Practice: Product Portfolio Management |
|
 |
This practice presents a standardized product portfolio management framework that provides the foundation for the selection, balancing, authorizing, monitoring,
and controlling of work that aligns with the organization's strategic goals. |
Extends: Portfolio Management |
|
|
Purpose
Managing products by using traditional product management techniques and models has proven to be effective in
environments with a single or a fairly small set of products or in environments where product managers have autonomy
from one another and do not share scarce and critical resources that are necessary to implement their
plans. However, in larger-scale corporate environments where many products exists, where product managers need to
tightly coordinate their efforts to operate with shared teams, and where the profitability of each product needs to be
validated and positioned in relation to the larger strategies of the organization, this practice provides the extended
breadth and scope to cater to the needs of portfolio executives who are accountable to the overall profitability and
worth of the product investment strategies and actions.
Fundamental notions and practices of portfolio management that have already proven effective when applied to project
portfolio management within IT environments can be ported over the world of "products" (hard goods or software
products). They can also be adapted to reflect the specific business conditions, criteria, parameters, and
characteristics that are needed to evolve a product portfolio management framework that drives the decision-making
models needed by product portfolio executives.
A standardized portfolio management framework provides the repeatable and predictable foundation for traditional
product management models to evolve into broader and adaptable support for executive decisions. This framework also
supports investment models that maximize benefits while minimizing risks, thereby optimizing the firm's return on
investment (ROI) and return on assets (ROA).
|
How to read this practice
The best way to read this practice is to first familiarize yourself with its overall structure and the Portfolio
Management reference model: what it is in it and how it is organized.
-
Begin by making sure that the teams, including stakeholders, understand what the key concepts are:
-
Work pipelines
-
Value analysis
-
Next, understand how the various participants in a portfolio collaborate on an ongoing and cyclical manner, for
example:
-
The portfolio analyst facilitates the processing or requests within the portfolio work pipelines, coordinates with
the portfolio stakeholders, and keeps all requests within the portfolio current, complete, and relevant.
-
Portfolio stakeholders provide timely input, decisions. and actions to guide prioritization and optimal balancing
of the portfolios, while ensuring that resources and capacities are available to execute on the work of the
portfolio. Their direct involvement and ongoing commitment help focus the operational teams toward the
accomplishment of the goals most beneficial to the organization.
-
The operational teams (project, product, and development) commit to completing the work in a manner consistent with
the approved priorities and to avoid working on components not formally sponsored and authorized within the
portfolios.
-
Then understand how these groups collaborate when they perform the following activities:
-
Define and prioritize portfolio.
-
Balance and authorize portfolio.
-
Monitor and control portfolio.
-
Also, understand what work products are used as input to and output from various tasks, such as the business
case, component list, product roadmap, and so on.
-
Last, understand the various guidelines that explain how to define, prioritize, authorize, and monitor the
portfolio components.
|
Levels of Adoption
Additional Information
Relationships
Licensed Materials - Property of IBM
© Copyright IBM Corp. 1987, 2012. All Rights Reserved.
|
|