Improving the maturity of project portfolio management

Improving the maturity of project portfolio management

Feijen, A.

Mooi, H.G. (mentor)
Scholten, V. (mentor)
Cunningham, S. (mentor)
Van Ogtrop, F. (mentor)

Technology, Policy and Management

Technology, Strategy and Entrepreneurship

2010-06-22

This research has been performed with the organisation of NedTrain. NedTrain is an organisation which is responsible for the maintenance on the rolling stock of the Dutch railway system. In 2006 they have implemented project portfolio management in their organisation however they struggle to manage it properly. For that reason they want to assess and improve their project portfolio management. This can be realized by using maturity models which is an instrument to criticise the project portfolio management of an organisation. The objective of this research is to compare project portfolio management maturity models to the scientific literature. It will link the aspects described in maturity models with the topics described in the scientific literature to identify the theoretical gap, to identify the practical use of the maturity models and to provide improvement measures for NedTrain’s project portfolio management. Eventually the goal is to develop a framework which can criticise all the aspects of project portfolio management for an organisation. Based on the objective the following research question is formulated: “How useful are maturity models to diagnose and give recommendations on the project portfolio management of an organisation?” The question will be answered using the case study research approach. The first step in this research is performing a literature review on project portfolio management. The focus of this review is on project portfolio management in general, the bottlenecks most organisations encounter and the best practices of project portfolio management. According to the literature, organisations encounter problems in several areas of project portfolio management. The most important problem areas are project management activities, information management and resource management. These problem areas will be used in the comparison between the literature and the maturity models. The second step in this research is selecting a maturity model which can assist in defining, measuring and improving NedTrain’s project portfolio management. In this study several maturity models are tested on their suitability using selection criteria. Based on the criteria the model that is most suitable for this study is the Portfolio, Programme and Project Management Maturity Model (P3M3). The P3M3 model consists of several process perspectives including: management control, risk management, resource management, etc. The process perspectives are compared to the problem areas described in the literature, to enrich the P3M3 model and ensure it covers all the topics of project portfolio management. The comparison revealed that ‘project management activities’ and ‘information management’ are not described in the P3M3 model but are relevant according to the literature. This identifies there are gaps in the P3M3 model and so the topics are added to the model. Eventually a modified and improved P3M3 model is used to determine the maturity of NedTrain’s project portfolio management and to provide improvement measures. The next step in this research is the use of the modified P3M3 model to determine the current situation of NedTrain’s project portfolio management. The assessment is performed by several experienced employees of NedTrain including the project portfolio manager and the manager of fleet services. The different perspectives on the answers were discussed with the involved employees to deliberate on the final outcome and to generate practical recommendations. Eventually the assessment illustrates that benefits management, risk management and resource management are the most underdeveloped process perspectives in NedTrain’s project portfolio management. These underdeveloped process perspectives are reviewed against the literature. This indicates that portfolio resource management is to some extent already acknowledged in the scientific literature, but research on portfolio benefits management and risk management is not yet performed, since the review on these topics had no result. Therefore it is recommended that both topics will be reviewed in further researches. In this study several recommendations are given on the underdeveloped process perspectives. The most important recommendations on NedTrain’s project portfolio management are: - Start at the top and make sure the senior management supports project portfolio management; - The base of project portfolio management is a well defined project management process, make sure project management is mature enough. The specific recommendations on the three underdeveloped processes in NedTrain’s project portfolio management are for NedTrain’s benefits management: - Create a framework to centrally manage and track the delivery of portfolio benefits. This framework should have explicit statements on how benefits enabled by initiatives actually contribute to business value and strategic objectives. For NedTrain’s risk management: - Make sure the risk analysis will not only be conducted in the early stage of a project but also further in the project, it should become a constant management process. And for NedTrain’s resource management: - There should become policies and processes describing how portfolio resources are acquired, managed and deployed. Based on the results obtained from the assessment it can be concluded that the modified P3M3 model provides an impressive list of bottlenecks and improvement measures for the organisation. Although further research needs to be performed on the modified P3M3 model, it will be very useful tool for organisations to provide a first impression on the maturity of their project portfolio management.

project portfolio management
maturity

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:12e0d5cc-a733-478d-93e8-7a97e09d568d

2010-06-22

Campus only

Student theses

master thesis

(c) 2010 Feijen, A.