135 lines
3.3 KiB
Markdown
135 lines
3.3 KiB
Markdown
Duration: 30--40 minutes
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## Definition
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**Portfolio management** manages multiple projects as a collection
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competing for the same organizational resources.
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Project management asks:
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> How do we deliver this project?
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Portfolio management asks:
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> Which projects should we be doing, in what order, and with what
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> capacity?
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## Simple Mental Model
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> **Projects compete with each other. The portfolio makes the trade-offs
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> visible.**
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## How It Works
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A portfolio should answer:
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- What is active?
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- What is queued?
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- What is on hold?
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- What is the priority?
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- Who owns it?
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- What is the health?
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- What is the next milestone?
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- Where is capacity constrained?
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Useful portfolio states:
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- Proposed
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- Approved / queued
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- Active
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- On hold
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- Closing
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- Closed
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Approved does not need to mean active.
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A portfolio review asks:
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1. Which projects changed health?
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2. Which milestones slipped?
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3. Which need intervention?
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4. What new work is proposed?
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5. Do we have capacity?
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6. What should pause or remain queued?
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7. Are priorities still aligned?
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The portfolio is not a giant task board.
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## Example
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Your board has 16 projects and 12 appear active. Capacity review shows
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the team can reliably support six major initiatives while handling
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operations.
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The portfolio decision is not "work faster." It is to choose the active
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six, queue the others, and make the trade-off explicit.
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## How It Fits Into the Bigger Picture
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\[\[Prioritization]] decides relative importance.[[Capacity and
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WIP]] determines how much can be active.[[Project Health]]
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identifies where intervention is needed. Portfolio management combines
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them.
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## My Company / Real-World Context
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Your Monday board is already attempting to be a portfolio. It has
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projects, priority, owner, status, and timelines.
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The eventual goal is for it to answer:
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> **What needs my attention?**
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rather than merely:
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> What projects exist?
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## CTO Perspective
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Portfolio management is a major shift from execution to organizational
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leadership. Every project approval consumes people, money, and attention
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that cannot simultaneously be used elsewhere.
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> **Every project approval is a resource-allocation decision.**
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### Questions to Ask
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- Why are we doing this?
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- What is its priority relative to others?
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- Do we have capacity to start?
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- What will it displace?
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- How many projects are active?
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- Which are Yellow/Red?
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- Where are bottlenecks?
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- Which projects should pause or stop?
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- What should start next?
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## Meeting Scenario
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**Situation:** Leadership approves another initiative and asks when your
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team can begin.
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**Possible response:**
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> I'll add it to the portfolio and assess it against current priorities
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> and capacity. If it must start immediately, I'll show which existing
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> commitment would need to move so we can make that trade-off
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> explicitly.
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## Key Takeaways
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- Portfolio management manages projects as a competing collection.
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- Approved does not mean active.
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- Queued and on-hold states are healthy.
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- Portfolio views focus on management information, not task detail.
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- Priority, capacity, WIP, and health come together here.
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- Starting new work should expose what it displaces.
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## Related Concepts
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- [[Prioritization]]
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- [[Capacity and WIP]]
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- [[Project Health]]
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- [[Status Reporting]]
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- [[Ownership and Delegation]]
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