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

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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¨CInitial Project Evaluation.........................................................................6

Phase 2¨CDetailed Project Evaluation ....................................................................8

Phase 3¨CCross-Project Prioritization...................................................................10

Phase 4¨CResource Allocation and Project Initiation............................................12

Tailoring Guidance ............................................................................................................14

About Construx..................................................................................................................16

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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:

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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.

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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

Gate 1

Supported

Idea

Individual

Project

Evaluation

Phase 2-Detailed

Project

Evaluation

Coarse-Grain

Estimation

Early Requirements

Clarification

Gate 2

ROI Analysis

Evaluated

Project

Phase 3-Cross

Project

Prioritization

Dependency

Matrix

Capacity Analysis

Project Prioritization

Gate 3

Product

Roadmap(s)

Cross

Project

Evaluation

Development and

Product Roadmaps

Phase 4-Resource

Allocation

Release Chartering

Select Release

CCB

Feature Set

Determination

Gate 4

Initiated

Project

Development Roadmap, 12-24 Month

Product Roadmaps, & Project Charter(s)

Figure 1 Portfolio Management Process Overview

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