Inter-Relationships between an Enterprise's Strategic Management Process and Its Program/Project Portfolio Management Process

Introduction

In order to survive and prosper, all business, industrial, governmental, and non-governmental organizations must evolve and grow in response to economic, political, technological, and environmental changes. In order for the growth of any organization to be managed strategically and effectively, rather than reactively, the organization’s strategic managers must design and implement a practical, coherent strategic growth management process. Since projects and programs are the primary vehicles that all enterprises use for their growth and survival, these vehicles must be managed within appropriate portfolios to achieve the greatest results in the shortest time and with the least expenditure of scarce resources. This Chapter describes these two fundamental management processes and explains their interconnections.

• 1.

  Part 1, The Strategic Growth Management Processes Within an Enterprise, presents and discusses a proven five phase strategic growth management process and briefly describes the responsibilities of the strategic managers and planners involved in this important process.

• 2.

  Part 2, Project/Program Portfolio Management (PPPM), presents and discusses a typical 12 step process for defining and managing a portfolio of projects, shows how this process is related to the five phase strategic growth management process, and discusses the division of the responsibilities for the two processes. It also discusses the various ways to identify project and program portfolios from the strategic management perspective.

• 3.

  Part 3, Project and Program Types and Categories, describes the need for properly identifying the various possible types of projects, programs, and their portfolios from the project management perspective, and describes the important differences between transformative and commercial projects and programs. Because creating new projects is the key to success in strategic growth management,

• 4.

  Part 4, The Origins of Projects and Programs, describes the various origins of projects for project-driven versus project-dependent organizations, and for transformative versus commercial projects and programs.

• 5.

  Summary and Conclusion, summarizes the Chapter and presents the major conclusions that can be drawn from the information presented.