Management support and project culture as part of good portfolio management

Projects are a concrete means to execute the strategies of organisations. Portfolio management is an essential tool that also serves as support for management and decision-making. How to motivate project managers to actively update information in the portfolio? What if portfolio management is seen as cumbersome or unnecessary? And what if new projects are started continuously without careful planning? Among other things, this requires an effective project culture with leadership throughout the organisation.

How is portfolio management affected by a weak project culture?

Management support plays a major role in implementing a project culture and modes of operation in the entire organisation. Systematic planning and project preparation, as well as commitment to them, contribute to the success of projects. A weak project culture brings challenges to everyday portfolio management, as well.

For decision-making, the data entered in the portfolio management tool should be up-to-date and correct. Incomplete reporting or limited updating of data can lead to a situation where existing data does not reliably support decision-making. If the recorded data cannot be trusted and it is not used in decision-making, updating is may also not be seen as important enough. Soon, a negative spiral exists.

A weak project culture may also be visible in insufficient planning of initiated projects, which adds to the risk of project failure. The success of a project can be assessed with a post-evaluation of a completed project. The assessment of achieved benefits helps see what works and what does not, and if the objectives set for the project were reached. At the same time, it is possible to learn from completed projects. In an efficient project culture, projects are run to the very last step.

Visible management support, systematic planning and clear modes of operation are required

Among other things, these are needed to improve a weak project culture. Management support should be, above all, visible and concrete. Regular recording of data should be required, so that the data can truly be used to support decision-making. It is important that the importance of reporting and updating of data are understood, and that entering data into the portfolio is not seen as a waste of time or as bureaucratic and cumbersome extra work. In this way, more benefits can be gained from portfolio management and fragmented information can be collected for utilisation. Commitment to projects and well-functioning portfolio management tools are also important. At the same time, clear modes of operation and responsibilities known to everyone support good portfolio management.

Portfolio management also offers opportunities for efficient and transparent project operations. The project culture can always be improved and it is worth it – at best, it helps execute the strategy through successful projects.

Among other things, these themes are handled in Thinking Portfolio’s study Trends of Portfolio Management, which will be published later during the autumn 2021!