The Best Way to Apply Project Portfolio Management - Research Proposal Example

Research proposal on the best way to apply Project Portfolio Management Introduction Background A portfolio comprises a collection of programs or projects which grouped together to make management efforts geared toward attainment of strategic business objectives to be effective. These projects are usually interdependent or related to one another (Huemann, Keegan & Rodney, 2007). Project portfolio management (PPM) refers to methods used for analysis and collective management of a group proposed or current projects based on many key characteristics. It involves selection of projects that a company needs to invest in. the selection process is usually based on need, profitability and affordability of the project. In many circumstances, managers are faced with many projects which need to be implemented in an organization. However, sometimes the available resources to implement the projects are usually limited. As a result, the managers find themselves in a situation where they cannot meet strategic goals of the organization since many projects are running but are taking long to complete due to limited resources (Stone, Hobbs, and Khaleeli, 2002). Under such circumstances, it is often difficult to find enough people to form a formidable project team. In addition, the company experiences high labor turnover because of burn n out of main contributors to projects since they work on very many projects and spend many overtime hours (Schwalbe, 2008). There is also frequent change in the status of projects often moving from active to on hold to top priority and back. Furthermore, projects which manage to reach completion stage often have no or little contribution to strategic need of the company. There is also a marked increase in competition among different departments with one another instead of cooperating. When a company finds itself in such state, it ought to implement a project portfolio management in order to attain its strategic goals. Such symptoms may be easy to identify and therefore the major task is how to implement the PPM. The symptoms may be apparent to operational managers in the firm but may not be known to the top management (Loch, 2000). This raises another issue of who is to initiate the process of PPM implementation. This proposal aims at unveiling the best way of applying PPM in firm faced with the problems outlined above. What is the issue? PPM breaks down projects into hierarchical order. This enables firms to assess their capabilities of implementing the projects and then sorting them in priority order based on the ability of the projects impact on performance of the firm. The implementation of PPM in a firm ought to base on the need to optimize returns from investing in certain projects at the expense of others, which are either put on hold or done away with. The introduction of PPM in a firm needs to be supported by the upper management who ought to participate actively in the process of implementation (Stone, Hobbs, and Khaleeli, 2002). However, more often the top management is unaware of the need to implement the PPM in a firm. Thus project managers are expected to build a strong case for the need of the PPM in the firm. The sorting out of projects in priority order once the PPM has been accepted is another daunting task for project portfolio management team (Huemann, Keegan & Rodney, 2007). Once the projects have been sorted out, the monitoring of the projects to ensure they remain relevant to the business strategy and their returns on investment are great is another task to be accomplished by the PPM team (Martinsuo and Lehtonen, 2007). There is need in understanding how firms which have successful implemented PPM initiated it, who initiated it, who were involved in coming with criteria for sorting projects and how these projects are monitored. Common features in these processes can help in devising methods that can be used to successful apply PPM in firms which are indenting to implement one. Proposition/hypothesis Successful application of PPM in firm is dependent on the composition of the team involved in the drawing of criteria for prioritizing the projects and active participation of upper management. Research question How can firms successful apply PPM to ensure greater returns from investing in prioritized projects? Research objectives 1. To find out how firms which have successful implemented PPM initiated it 2. To find out who initiated the PPM in these firms 3. To find out the composition of PPM team involved in drawing the criteria for sorting projects 4. To find out how projects are monitored and evaluated by the PPM team to ensure they are in line with the firm’s strategic goals. Literature review project Portfolio management is designed to enable an organization to obtain and view information related to its projects (Kahn, Barczak, and Moss, 2006). Once this is done it helps the firm to sort and prioritize the projects following a specified criterion such as impact on resources, strategic value or costs. It enables top management of the firm to become aware of all individual listings found in a portfolio. It further enables the management in developing a big picture view and a better understanding of the whole collection of projects. Moreover, PPM is essential in allowing sorting, addition or removal of items from a group in a sensible manner based on their benefits, costs and alignment to the firm’s long term strategic goals. The PPM also enables the firm to maximize returns from the resources invested in different projects hence ensuring that the firm remains profitable and sustainable for a prolonged period of time. Prior to implementation of a PPM, the firm has to develop an inventory of all of its projects. Each of these projects is then described comprehensively to allow analysis and comparison to be undertaken (Kahn, Barczak, and Moss, 2006). Description of the projects may entail things like the name of the project, time required to accomplish the project, its estimated cost, the objective of the business, the relation between the project and the firm’s strategic business goal (Stone, Hobbs, and Khaleeli, 2002). In most case the compilation of these data is data electronically to make analysis process easier. Once the inventory has been created, the department heads are required to examine each of the projects and carry out prioritization process using the established criteria (Cooper, Edgett, and Kleinschmidt, 2001). Analysis of the overall list of projects is done to help in the development of a balanced list of projects that are supported. Some projects on the list receive higher priority and extensive support, some get moderate priority while other projects are placed on hold or removed from the list altogether. The project portfolio then receives regular evaluation by the portfolio management team to help in determination of the projects which are attaining their set goals, which require more support or which require to be downsized or dropped from the list. Given the turbulent business environment, circumstances of each project may change rapidly and hence PPM can only be effective if the portfolio gets frequent revisits and active management by the team. More often than not, the PPM management team is composed of heads of departments from sub-organizations which is involved in generation of project requests, provision of project resources, provision of project funding, utilization of finished project deliverables and setting of strategic directions. The criteria for valuing projects are developed by the PPM management team to help in prioritization of projects (Kahn, Barczak, and Moss, 2006). To develop these criteria, the management should find out the value that can be added to the firm by the project. Portfolios chosen should be monitored and ensure that portfolio balance is preserved and the project ought to remain relevant to the strategy. The development of the criteria ought to involve all stakeholders to enhance its acceptability. However, in most cases this is not the case and hence most PPM end up failing in many firms. Many project managers are usually frustrated by inadequate resources to accomplish their project goals or even sometimes the resources are stolen by other organizations. In such cases PPM is of great help since such frustrations are signs that project portfolio is unbalanced. It is an indication that many projects are underway and hence the available resources cannot be able to support all of them. By employing PPM the projects can be sorted out in order to allow prioritization of some projects and putting on hold or even doing away with some projects. This ensures that the available resources are utilized in accomplishing the strategic goal of the firm. The PPM helps project managers get enough resources to complete a high quality project deliverables timely and within budget. It also makes the projects to be valued and hence those working on it will enjoy doing so and get enormous support from the organization. The implementation of PPM cannot be carried out with an average project manager alone. For a successful implementation of PPM, the top level management ought to support it and be involved actively. In most cases these managers occupying senior positions are unlikely to initiate PPM unless there is documented need for it. Thus those average managers, who believe that their firms are in need of PPM, they ought to learn, build their case for PPM and present the case to senior management. Many projects fail because of many reasons. First, a project may fail because of inadequately trained or inexperienced project managers. They may also fail because of failure to set and manage expectations (Kerzner, 2010). Projects may also fail if the leadership of the project at any level is poor. If the project managers fail to adequately identify and document or track the requirements of the projects, such projects may fail. Poor plans and planning processes can result in failure of the projects. Poor effort estimation and cultural and ethical misalignment could also lead to project failure (Kahn, Barczak, and Moss, 2006). Lack of alignment between the business strategic goal and the project team may lead to failure of the project. Misused or inadequate methods of implementing the project can also result in the failure of the project (Pennypacker, 2009). Finally lack of progress tracking and reporting can be an impediment on the success of the project. Implementing a PPM can aid in alleviating project failures emanating from the above causes. It is apparent that implementation of PPM should be based on the need to optimize returns from investing in certain projects at the expense of others which are either put on hold or done away with. The introduction of PPM in a firm needs to be supported by the upper management who ought to participate actively in the process of implementation. However, more often the top management is unaware of the need to implement the PPM in a firm (Rajegopal, McGuin, and Waller, 2007). Thus project managers are expected to build a strong case for the need of the PPM in the firm. The sorting out of projects in priority order once the PPM has been accepted is another daunting task for project portfolio management team. Once the projects have been sorted out, the monitoring of the projects to ensure they remain relevant to the business strategy and their returns on investment are great is another task to be accomplished by the PPM team (Moore, 2009). This projects aims to find out how firms which have successful implemented PPM initiated it, who initiated it, who were involved in coming with criteria for sorting projects and how these projects are monitored. Common features in these processes will be evaluated in order to come up with methods that can be used to successful apply PPM in firms which are indenting to implement one. Methodology Research design This is the structure of research. It holds all the elements of a research project together. It enables researchers to answer research questions using the evidence obtained unambiguously (Kahn, Barczak, and Moss, 2006). In order to obtain evidence that is relevant one need to specify the type of evidence required for answering the research questions, to evaluate a program, to test a theory or to describe a phenomenon accurately. Thus when designing research one ought to know the type of evidence required for answering the question at hand. This research will use a survey to answer the questions outlined above. Research strategy Various research strategies for the collection of data exist. Some of these methods are more suited to the deductive approach while others belong to the inductive approach. Various factors guide the choice of research strategy (Moore, 2009). The most significant ones are the research question and objectives of the research. The most common research strategies in management include survey, case study, experiment, grounded research and action research. The following strategy will be employed in addressing the research question and objectives for this research study. Survey Survey involves collection of large amounts of data from the population which is sizeable by use of questionnaires administered to the sample population. Surveys provide information those sugest possible reasons for particular relationships between variables and to produce models of these relationships (Rajegopal, McGuin, and Waller, 2007). Survey strategy generates findings which are representative of the whole population at a lower cost as compared to collecting the data for the whole population. However, the data collected is unlikely to be as wide ranging as those collected using other research strategies. This is because there is a limitation in the number of questions a questionnaire can contain, and richness of the data to be collected is dependent on the goodwill of the respondents. In spite the shortcoming, this research will employ a survey strategy. Qualitative method The use of qualitative method occurs when researchers intent to gather the opinions of experts or participants. It is often subjective in nature and the data collected may include empirical evidence, meanings, values, and experiences (Kahn, Barczak, and Moss, 2006). Qualitative research uses an inductive reasoning to generate ideas from data as opposed to the quantitative approach which employs deductive reasoning and needs to confirm a hypothesis. In this research qualitative methods will be employed to gather opinions of PPM team concerning implementation of the PPM. Semi structured interviews will be carried out to collect data from portfolio managers. Quantitative Method This is a method used to collect data impartially by using structured procedures and involves using large amounts of samples. This method has a disadvantage of beginning with a theoretical framework and has little diversion from this framework as a result (Moore, 2009). Quantitative research does not allow any new concepts to be discovered during the research. This research will adopt quantitative method for the analysis of data collected using structured interviews. Research Methods/ Choices Use of secondary data: documentary secondary data will be used in this research in addition to using primary data collection methods. Documentary data will include written materials, company reports, journal articles, books and other records relevant to this research. By using secondary data, enormous resources will be saved (Huemann, Keegan & Rodney, 2007). The method is also less expensive than to collect the data yourself and it helps to contextualize findings within a more general context (Rajegopal, McGuin, and Waller, 2007). However, secondary data has its disadvantages as the data is usually collected for a specific purpose that differs from the research objectives of this research. Furthermore, where data was collected for commercial reasons gaining access may be difficult and costly. The researcher has no control over the quality of the data when using secondary data. A self- completion survey method involving the use of structured questionnaires to collect data will also be used in this research. A structured questionnaire contains a predetermined set of questions designed to capture data from respondents. Self –administered questionnaires will be administered electronically to a cross-sectional of employees in different companies. These will range from relief support workers, permanent support workers, senior support workers and service managers from different locations (Blichfeldt and Eskerod, 2008). This will allow easy administration, faster and cheaper data collection and analysis. However, the draw back is that it is limited to only computer users and cannot probe complex issues (Cleland and Gareis, 2006). Since most questions on questionnaire are simple and straightforward, they do not allow for searching of new issues. Questionnaire containing both closed and open questions will be developed from the literature review. A small pilot study will be carried out to identify firms which have PPM in place. Semi-structured interviews: these are used for collecting qualitative data through interviews. It allows respondents to talk about their perspectives on a particular subject. It uses open-ended questions prepared by the researcher or questions that may arise during the interview (Rajegopal, McGuin, and Waller, 2007). This method is simple, efficient and practical way of getting data about things that cannot be easily observed, it has high validity as respondents are able to talk about things in detail and depth. However, use of Semi structured interview has some shortcomings since it depends on the skill and ability of the researcher to think of questions during the interview and articulacy of the respondent. In addition, it is time consuming and expensive, is not reliable as respondents may be asked different questions and qualitative data collected may be difficult to analyze. Despite the shortcomings, semi-structured interviews will be conducted in this research with two relevant senior managers and portfolio managers in companies, which will be identified to have PPM in place (Moore, 2009). A total of ten companies having PPM will be targeted in this research. Data analysis Data obtained will be analyzed in three stages. These will include data preparation, data description and testing hypotheses. During data preparation logging in the data, entering the data into the computer, data transformation and development and documentation of a database will be undertaken to integrate the various measures (Kahn, Barczak, and Moss, 2006). Description of data will entail description of basic features of the data in the study. This will be used to provide summaries about the measures and samples. Testing of hypothesis will involve inferential statistics. Project time line Activity Time Proposal writing December, 2010 Questionnaire preparation January, 2011 Pilot study February, 2011 Data collection March to May, 2011 Data analysis June, 2011 Report writing and publication of findings July, 2011 Summary A portfolio comprises a collection of programs or projects which grouped together to make management efforts geared toward attainment of strategic business objectives to be effective. In many circumstances, managers are faced with many projects which need to be implemented in an organization. However, sometimes the available resources to implement the projects are usually limited. As a result, the managers find themselves in a situation where they cannot meet strategic goals of the organization since many projects are running but are taking long to complete due to limited resources. Under such circumstances, it is often difficult to find enough people to form a formidable project team. In addition, the company experiences high manpower turnover as a result of burn n out of main contributors to projects since they work on very many projects and spend a lot of overtime hours. There is also frequent change in the status of projects often moving from active to on hold to top priority and back. Furthermore, projects which manage to reach completion stage often have no or little contribution to strategic need of the company. There is also a marked increase in competition among different departments with one another instead of cooperating. When a company finds itself in such state, it ought to implement a project portfolio management in order to attain its strategic goals. However, the implementation process requires certain steps to be observed to make the process successful. This projects aims to find out how firms which have successful implemented PPM initiated it, who initiated it, who were involved in coming with criteria for sorting projects and how these projects are monitored. Common features in these processes will be evaluated in order to come up with methods that can be used to successful apply PPM in firms which are indenting to implement one. Surveys involving structured questionnaires; secondary data and structured interviews will be used to collect data. The data analysis will involve three stages: data preparation, data description and testing hypotheses. References Blichfeldt, B., and Eskerod, P. 2008. Project portfolio management – There is more to it than what management enacts. International Journal of Project Management, 26(4), pp. 357-365 Cleland, D., and Gareis, R. 2006. Global project management handbook: planning, organizing, and controlling international projects, 2nd Ed. New York: McGraw-Hill Professional. Cooper, R., Edgett, S., and Kleinschmidt, E. 2001. Portfolio management for new product development: results of an industry practices study. R&D Management, 31(4), pp. 361-380 Huemann, M., Keegan, A. & Rodney, J. 2007. Human resource management in the project-oriented company: A review. International Journal of Project Management, 25(3), pp. 315-323 Kahn, K., Barczak, G., and Moss, R. 2006. Perspective: Establishing an NPD Best Practices Framework. Journal of Product Innovation Management, 23(2), pp. 106-116 Kerzner, H. 2010. Project Management: Best Practices: Achieving Global Excellence, 2nd Ed. New York: John Wiley and Sons. Loch, C. 2000. Tailoring product development to strategy: case of a European technology manufacturer. European Management Journal, 18(3), pp. 246-25 Martinsuo, M., and Lehtonen, P. 2007. Role of single-project management in achieving portfolio management efficiency. International Journal of Project Management, 25(1), pp. 56-65. Moore, S. 2009. Strategic Project Portfolio Management: Enabling a Productive Organization. London: John Wiley and Sons. Pennypacker, J. 2009. Project Portfolio Management: A View from the Management Trenches. London: John Wiley and Sons. Rajegopal, S., McGuin, P., and Waller, J. 2007. Project portfolio management: leading the corporate vision. New York: Project Portfolio Management. Schwalbe, K. 2008. Introduction to Project Management, 2nd Ed. London: Cengage Learning. Stone, M., Hobbs, M., and Khaleeli, M. 2002. Multichannel customer management: The benefits and challenges. The Journal of Database Marketing, 10(1), pp. 39-52 Read More