knows when and when not to escalate issues to senior management

Capable of balancing business and technical value to make the best overall decision for the organization

Authorities An authority is responsible for funding and championing a release.

Agent

The agent is the person empowered to carry out a release. The agent is responsible for planning and tracking the release activities to ensure they meet the business goals. The agent is typically a project manager.

Stakeholders

Stakeholders include key individuals or organizations that are impacted by the release. Stakeholders often define the completion criteria. The completion criteria include the most important elements the team must meet for the stakeholders to consider the release successful. The stakeholders are often product managers and executives from the product lines.

Construx Software | Best Practices White Paper

4

An Example Portfolio Management Process

Process Overview

The following diagram provides an overview of the portfolio management process from idea submission to a complete development of the roadmap and a set of product roadmaps.

Phase 1-Initial Project

Evaluation

Business Case

Submission

Initial Idea Evaluation

Phase 2-Detailed Project Evaluation

Early Requirements Clarification

Gate 1 Supported Idea

Individual Project

Evaluation

Coarse-Grain Estimation

ROI Analysis

Phase 3-Cross Project

Prioritization

Dependency Matrix

Gate 2 Evaluated Project

Project Prioritization

Capacity Analysis

Product Roadmap(s)

Phase 4-Resource Allocation

Release Chartering

Gate 3 Development and Product Roadmaps

Cross Project Evaluation

Feature Set Determination

Select Release CCB

Gate 4

Initiated Project

Development Roadmap, 12-24 Month Product Roadmaps, & Project Charter(s)

Figure 1 Portfolio Management Process Overview

Construx Software | Best Practices White Paper

5

 ................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download