How to Achieve Breakthrough Project Portfolio Performance
Michael Francis Hannan, Toc Jonah · 2015
In spite of decades of attempts to improve the performance of project portfolios, survey after survey reports persistently poor results in all project-centric industries across the globe. While some project/task-level methods such as Agile have helped in some cases, the portfolio-level throughput of reliable project completions remains stubbornly low. This persistent pattern of low reliability suggests that there are systemic root causes that common practice has yet to address. By testing this hypothesis using a variety of emerging techniques in multiple applied real-world situations, the author concludes that a few root causes can be identified and addressed, resulting in dramatic improvements in the reliable throughput of project completions. This paper presents an harmonious mix of proven techniques from multiple leading methods—including Critical Chain, Agile, and Lean—integrated in an innovative way to boost performance by 2X or better. This approach provides leaders in project-centric organizations with a much higher-powered framework for unifying project teams and stakeholders at all levels, for enhancing the flow of productive work, and for aggregating risk for much higher portfolio reliability.