Are you having trouble consolidating results of your project portfolio (program)?

Most Project Managers in charge of big Portfolio of Projects (programs) get to a point that is too tough to consolidate the information about it. They say to themselves: “I can’t manage my program portfolio results!”.

Scenario: You are managing a program of multiple projects spread all over the place. The Project Portfolio (or program) is not achieving  good performance, but it is too tough to identify the following facts:

–          Why is my program performing like this?

–          Which projects are doing well and which aren’t?

–          Where should I focus my attention?

–          Every time I have to understand the performance I lose a lot of time just trying to get real information out of multiple spreadsheets.

Problem: Usually people start working and executing without proper planning. It gets to a point where information is not standardized, Project Managers use different milestones to plan, control and report the evolution of projects of the same program. Financial reports do not integrate with schedule performance and there are no records of what happened to each project performance. So how to understand what is going on and how to improve?

Solution: Here are some quick steps to improve (a lot) your Project Portfolio/Program management:

1-      Create a template – define a standard template for all your projects and use them to understand exactly where each job is. You can always improve it, but starting without one makes very difficult to make it right later.

2-      Standardize your information – making your information standard allows you to create quick reports and share trustable results. Invest a little time early and gain a lot of time later.

3-      Keep a baseline plan for your projects – this is the most powerful learning tool. Understanding your planning mistakes and what caused them makes you improve like never before.

4-      Give visibility to the organization – making your results visible and accessible to all organization creates a commitment to the program and gives a sense of evolution.

How can Crunchflow help?

Our platform has a lot of ready-to-go applications for Project Portfolio / Program management, that keep baseline records with comments and allows you to standardize your information. You can use our basic financial information platform to store your financial records in the same place. If needed, you can integrate it with your financial platform easily. And our embedded analytical solution allows you to easily understand and share your results across all organization and foster collaboration.

Want to know more? Get in touch.