A team without a shared strategic goal is useless as a compass without a north arrow. This directional alignment can only be achieved with a clear project portfolio management (PPM) plan. So, what is project portfolio management?
Learning to manage your project portfolio is an essential skill that defines a company’s goals and values. It maintains this plan by strategically aligning projects to enhance its ventures. Proper portfolio management counters waste by aligning resources and tracking the organization’s results.
We will break down the benefits of a project portfolio management platform and show how Monday.com’s resource management can fit your plan.
What is Project Portfolio Management?
Monday.com is already famous as a tool for project management, but it can do much more. Project management allows teams to accomplish objectives in accordance with the project acceptance criteria within predetermined boundaries. With project portfolio management software, you can monitor projects’ progress.
Project portfolio management is essential for a program manager. With effective PPM software, you can execute multiple projects with finite resources.
What Is Resource Management?
Monday.com offers limited resources in the field of resource management. With the proper structure, you can ensure that your projects are properly staffed.
Managers must learn how to allocate their resources and teams to different projects with a fixed amount of company resources. Planning, scheduling, and allocating people, money, and technology to a project or program are part of proper resource management.
Managers need to practice resource-leveling when resources are over-allocated or stretched too thin. This is a project management technique that ensures all projects are properly staffed.
With limited access to resources, proper resource management software is essential. Effective resource management tools should be your priority to ensure that all teams can execute their projects.
Defining Your Project Portfolio Management Strategy
Project managers need to use their insights to define their project portfolio strategy. By having a robust understanding of each step of a project, they can develop a clear and cohesive timeline and delegate aspects of the project.
Project portfolio management lets organizations effectively prioritize schedules and plan their activities. Monday.com’s platform allows you to identify the strengths and weaknesses of your team. This gives you a holistic overview of individual projects and your team’s progress.
Identify Your Overall Goals and Objectives
Goals give us direction when it comes to completing a task. By taking the time to identify your goals, you can focus on high-priority elements and work toward your end product.
Without setting clear goals and objectives, your team risks losing focus and getting off track. When you keep your projects’ goals and objectives in the forefront of your mind, you can ensure that you maximize your time and resources.
Make a List of All Tasks Associated with the Project
When your team takes on a large project, list all the tasks that go into your end goal. By isolating individual tasks, you can delegate smaller tasks to different teammates.
Make a list of tasks associated with the project at the start of your project management journey. This allows you and your team to ensure no steps are overlooked when working towards your end goal.
Identify Strengths and Weaknesses for Projects
Once you and your team can review a comprehensive list of tasks associated with your project, you can help delegate them based on your team’s strengths and weaknesses. For example, if one of your teammates is extremely creative but struggles at copywriting or editing, you can give them all the digital design elements of the project.
By identifying your team’s strengths and weaknesses, you can ensure that each element of your project is completed by someone who will complete their assigned task effectively. From a managerial perspective, you should create an environment where teams feel as if they can share their strengths and weaknesses to build upon one another.
If you fail to identify your team’s strengths and weaknesses, you may have someone working on a project element incorrectly and get your entire team off of your projected timeline.
Draw Parallels Between Your Tasks and Objectives
Team members want to know whether their work will fill a greater vision. By drawing parallels between each task and your overall objectives, you can empower your team to accomplish their mission.
Not only does drawing parallels between tasks in your objectives give people a sense of fulfillment, but it also allows you to ensure that all of your objectives are met. When managers don’t take a holistic approach to their projects, they hone in on certain objectives and focus on ones that they deem more important.
Filter Tasks Based on Your Priorities
Task filtration gives you the ability to narrow your task list by priority. Placing filters on your tasks will allow you to ensure a high level of performance among your team.
Tasks are stacked together like dominoes when working on a major project. One task may need to be completed to begin another. That is why the sorting features on Monday.com allow you to sort through different tasks and rank them in order of priority.
When people work without this pre-determined list of priorities, they may neglect the most pressing tasks to get simpler ones off their to-do list.
Consistently Track Task Progress
Teams struggle to achieve their goals when they fail to track their overall progress. If you lose sight of your objectives, you will likely miss deadlines or overextend your resources. Project managers can help keep up-to-date by monitoring the Monday.com dashboard and incorporating “update meetings” into the calendar.
Manage Your Project Portfolio Using Monday.com
Portfolio management is the maintenance of different projects and investments that balance an organization’s potential risks and rewards. It is called a portfolio when managers restructure and change how they approach their initiatives.
Use a Management Platform to Track Your Project Portfolio’s Performance
A project manager’s portfolio shows their ability to allocate resources, complete tasks promptly, and provide direction to their team. Projects completed using Monday.com can be reviewed and tracked easily, making them the perfect addition to a project manager’s portfolio.
Project managers often juggle a variety of projects simultaneously. By leveraging PPM software and custom dashboards, Monday.com allows you to build your project management portfolio in a centralized location.
What is the Difference Between Project Management and Portfolio Management?
Portfolio project management focuses on how companies select projects, whereas project management refers to how tasks are divided up among a team. Because project management focuses on the execution of the project, it can become convoluted if not appropriately handled.
Monday.com has features that allow you to manage projects and your portfolio effectively. Company leadership tends to fail when they attempt to merge project and portfolio management.
How PPM Express Empowers Your Monday.com Project Portfolio Management
Monday.com is a premier platform for effective project portfolio management. However, PPM Express lets you build Roadmaps for your Monday.com portfolio. This site allows you to scale your project management by leveraging digital systems and integration.
When you connect your boards on Monday.com to PPM Express, you can use the high-level project portfolio visibility to make insightful decisions based on valuable PPM insights. Some helpful PPM Express features include:
- Monday.com board organization
- Project tracking
- Budget management tools
- Editing requests
With PPM Express, you can manage all enterprise initiatives at scale, prioritize certain projects, and allocate resources effectively. Because you can upload and import all the details of your projects, managers can quickly review a problem and find a resolution.
Using this software, you can support your decision-making with insights from over 70 state-of-the-art Microsoft Power BI reports for Project Portfolio Management. Information can be shared with customers or external users.
Use Best Practices for Project Management and Project Portfolio Management
Managers are expected to juggle a slew of tasks at any given time. People often feel overwhelmed by a long “to-do list.” These overwhelming tasks are made easier with PPM software like Monday.com.
Managers fail when they overextend their teams. You can increase your opportunities for success by prioritizing effective resource management. Integrating a project management platform will help your business.
These tools help your company’s business model identify strengths and weaknesses.
Contact us at PPM Express to help you manage your project portfolio and individual projects.