Portfolio Assurance Resources
Building a balanced portfolio of business initiatives
The information in this guide is intended for general purposes only. For more specific guidance around your organisation’s projects, please get in touch with our team.
- Establish the total project/programme budget
- Assess all parts of the organisation and their need for improvement
- Combine short and long term initiatives to maintain momentum
- Don’t drain too much resource from any one area
- Drive both internal and external-facing project outcomes
- Innovation or improvement?
- Give enough budget to each initiative – don’t spread too thin
- Consider the strategic direction and its feasibility through a portfolio – advice for leadership teams
- Chat about balancing your business initiatives with portfolio assurance
- Where to next?
- Latest Portfolio Assurance Articles
In this guide, we’re going to explore how businesses can create a balanced portfolio of business activities.
Establish the total project/programme budget
Before establishing an accurate portfolio, there needs to be a clear budget for all projects and programmes. The budget may be capital and/or operating expenditure. We understand that not all organisations operate like this, but viewing the total of all project budgets as one is important, as this will help businesses understand and prioritise their initiatives.
Doing up-front analysis of the total budget to allocate across business activities gives leadership teams a great starting point to divide up the activity.
Businesses with projects already in progress will want to consider the total budget for those projects plus whatever is available for new projects or expansion of existing activity.
Assess all parts of the organisation and their need for improvement
Going through this process will require careful analysis, and may even warrant its own dedicated project.
This clear picture of what’s happening now, along with the strategy and understanding of the total budget will provide the business with valuable information to proceed with building a well-balanced, considered portfolio.
Combine short and long term initiatives to maintain momentum
Instead, our advice is to break down the various business improvements and changes into smaller chunks and determine which ones represent the ‘quick wins’ and can be tackled as shorter term projects. If your portfolio includes these along with some longer term activities such as a transformation programme, the business will enjoy the momentum of making improvements more frequently, whilst still working on the bigger picture in the long term.
Don’t drain too much resource from any one area
These staff in your business have their own KPIs and job to fulfil. In order to get the best input from them, avoid having too many overlapping projects for them. There will be times where this is unavoidable. But, as much as possible, project teams should try to stagger certain phases so as to not overload any one person.
Drive both internal and external-facing project outcomes
Now think about your end users – customers? The New Zealand public? Other businesses? How is your portfolio helping make their experience with your organisation better?
A business strategy should have outcomes that speak to both internal and external parties. Neither should be ignored- and often improvements made in fone area, will require action on the other. For example, building a new client relationship management system for internal users, will likely require a redesigned website or portal for customers to use. Projects don’t always need to be complimentary, but there are plenty of instances where they are.
Innovation or improvement?
Give enough budget to each initiative – don’t spread too thin
But spreading yourself too thin is also a problem – eg. not having enough budget for each project can bring progress down to a snail’s pace. Project teams squeezed for budget and unable to deliver in a timely manner can lose engagement with the task at hand, and may create tension with the rest of the business. Leadership teams can help their project staff by giving them a sufficient budget over a realistic timeframe.
Consider the strategic direction and its feasibility through a portfolio – advice for leadership teams
If you’re in the process of developing a business strategy, make sure to think a few steps ahead to the ‘doing’. If it’s hard to see how the mission might be achieved, perhaps it needs a bit more work to define.
Chat about balancing your business initiatives with portfolio assurance
If you’re looking for ways to manage your organisational portfolio in a way that drives better performance, IQANZ are experts in this space. We have specific methodologies and approaches for supporting you with a portfolio at the high level, whilst also offering programme and project-specific assurance at the finer detail. You can start this journey by contacting our team today to discuss your challenges.
Where to next?
Managing risks In a project portfolio
Risks exist in every project portfolio. It’s not possible to eliminate them, but it is possible to be well-prepared.
Learn More >>
Designing a portfolio delivery plan
Any good organisational initiative needs a strong plan. A portfolio approach to projects relies on good planning to ensure the health and success of each underlying activity. We explain what this looks like in our guide.
Learn More >>
Guide to portfolio governance
Governance doesn’t just exist at the project level - good practices around the reporting and management of the portfolio in its entirety helps organisations stay in control and on budget.
Learn More >>
Prioritising projects in an organisation
Priority of business initiatives is complicated - there are financial, strategic and even political aspects to project portfolio management.
Learn More >>
The secret to successful portfolio delivery
What makes a business adept at delivering on multiple initiatives concurrently? We offer some insight in this guide.
Learn More >>
Building a balanced project portfolio
The balance of your project portfolio between activities that help drive towards strategic goals is critical to get right. We explain why.
Latest Portfolio Assurance Articles
Common Risks Within A Project Portfolio
Every project has its risks – it’s part of the territory. And a careful risk analysis of a project will typically surface a fair few items for a risk register to keep on the radar. It doesn’t take long then, for an organisation with multiple projects running, to become overwhelmed with understanding its business risk at any one time.
Why an organisation’s portfolio needs everyone’s input
Portfolios of projects or programmes require careful management to ensure that the overall strategic objectives and budget is properly balanced. But who is accountable for ensuring this happens?
How assurance has your back – helping you deliver successful projects time after time
There’s many benefits to having QA involved in portfolio management. Here’s just a few.
Signs it’s time to cut back the number of active projects
Is your organisation trying to do too much in too short a space of time? If so, it might be worth reprioritising projects to give each the best shot at success.
How to identify recurring issues in your projects
There’s a lot to be learned from assessing common themes across all projects. We offer a few ways to get insights from your own project portfolio.
5 reasons why you should reprioritise a project
In a business with multiple projects active at any one time, it’s sometimes hard to know which of these is a priority in a world of competing objectives. We talk about reasons why you might reprioritise the portfolio.
Explore our other QA services
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info@iqanz.com