Strategic portfolio management

‘How does each of your programmes and projects support your strategic objectives?’ Not many executives can answer that question. Large organisations may recognise the importance of the top and tail of the enterprise programme management framework — defining the business strategy, and running projects, respectively — and have no qualms investing substantial time, money and effort in these activities. However, a common failing is to ignore the value of creating strong alignment between the two. Enabling strong links between the strategy and the web of projects will allow optimal value to be realised from the projects, and create a business focus on the delivery of the strategy. Most organisations have some fragments of the interface already in place, but more often than not the links are weakest where strategy meets the management of projects as a whole. Strategic portfolio management is the first step in creating the alignment of strategy to programmes and projects.