Project Management

BSB20315-7

Lecture 3
Projects & Organisations
 Learning Outcomes

• Organisational strategy and projects

• Portfolios and programmes
• Project roles and governance

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 Projects & Organisations
- Introduction
The Organisational Ideal
• Clear organisation direction
• Understood by everyone
• Everything purposeful
• Demonstrable link between activities
• Everyone connected
• Conversion of strategic objectives through
operational ventures
• Requires active participation by project managers

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Organisational strategy and projects

• Focus
• Strategy process
• Vision – where the organisation is going
• Mission statement – expression of vision
– Current capabilities
– Analysis of threats and opportunities
• Strategy
– Traditional approach – top down
– World class – two way – strategic approach

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 Organisational Strategy Process

Figure 3.1 Organisational strategy process

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Traditional vs Strategic Approaches

Figure 3.2 Traditional versus strategic approaches

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 Projects & Organisational Strategy

Figure 3.3 Projects and organisational strategy

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Organisational strategy and projects
(Continued)
• Strategy and direct revenue-earning projects
– Strategic input is the organisational objectives
– “We are in business to be the fastest/the best/the cheapest…
– Reflect in the project objectives (time, cost, quality)
• Project strategy
– “The definition of position, the means and the guidelines of
what and how to do it, to achieve the highest competitive
advantage and the best value from a project.”
• Deploying strategy in organisational change projects
– Strategies and projects with a high level of coherence
– Highly visible strategy, project objectives aligned
– Functional and project conflict resolved at high level
– Individuals contribute to organisational objectives
– Progress monitored visibly
– Objectives based on customer needs
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 Strategy Deployment

Table 3.1 Strategy deployment table

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 Portfolios and programmes

Portfolio management
• It is not possible to be good at everything
• The organisation chooses activities to gain
maximum benefit from the investment in
those activities
• Resources are often scarce, they are finite, not
necessarily flexible, cannot easily be transferred,
not always 100% available

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 Sanity check:
Aggregate Resource Plan
(Portfolios & programmes)(Continued)

• Need to keep control of activities

– Projects and operations
• Compare all resource requirements to the (finite)
capacity available
– Track and control available resources (e.g. hours)
and workload
– Overcommitted resources reduces flexibility and
innovation
– Competence of people and/or capability of
resources may be critical
• Need to know relative importance of projects
• Need a clear system for prioritising
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 Enterprise programme/project
management (EPM)
(Portfolios & programmes)(Continued)

“The capability to lead and manage resources,

knowledge and skills in the effective deployment of
multiple projects designed collectively to deliver
enhanced value”
• Schedules, resource availability, priorities and
project requirements frequently change
• Large amounts of data need significant process
power
• Possibly associated with enterprise wide software
applications (e.g. Microsoft Project and SAP)
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 Programmes Management
(Portfolios & programmes) (Continued)

• It is the layer of co-ordination between projects to

ensure that high-level benefits are realised.
• It is an (organisational) framework for grouping
existing or defining new projects, and for focusing
all the activities required to achieve a set of major
benefits.
• The projects are managed in a co-ordinated way,
either to achieve a common goal, or to extract
benefits which would otherwise not be realised if
they were managed independently.
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 Definition of Programme
(Portfolios & programmes)(Continued)

Table 3.2 Definitions of ‘programme’

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 Arrangements of Projects
(Portfolios & programmes)(Continued)

Figure 3.4 Arrangements of projects in programmes

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 Strategy Matrix
(Portfolios & programmes)(Continued)

• Relationship of potential and existing projects to the

organisation’s objectives
• One project may have a negative effect on or be in conflict
with another
• If objective 1 is ‘to improve customer service’ and project 2
is ‘to cut costs by 20%’, it is likely (but not certain) that
these will be in conflict.

Table 3.3 Strategy matrix

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 Project roles and governance

Figure 3.5 Basic project governance structure

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Project roles and governance (Continued)

The project management office/project support office

• Supports all project management aspects
• Runs alongside other functions in the organisation
• Provides recognition of the importance of projects
• Central facility
• Contains skills and knowledge of project process
• Can
– provide key project staff
– control resources
– give personal support to individuals
– provide checks and control on process
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 Project Management Office (PMO)
(Project roles and governance)(Continued)

Figure 3.6 Relationship between the project and the project office
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 Project Management Office (PMO)
(Project roles and governance)(Continued)

• The following 3 roles

didn’t fit with the 5
categories:
– manage customer
interfaces
– execute specialist
tasks
– recruit, select,
evaluate PMs.
• Increased overhead
is more than
compensated in
increased project
Table 3.4 PMO roles success
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 Summary
• The strategy process
– An organisations vision reflects through to project activities
– Vision inputs: competitor analysis, technology, market forces,
what the organisation’s wants to achieve
– Vision realised through organisation’s strategy which is the
focus for operations and projects
– Broadcasting the vision ensures everybody working in the
same direction.
• Portfolios and programme management promotes
– Evaluation of each project relative to vision and other projects
– Gaps and overlaps
– An aggregate resource plan.
• Project office
– Centralised function that can support, monitor and/or control
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