Effective Project Management: Traditional, Agile, Extreme, Sixth Edition

The Project Portfolio Management Life Cycle

No matter how you slice and dice it, the Project Portfolio Management life cycle consists of the following five phases:

1. Establish
2. Evaluate
3. Prioritize
4. Select
5. Manage

These phases are delineated with shaded boxes in Figure 14-1. In this diagram, I have embedded a generic project in the phases to illustrate the principles involved and the possible courses of action that a project may take over the course of its life. All of the discussions that follow in the remaining sections of this chapter are based on this diagram.

Figure 14-1: Project portfolio life cycle

Also shown in Figure 14-1 is the changing status of a project as it moves through this life cycle. Note that there are eight different stages that a project may be in during this life cycle. These stages are as follows:

Proposed — A proposed project is one that has been submitted to the portfolio with a request that it be evaluated regarding its alignment to the portfolio strategy. A project that does not meet the alignment criteria may be either rejected out of hand or returned to the proposing party for revision and resubmission. Projects that are returned for revision are generally only in minor noncompliance, and by following the suggested revisions, they should meet the alignment criteria.

Aligned — A proposed project is aligned if it has been evaluated and determined to be in ...