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Advancing the Concepts & Practices of Information Resources Management in Modern Organizations

Project Portfolio Management

Project Portfolio Management
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Author(s): Daniel M. Brandon (Christian Brothers University, USA)
Copyright: 2006
Pages: 5
Source title: Emerging Trends and Challenges in Information Technology Management
Source Editor(s): Mehdi Khosrow-Pour, D.B.A. (Information Resources Management Association, USA)
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-59904-019-6.ch027
ISBN13: 9781616921286
EISBN13: 9781466665361

Abstract

According to the CHAOS Report of the Standish Group, unqualified IT project success only occurs in about one-third of IT projects (The Standish Group, 2004). To improve this success rate, many organizations are investigating broad IT governance and project management issues such as “project portfolio management”. Often as an organizational home for such issues, organizations have started to establish a “Project Management Office” (PMO). CIO Magazine has itemized the key roles for a PMO (Santosus, 2003): • Project support: project management guidance • Project management process/methodology • Provide training • Provide a “home” for project managers • Provide internal consulting and mentoring • Project management software tools (evaluate, select, configure, maintain) • Project portfolio management In its most basic form, project portfolio management is concerned with the quantification of project benefits, costs, and other business and technical issues to provide for the optimal selection of which projects to initiate, which to hold, and which to cancel. Careful selection of which projects to initiate is vital to the success of an organization. Project initiation represents a future and perhaps long term commitment of resources and management attention; if a choice is careless or inappropriate, then the consequences may be severe (Brandon, 2006). In this paper, modern methods for the proper selection of which IT projects to initiate are discussed along with ways to manage and optimize a group of project possibilities from a business benefit perspective.

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