Information Technology Project Portfolio Management

Information Technology Project Portfolio Management
Introduction
Project portfolio management (PPM) is beneficial to IT professionals in several ways apart from an overall increase in efficiency of monitoring and evaluation of ongoing projects. There is normally a grey zone in the functions of PPM and the project management office (PMO). The controversy raised is normally that the work is in the job description of the PMO. Many therefore foresee it as two avenues for performing the same function therefore if the PPM is as efficient as it is, then the PMO should be done with. The answer to this is that it is quite easy to develop a PMM that works in conjunction with PMO in the current systems arrangement.
According to Control Objectives for Information and Related Technology (CoBit), one of the top information technology governance frameworks, IT portfolio management is a system that helps in defining the strategic IT plan, while a company’s project management structure is a control mechanism which describes to what extend or limits are projects arranged. To best begin with, the fundamental objective of the both PPM and PMO need to be observed. For the PPM, this is to make sure that the organizations perform the right tasks, while the core purpose of a PMO is to make sure that the organization performs the designated tasks correctly. PPM governs the type of requests that are funded by the organization and allocates resources for the IT projects. The PMO then governs all the active IT projects. This is by ensuring that specific projects run based on the common project management strategy.
PMO Implementation
The PMO I propose to establish, once created will perform the under mentioned tasks for this organization. Develop and maintain all processes and methodologies that pertain to management of projects in the organization. Be in charge of professional development of project managers for the organization. Develop and train the team that is allocated to them to work with. Take the responsibility for calculation of estimates, making of budgets, in addition to cost and capital estimating. Centralize the project establishment together with acquiring and maintaining the necessary software tools. Provide mentoring and coaching assistance to any staff within the organization that wants to manage a project themselves and finally act as a centralized clearing house for project related information that may be needed (Crawford et al, 2008, p. 3).
According to Wells (1999), a PMO will help in better management of this firm through: enhancement of project management tools and techniques that are available to them, improving staff professionalism in the field of project management, standardization and mobility of project tools and techniques, and enhanced competency in project management. The PMO also improves organizational design and performance of the entire firm plus maintains productive and skillful teams for projects.
My assistant and I propose that the team should at the beginning consist of: Project Manager, Program Manager, and Portfolio manager. In the event of larger projects, we propose to have additional assistants to help the aforementioned.
PPM Implementation
Technology has developed over the last decade that has ensured its association with accountability to business. This includes integrity of financial data, and support in high risk ventures such as in life sciences, aerospace, or national security. The accountability makes it to be a core part of business. The PPM therefore, is aimed at generating more revenue through creation of new products, services, systems. In the process, it reduces the cost of compliance. We propose that the PPM achieve this through: accuracy, flexibility, compliance, business driven initiative, and business leadership.
The above guidance is aimed at helping of managers to get a clear understanding of the specific skills and requisite abilities for the PPM to be effective. In construction of the job descriptions of the individuals concern, we developed a group of role description. These when combined form the desired job specification. The duties to be performed are those of the career manager, resource manager, work manager, senior responsible owner, programme board member, and project board member. Considering the appropriateness of individual responsibilities, we combined the roles to the below mentioned specifications: programme director, programme manager, project/strand manager, programme support office member, and project support office member. We propose that these people form the initial PPM, and their specific basic job roles are summarised in the table below on the next page.
 
Table showing a summary of the basic roles performed by members of the PPM team.
Project governance implementation
There are several principles designed to avoid the common failures asso