Project Portfolio Management & Strategic Alignment : Governance as the Missing Link

• Main Authors: Hristova, Vesela, Müller, Claudia
• Format: Others
• Language: English
• Published: Internationella Handelshögskolan, Högskolan i Jönköping, IHH, EMM (Entrepreneurskap, Marknadsföring, Management) 2009
• Subjects: Project Portfolio Management; Strategic Alignment; Portfolio Governance; Portfolio Review Board; Portfolio Characteristics; Decision-Making Rationale; Maturity Models; Project-Based Organizations; Business and economics; Ekonomi
• Online Access: http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:hj:diva-9575

Introduction – Project-based organizations face a series of challenges when trying to implement and manage their project portfolios successfully in line with their strategic goals. Good project portfolio management (PPM) practices play a crucial role in maintaining well performing portfolios, but PPM is still a fairly new academic field. And it was found that the current PPM literature embodies a gap in providing explicit governance criteria to assure consistent portfolio decision-making. Problem – What are the criteria of portfolio governance that contribute to better aligning the project portfolio to organizational strategy? Do project-based organizations in fact not implement a governance framework to guide their decision-making rationale? If there is some sort of a governance framework, do project-based organizations implement it in a consistent manner every time they take portfolio-related decisions? Purpose – The purpose of this study is two-fold. First, we attempt to fill a gap in the current PPM literature by proposing a portfolio governance framework that could enhance project portfolio decision-making. Secondly, it is our goal to find out whether decision makers in project-based organizations consistently cover all issues related to portfolio governance at portfolio meetings. Methodology – The study employs both qualitative & quantitative methods to fulfill the two-fold nature of the study. A Portfolio Governance Framework, comprising 26 statements, was developed on the grounds of existing literature on PPM, strategy & governance. The proposed Framework was then used as a basis to carry out an online survey in which 31 respondents (executive level) from 25 project-based organizations (operating in Sweden) were asked about how consistent they are in discussing relevant portfolio governance issues. Conclusion – The empirical findings of this study indicate that the majority of project-based companies do not employ a governance framework when it comes to portfolio decision-making. In the few cases that they do, it is mostly a set of policies that is not applied on a consistent basis.