Enterprise Project Portfolio Management (Enterprise PPM or EPPM) practices and tools are designed to help organizations prioritize, plan, execute, and monitor their projects and portfolios of projects to maximize value.
In today’s challenging business climate, implementing Enterprise PPM best practices has become more critical than ever. Let’s explore common project management challenges and consider strategies to help PMOs and project leaders meet them.
The Value of Enterprise PPM Best Practices in Uncertain Times
In uncertain times, such as those marked by economic volatility, shifting market demands, global trade disruptions, and rapid technological change, Enterprise PPM best practices become critical for organizational resilience and agility. By establishing an adaptable yet structured approach to project and portfolio management, companies can remain flexible as they navigate the challenges of an ever-changing marketplace.
These practices ensure that the right initiatives get prioritized, resources get allocated efficiently, and teams become empowered by frameworks and standards that enable them to perform effectively in a volatile business climate.
Risk and Change Management
In an uncertain business climate, it’s essential to have strategies in place for mitigating risks and managing any changes that may arise.
Track project interdependencies to pinpoint risks that could derail multiple projects. It’s especially important to identify risks that affect multiple projects. This can include vendor delays, sourcing concerns, or staffing concerns. Assign risk roles and establish escalation pathways for addressing these potential pitfalls.
Change is constant for businesses of every size. Consider establishing a Change Control Board (CCB) and standardizing processes for change requests. It may be necessary to adjust project and portfolio prioritization when faced with significant changes. Make it a habit to revisit and reassess priorities when issues such as cost overruns or new regulatory requirements threaten to impact current projects.
Standardize Enterprise PPM Processes
With the multitude of challenges facing businesses worldwide, it is more crucial than ever to ensure that everyone across the organization speaks the same language and uses the same tools, methods, and processes to manage and deliver projects.
Implementing a standardized methodology and toolset will help organizations streamline their Enterprise Project Portfolio Management (PPM) and ensure consistent project delivery. This, in turn, will minimize project risks and increase the chances of success.
Define and Monitor KPIs
Organizations should establish and track Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to monitor project execution and make sure that everything is on track and progressing according to plan. Ensuring performance is even more important in the current context of resource scarcity and economic uncertainty.
PMOs should ensure they have the right metrics and tools in place, including those for budget management.
Encourage Collaboration
Managing remote and in-office employees requires dynamic collaboration tools and strategies to keep teams aligned and engaged throughout the project lifecycle. In other words, while fostering collaboration is a matter of culture and management style, it also requires empowering tools and resources.
Leverage intuitive and robust collaboration tools to keep all internal and external stakeholders involved in relevant processes. Maintaining an open line of communication with clients, customers, and project team members will help you avoid pitfalls and navigate changes as they arise.
Strategically Prioritize Projects and Initiatives
It has always been essential for PMOs to assess the potential return on investment (ROI) of projects to prioritize them based on their potential value. This is key to optimizing resource allocation and maximizing business performance. In today’s complex and changing environment, project assessment and prioritization should place extra focus on risk evaluation and mitigation. The ability to run “what-if” scenarios can be of great help to prevent delays, overruns, or even failures.
Align Enterprise PPM with Overall Business Strategy
Calculating the potential ROI of projects is well and good, but such quantitative metrics won’t necessarily reflect the actual impact of the project on the organization. A program with a comparatively lower ROI but greater alignment with one or several of the organization’s strategic priorities may create more overall value for the firm. Hence, the importance of having capabilities to combine PPM with strategic planning.
Meeting the PMO’s challenges and embracing these Enterprise PPM best practices requires solid data consolidation and robust analysis capabilities. Leveraging technology innovation can help project leaders gain the real-time visibility and insights they need to optimize their Enterprise PPM.
Put Enterprise PPM Best Practices to Work With Sciforma
To navigate challenging times, you need the support of tools designed to help your business adapt and thrive. Sciforma’s powerful PPM software solutions keep your team on track, no matter what challenges come your way. Our industry-leading Strategic Portfolio Management tools empower your organization to mitigate risks, assess project and portfolio health, and make smarter data-supported decisions that keep your most valuable initiatives moving forward.
Reach out and request a demo today to see how Sciforma can help your team stay ahead of the curve.