Empowering project portfolio managers: How management involvement impacts project portfolio management performance

Distributed Leadership in Projects: The Contributions of Stakeholders

This article examines how stakeholders contribute to leading a project. Using a longitudinal study of a project embedded in a public project portfolio, the article uncovers a leadership configuration in which project portfolio and project actors come together in four patterns: top-down influence, transactional exchange, pooled leadership, and co-leadership. This configuration reveals integrated leadership units, the possibility of senior managers to both constrain and channel project manager contributions, and a wider variety of leadership patterns in horizontal and vertical relationships. These insights offer a more comprehensive account of distributed leadership that contributes to the development of leadership capacity in projects.

Roadmap Optimization: Multi-Annual Project Portfolio Selection Method

The process of project portfolio selection is crucial in many organizations, especially R&D organizations. There is a need to make informed decisions on the investment in various projects or lack thereof. As the projects may continue over more than 1 year, and as there are connections between various projects, there is a need to not only decide which project to invest in but also when to invest. Since future benefits from projects are to be depreciated in comparison with near-future ones, and due to the interdependency among projects, the question of allocating the limited resources becomes quite complex. This research provides a novel heuristic method for allocating the limited resources over multi-annual planning horizons and examines its results in comparison with an exact branch and bound solution and various heuristic ones. This paper culminates with an efficient tool that can provide both practical and academic benefits.

Seven Decades of Project Portfolio Management Research (1950–2019) and Perspectives for the Future

Although project portfolio management (PPM) has been on the research agenda for at least seven decades (1950–2019), the number of contributions on the topic continues to grow. Literature reviews help us to integrate and build on what we already know and to understand where we came from. However, reviews proving a shared historical narrative of the discipline are scarce but key. Thus, we trace the literature back to its origin, building and synthesizing our historical narrative into a model. We evaluate what has already happened and what will most likely shape the future.

Influence of organizational life cycle on performance management design in the software industry

Purpose

This work investigates the influence of the organizational life cycle (OLC) on the performance management system (PMS) design and the performance of projects in Brazilian industries of software development.

Design/methodology/approach

The study employed descriptive statistics and structural equations modeling on the data and information obtained from 115 Brazilian industries of software development with maturity in project management. Data collection was carried out through a survey applied to managers of the organizations mapped and certified by management maturity models Brazilian software process improvement (MPS-BR) or capability maturity model integration (CMMI).

Findings

Results revealed that OLC influences the PMS design dimensions (scope, aggregation and opportunity) and project performance. Regarding effects observed on the performance of projects, only the scope dimension's influence was validated by the analyses, and the other dimensions were not significant considering the investigated sample.

Originality/value

The paper shows evidence of how OLC can influence PMS design and project performance. The analyses can help managers to improve their actions in the PMS design, increasing confidence and generating more robust and sustainable results in the business model.

Public Health and Project Management: Do Projects Deliver?

Maternal, newborn, and child health (MNCH) has remained an ever-concerning area for hospital management and researchers throughout the world. Nevertheless, in the literature, less attention is paid to developing countries. The current study identifies the problems faced by maternal newborn and child health projects at each phase. We obtained data on MNCH projects via interviews from district project managers and extracted various themes for each phase of the MNCH project. The results indicated the most significant problems faced by the MNCH project emanate from the inefficient bureaucratic structure, lack of realistic planning, weak working environment, political interference, and inefficient knowledge acquisition. The current study found that project managers experience various problems from the initiation stage of the project to its closure. Additionally, they find themselves to be poorly equipped to manage such problems. We proposed various strategies such as implementing a bottom-up management approach, more decentralization, establishing patient feedback systems, giving more authority to the project managers, and so forth.

Proactively Monitoring Large Project Portfolios

The discipline of project management has evolved over the years, yet projects still run into trouble, failing entirely, running late, or not delivering expected benefits. Program and portfolio managers need assistance identifying potentially troubled projects while they are being delivered, allowing time to intervene. We report on our investigation of whether project status reports from IT project portfolios can be used to predict projects that may be trending into trouble ahead of time. We found that this initial approach resulted in a high degree of accurate predictions opening new avenues of research in predicting project progress and health.

Project governance and portfolio management in government digitalization

Purpose

This paper aims to increase the current understanding of the connection between operational level information and communication technology (ICT) projects and national level digital transformation by researching how project governance structures and practices are applied in an e-government context.

Design/methodology/approach

An elaborative qualitative study through public documentary analysis and empirical multi-case research on Finnish central government is used.

Findings

The study constructs a multi-level governance structure with three main functions and applies this in an empirical setting. The results also describe how different governance practices and processes, focusing on project portfolio management, are applied vertically across different organizational levels to connect the ICT projects with the national digitalization strategy.

Originality/value

This study integrates project governance and portfolio management knowledge into public sector digitalization, thus contributing to project management, e-government and ICT research streams by improving the current understanding on the governance of ICT projects as part of a larger-scale digitalization. This study also highlights perceived gaps between current governance practices and provides implications to managers and practitioners working in the field to address these gaps.

Project Portfolio Management Best Practice and Implementation: A South African Perspective

This paper analyses the link between project portfolio management (PPM) implementation and perceived company success in achieving strategic objectives. As foundation for a conceptual model, the paper explores and investigates three areas of PPM literature: (1) PPM success criteria (2) PPM success factors and (3) problems faced in PPM. Using a conceptual model, the paper empirically investigates the link between the implementation of various PPM practices, the perceived importance of these practices and the perceived success of project portfolios within a South African context. A mixed methodology approach consisting of: (1) surveys and (2) follow-up interviews was followed during the execution of the study. The study targeted 10 different industries and obtained 342 responses in total. The survey data was supported by four semi-structured follow-up interviews that aimed to further investigate some of the salient trends observed in the data. The study enables the deduction of various recommendations for good practice and implementation gaps in the area of PPM in the South African context. This includes recommendations regarding practices that appear to have a strong link with perceived PPM success, yet are viewed as unimportant by many practitioners.

Corporate Innovation Culture and Dimensions of Project Portfolio Success: The Moderating Role of National Culture

This study examines the relationships between corporate innovation culture (analysis/practices) and dimensions of project portfolio success (strategic fit/portfolio balance) as well as national-level culture practices as moderators. Data ( N = 165) were collected in four countries differing in cultural practices. Analysis and practices were identified as positive, significant, and complementary predictors of both dimensions. As hypothesized, the corporate variables related more strongly and positively to the success dimensions when assertiveness was high rather than low. The findings, thus, suggest that corporate factors should be compatible with national culture to elevate the fit and balance of project portfolios.

Managing Ambiguity When Evaluating and Selecting New Ideas in Project Portfolio Management

Evaluating and selecting new ideas are central activities in project portfolio management (PPM). PPM dominant approach assumes that both ideas and decision criteria are clearly defined at their evaluation. It does not take into consideration ambiguous situations in which ideas are not fully understood, or there are opposing opinions about their potential. We explore evaluation of ideas when PPM decision makers experience ambiguity. We found that decision makers allow ideas to be developed further, which helps them to understand purposes, reveal benefits and construct judgments. However, it also affects resource allocation because it requires resources that had already been assigned.

The Effect of Optimism Bias on the Decision to Terminate Failing Projects

This research presents the findings from an experiment that investigated to what extent decision makers suffer from optimism bias when escalating a commitment to failing projects; 345 individuals, involved in project decision making, participated in the experiment. A new form of optimism bias, namely post-project optimism bias, is defined. Post-project optimism bias is an overly optimistic belief that a project will deliver better business benefits than what was planned or that can be proven. It is further confirmed that both post-project and in-project optimism biases have significant effects on the escalation of commitment to failing projects.

Management Control of Project Portfolio Uncertainty: A Managerial Role Perspective

This article presents empirical results on different managers' viewpoints regarding the sources and management of project portfolio uncertainty. As a key result, this study demonstrates the versatility of uncertainties experienced by managers, the limited degree of perceived control over them, the use of an almost complete management control package in managing uncertainties, and the necessity of managers' cooperation in the skilled use of the management control package when managing uncertainties. In addition, a further research agenda is proposed.

Portfolio Risk Management and Its Contribution to Project Portfolio Success: An Investigation of Organization, Process, and Culture

Previous research has found supporting evidence of a positive relationship between project risk management and project success, but literature on how risk management is applied to and integrated with project portfolios has been scarce. Based on a literature review, a comprehensive conceptual model is developed, which highlights the three components of portfolio risk management: organization, process, and culture. This study investigates their linkage to portfolio success, mediated through risk management quality, and, therefore, provides principles for more effective portfolio risk management. The developed framework can be used for further empirical research on the influence of portfolio risk management and its success.

Establishing Project Portfolio Management: An Exploratory Analysis of the Influence of Internal Stakeholders’ Interactions

Project portfolio management (PPM) is viewed as a management innovation that must be further established and professionalized in many firms. Stakeholder behavior and stakeholder management are key success factors for project portfolios. Furthermore, stakeholder management must not only focus on single stakeholders but also account for stakeholders influencing one another in fairly complex interactions of multiple and potentially interdependent stakeholders.

Our quantitative study of internal key stakeholders’ engagement in the PPM process is based on a survey using 223 project portfolios from medium to large firms in Austria, Germany, and Switzerland. We investigate the intensity of stakeholders’ engagement in the three phases of the PPM process compared with expectations from PPM standards and role descriptions. Further, we analyze the interdependencies between the levels of stakeholder engagement and identify patterns of stakeholder behavior.

Our study assists in explaining the relevance of stakeholders to PPM. We further integrate stakeholder theory with a highly relevant management approach (PPM) and thus enhance the explanatory value of stakeholder theory. Finally, the current findings enable managers to address stakeholders more effectively through an increased understanding of stakeholder behavior and its consequences.

Portfolio Management: The Australian Experience

The increasing use of projects and programs by organizations to achieve business strategy and goals has led to the need for understanding project portfolio management. Along with the increasing diffusion of portfolio management, a new managerial role has evolved: the portfolio manager. This new role is pivotal in planning and controlling complex project landscapes more effectively and efficiently. This study investigates the governance structures and the roles, responsibilities, and practices of portfolio managers. A sequential mixed-method approach under a realism paradigm is used. This article presents the first-stage qualitative study, using an inductive interview-based approach with six portfolio managers from six organizations in Australia. The results of six case studies from the qualitative study are used to validate the research model developed based on previous research. It developed the constructs for the concept of portfolio context and the roles, responsibilities, and practices of portfolio managers.