What is the efficiency of PPM (Project Portfolio Management) in real life?

In my experience portfolio management is rarely used very well in a lot of industries and particularly telecoms. If used correctly with appropriate Project Management then it should improve choices and also build in contingency into the portfolio. If it is not used diligently it may help with choosing priorities but not impact on the actual management of projects. Or, it may simply become another burdensome overhead for your PMO. PPM needs to have buy in and senior sponsorship to have real teeth including preferably CFO, CIO and business leaders.

The efficiency of PPM as a tool largely depends on the output (product / service quality) divided by PMO input (process). The efficiency and results could therefore vary from one PMO to another.
Coming from IT background, It is essential to use AI-powered software (Forecast, ProJacked, etc) which does 80% of the work (predictability, transparency, error elimination), leaving PMOs with 20% of the work (quality management, reporting, communication and decision-making). This in return saves a lot of time, money and effort for project management team.

Hi Mahmoud,

Smallest denominator of a portfolio would be an individual project and in my humble experience, the whys and expected outcomes are not deliberated in enough detail at start. At portfolio, the criteria used to define priorities among project should be fixed and agreed by all functional heads at company level. Portfolio Management becomes in-effective if you are chasing rapidly changing goal posts. hope this helps. Best Regards, Dinesh

PPM is beyond a software tool. It is a principle that is rooted in the portfolio management principle used in the Investment World. It is about weighing investment vs risk and returns knowing that we don’t have infinite resources. If I have 1M USD, what should I invest in that helps us meet our strategic goals in the company?
A company that implements PPM properly and without bias will have a decrease in wasteful investments because all project investment decisions will be based on the strategic values and not because someone just wants to do a project.
It also gets the company to put the best people in the most important projects. And it is a principle that ties projects, programmes and operations together to give a better view of the company’s resource needs and allocations.