Project Portfolios in Dynamic Environments: Organizing for Uncertainty is a comprehensive report of research that addresses this important, rising issue. Authors Yvan Petit and Brian Hobbs present the results of their investigation in a report that significantly advances the theory and also offers tips for practice. Currently, those applying project portfolio management tend to focus on the selection, prioritization, and strategic alignment of projects. Little attention is afforded the potential disturbances to project portfolios such as new projects, terminated projects, delayed projects, incorrect planning due to high uncertainty, and changes in the external environment. Yet, these factors can have highly disruptive, even show-stopping influence. This research seeks to answer: How is uncertainty affecting project portfolios managed in dynamic environments?
In recent years, organizational project management (OPM) has emerged as a field focused on how project, program and portfolio management practices strategically help firms realize organizational goals. There is a compelling need to address the totality of project-related work at the organizational level, providing a view of organizations as a network of projects to be coordinated among themselves, integrated by the more permanent organization, and to move away from a focus on individual projects. This comprehensive volume provides views from a wide range of international scholars researching OPM at a cross-disciplinary level. It covers concepts, theories and practices from disciplines allied to management, such as strategic management, organization sciences and behavioural science. It will be a valuable read for scholars and practitioners alike, who are looking to enrich their understanding of OPM and further investigate this new phenomenon.
For firms and other organizations, innovation has become a means of anticipating and managing major changes in their external context and overcoming societal challenges such as sustainable development. As a result, they must innovate repeatedly and continuously. This book explores the multiple facets of innovation project management, defined as the set of activities implemented to bring into being and successfully complete one or several innovation projects. It combines research experience, in cooperation with practitioners, and a theoretical, transversal and global overview inspired from different research streams. The author develops methodologies and frameworks that might be put into practice, provides a case study of research conducted with an air systems manufacturing firm, and outlines avenues for further reflection on innovation project management practice improvement.
This book provides a powerful insight into strategic portfolio management and its central role in the delivery of organisational strategy, maximisation of value creation, and efficient allocation of resources and capabilities to achieve organisational strategic objectives. The book makes a valuable contribution to the development of thinking on the translation of strategy into actionable work. Whether you are a senior manager building a high-performing strategic portfolio for your organisation or an academic searching for new perspectives on strategy execution through portfolio management, you will find great significance in this book. Twenty-eight chapters in four sections provide multiple perspectives on the topic, with in-depth guidance on organisational design for strategic portfolio management and covering all process, capability, and leadership aspects of strategic portfolio management. The book includes several detailed case studies for the effective deployment of strategic portfolios, bringing together theory and practice for strategic portfolio management. This book is particularly valuable for advanced undergraduate and postgraduate students of project and portfolio management, strategic management, and leadership who are looking to expand their knowledge within the multi-project environment. Highly practical and logical in its structure, it also shows project management professionals how to effectively manage their business portfolios and align this with their business strategy.
Project management (PM), traditionally employed to implement projects, has developed into Organizational Project Management, as organizations are increasingly using projects to deliver strategies. The emergence of program and portfolio management has also contributed to this move. PM researchers need to become more innovative in their research approaches. They need to connect with the broader currents of social science in relevant fields, such as organization theory. Outside the specific field, there is a great deal that can usefully be imported, transformed, and translated so that it is fit for project management research purposes. More trans-disciplinary, translational, and transformational approaches for conducting project-related research are required, and this book goes a long way to providing foundations for them. The book encompasses reflections on fundamental questions underlying any research, such as the type of knowledge sought, as well as the epistemological and ontological assumptions. It broadens research methods and theory perspectives, drawing on contemporary approaches, such as action research, soft systems methodology, activity theory, actor-network theory, and other approaches adopted in related scientific and technological areas that are only recently being adopted. To achieve this, the book's editors have necessarily been eclectically interdisciplinary in their contributor list. They have included contemporary research methods and designs from areas allied to project research - such as organization science, organizational studies, sociology, behavioral science, and biology - providing innovative invitations to research design and methodological choice. Overall, this book makes a significant contribution to the maturation and development of project management research as a specialty in the broader social sciences, one that is a less-reliant handmaiden or under-laborer to purely technical issues, but which appreciates that any material construction is always a social construction as well, one that implies episteme and phronesis, knowledge and wisdom, as well as techne or technique. Project managers may not realize it, but the most important aspects of what they manage are the meanings, interpretations, and politics of projects, and not merely the technical aspects. (Series: Advances in Organization Studies - Vol. 29) [Subject: Project Management, Business Administration, Organizational Studies]
This book aims to help the reader better understand the importance of data analysis in project management. Moreover, it provides guidance by showing tools, methods, techniques and lessons learned on how to better utilize the data gathered from the projects. First and foremost, insight into the bridge between data analytics and project management aids practitioners looking for ways to maximize the practical value of data procured. The book equips organizations with the know-how necessary to adapt to a changing workplace dynamic through key lessons learned from past ventures. The book’s integrated approach to investigating both fields enhances the value of research findings.
Project Management: A Managerial Approach, 11th Edition delivers a practical exploration of proven project management techniques and strategies. With a strong emphasis on real-world application and implementation, the book is perfect for managers and business students seeking an instructive leadership resource. Detailed and accessible chapters offer expert guidance on managing common organizational, economic, interpersonal, and technical disruptions.
Recognizing the importance of selecting and pursuing programs, projects, and operational work that add sustainable business value that benefits end users, the Project Management Institute (PMI®) issued its first Standard on Portfolio Management in 2006. In 2014, it launched the Portfolio Management Professional (PfMP®) credential—which several of the experts who contributed to this book earned—to recognize the advanced expertise required of practitioners in the field. Presenting information that is current with The Standard for Portfolio Management, Third Edition (2013); Portfolio Management: A Strategic Approach supplies in-depth treatment of the five domains and identifies best practices to ensure the organization has a balanced portfolio management that is critical to success. Following PMI’s standard, the book is organized according to its five domains: strategic alignment, governance, portfolio performance management, portfolio risk management, and portfolio communications management. Each chapter presents the insight of different thought leaders in academia and business. Contributors from around the world, including the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Australia, supply a global perspective as to why portfolio management is essential for all types of organizations. They provide guidelines, examples, and models to consider, along with discussion and analysis of relevant literature in the field. Most chapters reference PMI standards, complement their concepts, and expand on the concepts and issues that the standards mention in passing or not at all. Overall, this is a must-have resource for anyone pursuing the PfMP® credential from PMI. For executives and practitioners in the field, it provides the concepts you will need to address the ever-changing complexities that impact your work. This book is also suitable as a textbook for universities offering courses on portfolio management.
Smaller companies are abundant in the business realm and outnumber large companies by a wide margin. To maintain a competitive edge against other businesses, companies must ensure the most effective strategies and procedures are in place. This is particularly critical in smaller business environments that have fewer resources. Start-Ups and SMEs: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications is a vital reference source that examines the strategies and concepts that will assist small and medium-sized enterprises to achieve competitiveness. It also explores the latest advances and developments for creating a system of shared values and beliefs in small business environments. Highlighting a range of topics such as entrepreneurship, innovative behavior, and organizational sustainability, this multi-volume book is ideally designed for entrepreneurs, business managers, executives, managing directors, academicians, business professionals, researchers, and graduate-level students.
Portfolio management is becoming the ‘must have’ for organizations to prosper and survive in this decade and beyond. No longer can the organizational focus be one of following best and repeatable practices as resource limitations mean only those programs, projects, and operational work that add business value can and should be pursued. Executives are focusing on strategic ability and managing complexity, which can only be done through a disciplined portfolio process in ensuring the best mix of programs, projects, and operational work is under way. In turn, the portfolio is constantly in flux as difficult decisions are made if a project, for example, is no longer contributing to business value and providing benefits and should be terminated to reallocate resources to one of higher priority. Commitment to this difficult approach is necessary at all levels, and communication is required so everyone knows how their work contributes to the organization’s strategic goals and objectives. Portfolio Management: Delivering on Strategy, Second Edition focuses on the benefits of portfolio management to the organization. Its goal is to provide senior executives a view on how portfolio management can deliver organizational strategy. The emphasis is on the specific aspects within the portfolio management discipline and how each aspect should be managed from a business perspective and not necessarily from a portfolio management perspective. Highlights of the book include: Agile portfolio management Delivering organizational value Portfolio management and uncertainty Portfolio governance Marketing a portfolio Portfolio management success Starting with a review of the project portfolio concept and its development, this book is a reference for executives and practitioners in the field, as well as a students and researchers studying portfolio management.
