IIL Consulting: Project, Program, and Portfolio Management Performance Improvement
The project economy is here to stay – make sure your portfolio is ready to seize the opportunity.
Opportunity
Organizations worldwide are under tremendous pressure to increase operational efficiencies and improve the performance of their portfolios. IIL provides a systems approach to increase value by optimizing project, program, and portfolio management, and protect value by improving operational efficiency.
Value
Improving an organization’s performance in delivering and maintaining value begins with assessing alignment between an organization’s strategy and their portfolio of projects and programs. An aligned portfolio leads to effective strategy execution and benefits realization.
A playbook guides teams in efficient practices so they can operate consistently, while building new muscles in project and program execution.
Implementation Strategy
Our consultants work in partnership with your core team. We start by assessing your organization’s current strategy. This is followed by a review of the project and program portfolio(s) to ensure that the strategy and the strategic themes are cascading into the portfolio and its constituent elements.
Once there is alignment with the strategy and the portfolio, a set of Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) is established. These will serve as the core enablers for the portfolio execution effectiveness.
The outcomes from the alignment and mapping exercise inform a Playbook that is tailored to the organization’s specific needs.
At this point an assessment is conducted to identify project, program, and portfolio management capability gaps. IIL uses this information to develop a customized plan to build capabilities and improve skill gaps. Improvement plans can include training, coaching, and on-the-job guided delivery exercises.
Results
The work involved in strengthening project, program, and portfolio performance leads to both short-term and long-term gains.
In the short term, you will see that all projects, programs, and portfolios are aligned with the organization’s strategic direction. This leads to better prioritization of resources and effort.
By identifying and addressing capability and skill gaps you will find that team members are more efficient and can handle more complex projects. Project performance will improve as projects are more likely to be completed on time, within budget, and meet the stated objectives. This leads to increased stakeholder satisfaction.
As team members’ skills improve, they are better able to address risks and issues. Additionally, team members are more readily able to adapt to changes in the internal and external environment.
Ultimately, these short-term improvements lead to longer term benefits, such as enhanced competitive advantage. Because projects are the engines that drive organizational growth, performance improvement at the project level equates to long-term organizational growth and success.
