Of South African companies, 75% do not possess a clear, ongoing oversight of their organisations' project portfolios, a recent survey by the Project Portfolio Management (PPM) Forum has found.
The PPM Maturity Survey, which had responses from 45 South African organisations, indicated that most CIOs continue to steer project funding ad hoc, project-by-project, with little thought for the entire investment picture, says Paul Viviers, director, PM Sight, a project management consultancy.
"Perhaps they just don't realise how powerful the strategic benefits of PPM are when it is integrated into an organisation and what a great payoff it provides for such little investment," he says.
"In this new economy, where people continue to lose their jobs and capital funding is severely rationed, this lack of oversight seems criminal."
Advantages
Viviers notes that PPM will help organisations achieve strategic business goals, respond quickly to changes in the environment, and give quick wins within projects.
"PPM is about the business setting direction, and then creating a series of steps to get there," he says. PPM benefits to the organisation, he adds, include fairer decisions about funding and ensure an optimal mix of investment risk and reward.
Portfolio management facilitates the balance of riskier, higher-reward projects versus safer, lower-reward ones because it categorises, prioritises and monitors new and ongoing investments, he says.
It also ensures better communication between information systems and business leaders and gives IT and business leaders a common language and platform for communication because it is a financial model. "There is greater understanding and co-operation over funding allocation, and everybody sees where the funds are flowing and why," says Viviers.
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