How do challenges of program and portfolio management differ in different organizational structures?
“Implementation doesn’t change much based on structure,” said DeBellis, but there is a different approach based on business model. The portfolio looks at investments across business models. “Every organization is different,” Salidis said. “Business managers actually spend very little time talking to project managers. Most business managers limit themselves to red, amber or green status reports. You need to get managers educated to some aspects of project management.” It seems that program and portfolio management requires project managers to spend a lot of time managing interdependencies and not the project itself. How do you deal with this? Project managers have to understand the business and businesses naturally have interdependencies. “A business may want something automated, but the cost of automating may be more than the benefit derived from it,” said Capone. “Nothing happens for free.” Understanding interdependencies in large organizations is critical. When one Fortune 500 firm a
