Management of Portfolio™: Another Rain Dance Part 2

In part 1 of this posting we were discussing the question of if portfolio management can improve the chances of organisational success?  To answer this I began exploring the OGC guide Management of Portfolio™.

Having explored the guide, it:

• Provides a language for the ritual
  • “A Portfolio is the totality of an organisations’ investment (or segment thereof) in the changes required to achieve its strategic objectives.”
  • “Portfolio Management is a coordinated collection of strategic processes and decisions that together enable the most effective balance of organisational change and ‘business as usual’.”
• Gives questions that the ritual needs to answer
  • Are we doing the right things?
  • Are we doing these things right?
  • Are we realising all the benefits in terms of more effective services and efficiency savings from the changes we are implementing?

• Summaries the strategic and organisation context  and aspects for the ritual

• States the expected benefits of the rain dance
• More of the ‘right’ changes – greater financial benefits and measurable contribution to strategic objectives;
• Removal of redundant and duplicate programmes and projects;
• More effective implementation of programmes and projects
• More efficient resource utilisation
• Greater benefits realisation
• Enhanced transparency, accountability and corporate governance
• Improved engagement and communication between relevant stakeholders
  • Declares the responsibilities for the ritual
    • Portfolio Direction Group (PDG) or Investment Committee (IC)
    • Portfolio Progress Group (PPG) or Change Delivery Committee (CDC)
    • Business Change Director or Portfolio Director
    • Portfolio Manager
    • Portfolio Benefits Manager
• Describes the arrangements and timing for the ritual
• Gives instructions for the rain dances practices, portfolio definition and portfolio delivery.

• Describes the key ingredient of the ritual as being “Organisational Energy”, which is representative of the energy and effort of the people within the organisation that will create success?
• Offers coherent case studies outlining how to change the weather

You may have considered that what I have outlined is no different to what you may have read in other books covering the topic. But the big difference with this guide is that offers the practitioner the success factors that must be considered and established so as to change the weather.

Why should you read this book? Possibly, as a practitioner you may need a comprehensive view of the organisational issues that must be addressed, an approach to position and establish the disciple and a framework that outlines a variety of straightforward  non-proprietary tools and techniques, so that you can predict and change the weather.