Management Assignment: Portfolio Value Management Plan for a Project

Question

Task

Prepare a management assignment critically discussing about the portfolio value management plan for a project.

Answer

Portfolio Value Management
The portfolio value management plan prepared in this management assignment has to be realized for the project as soon as possible such that a clear view of the benefits. The Portfolio Value Management will enable recovering accumulated investment in the change and will enable tracking benefits arising from the entire portfolio. As the three projects A (Health Program), B (Mentorship Program), and C (Social Programs) are part of the portfolio, its associated metrics have to be ascertained for benefits realization. Through value effective management of value, the portfolio manager will aim at negotiating expected value, against aims of the organizational strategy for entire portfolio as a whole. The aim will be to maximise returns from investments into a portfolio, realize value by undertaking investment in such portfolio and also to report value by measuring it.

The scale of the benefits forecasted to be realized: The portfolio is expected to generate considerable intangible benefits such as skill upliftment, building upon the organization's reputation, and societal value. These metrics cannot be measured directly in terms of value. Such as the Health Program will build the reputation of the organization in terms of capability to train students with physical fitness alongside mental fitness. Though the program will considerably employ human resources such as trainers, staff, and employees at the university to conduct this program. There will be significant resource consideration required for the project as well in terms of training spaces, finance for conducting the program and for payment of salaries, renting spaces for conducting training, and so on. The planned benefit arising to the organization from the implementation of health programs will be determined by portfolio resources. With the maximum percentage of students involved in the project, increased percentage of critical resources availability, reduced PM dependence on external factors, reduced dependence on external specialists, low budget coverage for the Portfolio compliance, a high percentage of governance compliance, and less reliance on the business case, the project is expected to add tremendous value to the organization. The planned benefit arising to the organization from implementation of health programs will be determined by portfolio resources. With maximum percentage of students involved in the project, increased percentage of critical resources availability, reduced PM dependence on external factors, reduced dependence on external specialists, low budget coverage for the Portfolio compliance, high percentage of governance compliance, and less reliance on business case, the project is expected to add tremendous value to the organization. There will be needed considerable time investments as well into the program such that it can be conducted within the allocated timeframe, for this case 1 year would suffice. In the Mentorship Program project, there will be a value generated in terms of spreading further brand awareness for the organization with the development of societal value associated with the project. The value generated from group seminars with industry professionals can be evaluated by the meeting of Portfolio objectives. Such programs will provide a high percentage of benefit in regards to delivery exposure, a high percentage of value management, a high percentage of benefit/cost estimation, with an increased percentage of owner satisfaction. Organizing international social programs in indigenous cultural events will add tremendous portfolio value and returns to the organization. Through the Portfolio objectives method, this program's value can be determined. This program will have increased benefit of delivery exposure, increased value management with inclusion of indigenous culture, increased benefit/cost estimation, and increased owner satisfaction. The portfolio is expected to employ various personnel for health, mentoring, and social projects. There will be one portfolio manager, who will be overlooking the roles of different project managers of A, B, and C also ascertaining their outcomes. Each of the projects will have their project managers along with trainers, staff, and other employees to assists in conducting the projects such that they can reach their outcomes. Other stakeholders of the project will include financer, contractors, procurement team, legal personnel, and venue, and event organizer.

The time required to complete the entire portfolio will be 1.5 years. Each project component will not be started one after the other, rather they will be started all together, and the portfolio manager will coordinate with all the project managers for coordinating for the project conduct. These varied projects will require various overlapping resources. As the project for health and social program might require the ground for conducting their programs hence, they will need to have an appropriate project scheduling to avoid overlapping situations and discontinuation of the program. The schedule has not been possible to be devised for all the projects together as there will be several periods of overlapping time for the entire portfolio.

The social program project is also associated to create significant brand value. A table of benefits arising from the portfolio is ascertained using the Portfolio objective method as depicted as below;

Figure 1: Expected Benefits from the Portfolio

Source: Author

Change Control and Management
The portfolio will need to be able to respond to changes in the organization's strategy and objectives. For this change management and controls need to be implemented with appropriate metrics by the portfolio manager. Change management and control approach, in this case, will review the components of the portfolio on a priority basis, develop as well as implement recommendations for the portfolio, including a schedule of proposed changes, risks, resources, costs, impact as well as the degree of strategic alignment. The portfolio governance plans along with the portfolio management plan include ways in which significant changes which impact process, people, assets, and technology will be managed. For the portfolio manager to controlling portfolio change, the following approaches will be adopted;

a) Reviewing portfolio components: With the portfolio containing various projects, the priority component of the portfolio needs to be ascertained. One of the priorities while reviewing the portfolio component which includes finances when a change needs to be accommodated. Another priority of the portfolio includes the management of considerable risks that cannot be mitigated has to be considered after a change has been impacted. For instance the employment within the portfolio, aspects of health in the area, factors undertaken and so on.

b) Developing portfolio recommendations: Some of the recommendations for the portfolio that needs consideration while change is being impacted include re-scheduling of individual project components such that risks from project failure and overall portfolio failure can be averted. All risks associated with the project component need to be evaluated thoroughly and checked if risks cannot be transferred or mitigated can be removed from these projects altogether. The projects (portfolio overall) need to implement a cost reduction strategy such that they can easily complete the project within a specified deadline and within costs. Every resource needs to be evaluated to check if they are performing adequately and delivering to the project as planned. The impact as well as the degree of strategic alignment need to be determined with the project component while change is being accommodated. It needs to be ascertained that the strategic alignment within the change management perspective has to remain beneficial for the portfolio to generate benefits.

c) Providing communication to portfolio stakeholders: Once the recommendations are developed, they need to be implemented without changing components of the portfolio. Without adding, moving, or modifying or removing of portfolio components in accommodating change management has to be adopted.

d) Communicating to portfolio stakeholders: Post accommodation of changes to the portfolio or planning for changes, all necessary communications need to be provided stakeholders. All decisions regarding changes to the portfolio's baseline as well as to its plan need to be provided to the stakeholders of the project about the defined decision rights within the portfolio. Appropriate communication for such change control needs to be made to relevant stakeholder groups.