Instant Science

Here you can find some personal reflections on issues concerning my professional interests.

These include Business Process Management, Organization Design, and the use of information technology in a wide sense.

Disclaimer: This blog is not an official Gartner publication. The content represents my personal point of view, but not necessarily the official standpoint of my employer.

Any comments are welcome!

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Project Portfolio Management

Due to the current macro-economic situation, many companies are currently reviewing their project portfolios and realize that there might be some dead wood. Is this something to be puzzled about? Not really.

Over the past years, many organizations have become quite good at improving their development and service management processes by applying frameworks and standards like ITIL and ISO XXXX. But, for demand management and project portfolio management, being crucial processes prior to development and operations, there are no real standards or generally accepted best practices. As a result, we frequently see practices that have a significant potential for improvement (to put it carefully) and project portfolios with no or loose governance.

And, many organizations seem to have mental problem with discontinuing projects that do not deliver adequate business value - either because they do no know, or they do not have the guts.

well, I think this will change!