Portfolio Management: Delivering on Strategy

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.

Prof. Carl Marnewick’s academic career started in 2007, when he joined the University of Johannesburg. He traded his professional career as a senior Information Technology (IT) project manager for that of an academic career. The career change provided him the opportunity to emerge himself in the question why IT/IS-related projects are not always successful and do not provide the intended benefits that were originally anticipated. This is currently a problem internationally as valuable resources are wasted on projects and programmes that do not add value to the strategic objectives of the organization. It is an international problem where there is a gap between theory and practice and he is in the ideal position to address this problem. The focus of his research is the overarching topic and special interest of the strategic alignment of projects to the vision of the organizations.

John Wyzalek holds a Doctor of Business Administration in Project Management and Programme Management from SKEMA Business School, France. His thesis research investigated stakeholder management in project portfolios. He also holds the PfMP certification from the Project Management Institute.