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transparency and involvement of all levels of the organization |
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open communication of sensitive information |
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clarity of roles and responsibilities |
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management of the impact of prioritization. |
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High-quality input to the process is achieved only with staff involvement at all organizational levels, with free sharing of information, and open debate. Project team members must be prepared for their views to be challenged by line management, and line management must equally accept challenge of their views which may be seen to undermine their traditional authority. Reasons for reaching conclusions must be open. In this way the strength of diversity is harnessed to enhance the overall quality of assessments. |
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Portfolio review requires presentation and sharing of information which may be sensitive internally and externally. Management of information needs to be built into the review process to ensure that internal concerns or expectations are not unduly raised or dashed and that information which may impact share price is not released in an uncontrolled fashion. |
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Although the need for balanced and broad input to the process is essential and the aim is to build consensus, some group or individual must take responsibility for each element of the process. For example, if project teams develop a series of assessments of chances of technical success, and line management disagrees, whose views should prevail? Each company must decide based on its own culture and approach to matrix management. |
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A key output of the portfolio review process is prioritization of individual projects. Two important considerations must be borne in mind. The first is to ensure that there is a clear, organizationwide understanding of different categories of priority. Does high priority mean that, in every circumstance, these projects will command unlimited resources? Does low priority mean that the projects will progress only if there is nothing else to do? Clarity of understanding is essential. Secondly the psychological impact of grading a project as less than high priority should not be underestimatedparticularly if the project previously had high priority. Procedures need to be put into place to ensure that project teams and leaders remain motivated and committed and that the organizational behavior recognizes that any projects remaining in the portfolio after a rigorous analytical process are valuable and need to be pursued with vigor. |
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Last, management must reinforce the output with appropriate behavior. If recommendations are not followed with decisive and sometimes painful action, the exercise is seen as futile. |
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