Mastering the Project Portfolio
An Executive Perspective

The streamlined version of a key course from the Stanford Advanced Project Management curriculum - tailored especially for executives in one day

If your organization relies on project work to achieve its strategic and business objectives, you must be sure that you are investing in the right projects, giving those projects the right resources, and getting them completed at the right time.

Mastering the Project Portfolio - An Executive Perspective, presents a methodology for project selection, prioritization, and oversight. You’ll examine how a strategic framework and metrics are vital to success, and you’ll learn to align your projects with your business strategies. You’ll discover a process for deciding how to apply limited resources to project demands far in excess of those resources. Plus several short exercises give you hands-on experience using the concepts and techniques you’ve learned to produce and manage your organization’s project portfolio. In addition, you’ll get a Project Portfolio Management Process Guide that details industry best practices and provides alternative approaches to implementation and oversight.

Developed by IPS and the Stanford Center for Professional Development at Stanford University, this fast-paced executive perspective course covers proven, process-based portfolio management tools and techniques. Part of our corporate learning solutions, the concepts are presented and reinforced through lectures, demonstrations, and structured exercises.

Benefits to the Organization

As a result of Mastering the Project Portfolio - An Executive Perspective, your organization will benefit from:

Improved ability to make fact-based portfolio management decisions
A better understanding of how to align projects and staff with strategic objectives
Effectively prioritizing projects and managing associated resource capacity and demand challenges
Enhanced organization-wide consistency with regard to portfolio management objectives, processes, roles, and responsibilities
A common process and vision that the entire organization can use

Learning Objectives

After attending Mastering the Project Portfolio - An Executive Perspective, you will be able to:

Continually align new and existing projects with business strategies
Choose between desirable opportunities when faced with limited resources
Establish governance over project portfolios
Reduce the negative impact of politics
Reconcile resource capacity and demand
Analyze project information to optimize the portfolio
Apply practical skills to implementing project portfolio management

Target Audience

This course is designed to benefit business executives seeking to gain a basic understanding of the concepts and techniques covered in more detail by the full version of this course and the Stanford Advanced Project Management curriculum as a whole.

Prerequisites. This course has no prerequisites.

Note: This course is not applicable toward SCPM credential. Mastering the Project Portfolio - An Executive Perspective, is a condensed version of a course in the Stanford Advanced Project Management curriculum. As such, it cannot be applied toward the Stanford Certified Project Manager (SCPM) credential.

Course Topics

Introduction

Resource management complexities
Project portfolio management (PPM) models
Surfacing expectations

Linking Strategy to Portfolio Management

Performance cornerstone elements
Portfolio management approaches and maturity
Strategy formulation relevance to portfolio management

Creating the Right Environment for Portfolio Project Management

Launching a new initiative
Relationship between portfolio management processes and key business processes
Portfolio risk areas

Strategic Metrics

Why strategic metrics are critical
Basics of measurement and metrics
Understanding strategic value

Aligning Projects with Business Strategies

Portfolios versus domains
Identifying strategies
Scoring model

The Right Resources on the Right Projects: Capacity and Demand

Resource capacity guidelines
Organization breakdown structure and resource pool
Assessing resource demand

The Optimized Project Portfolio

Resource utilization analysis
Adjusting the portfolio with respect to alignment, value, and balance to realize business strategies

Managing Innovation as Part of an Overall Portfolio Strategy

Aggregate project matrix: Breakthroughs, platforms, and derivatives
Multitasking

Summary

Review of major concepts
Relevance to strategic planning and execution

These courses may be combined with workshops included in our strategic consulting solutions to create an unparalleled custom learning solution for you and your organization. Contact us today to learn more.