Dr Te Wu - Montclair and
Dr Thomas Lechler - Stevens Institute
Calling all PMINJ members who work as project portfolio
management professionals! If you are a project management
professional, this one-of-a-kind study may interest you.
As you surely know already, there is limited resources and
knowledge in this discipline. Some of the key reasons include:
- portfolio management is relatively new;
- most organizations are still struggling with project
management so there is no time for portfolio management;
- a significant gap between academic research, standards,
and practice.
This study builds a more fundamental understanding of how
portfolio management is practiced. This way, future research
can be better aligned with the application. For portfolio
management professionals, findings here can help them shape
their own portfolios.
Project portfolio management is one of the latest frontiers in
project management, both in research and in practice. PMI
studies have shown that organizations who practices portfolio
management competently achieve greater value. Yet, advancement
has been tediously slow. The reasons are many, but one of the
core problems is the disconnect between research and
practice.
Academic papers are dense, narrowly focused, and often written
in an abstract language that can be difficult to
understand. On the other side, practitioner studies are
often anecdotal, which can be interesting but lack
rigor. This study strives to close this gap by focusing
on getting input from professionals in a more rigorous
questionnaire. Just as important, this study focuses on
exploring the landscape of project portfolio management. The
focus on landscape is foundational to the understanding of
this discipline as it would encourage researchers to design
studies that are more applicable to the real world. For
portfolio management professionals working in the field, they
can use the findings from this study to serve as benchmark as
they build and improve their practices.
Currently, our research received over 130 valid responses from
project portfolio management professionals from a variety of
industries, geographies, organization sizes, and level of
portfolios. The findings to date reveal a complicated
practice of project portfolio management, showing a complex
and varied landscape. Here are just three interesting findings
out of nearly twenty:
- Only a quarter of portfolio managers are fully dedicated
to managing portfolios. Most portfolio management
professionals, nearly 55%, spent less than 50% of their
time on portfolio management activities.
- Portfolios can exist at all levels of their
organization, even though they are more popular at the
enterprise level (versus departmental, product, or team
levels).
- Less than 20% of portfolio managers are fully
accountable for their portfolio’s performance. Equal
percentage of portfolio managers, at 40% each, plays
supportive or semi-accountable roles.
The two investigators of this study are Dr. Te Wu from
Montclair State University and Dr. Thomas Lechler from Stevens
Institute of Technology. Even though our sample of 130
valid responses are “good enough”, we are hoping to have more
inputs to improve the robustness and richness of our findings.
Survey
Help us and help yourself by completing this questionnaire by
August 30, 2022:
Survey Link
This study is confidential, and it does not ask for your
information. Participants (or anyone who is interested) can
request a copy of the study (target to be completed by early
2023) and also to receive a coupon of
20% off for PMO
Advisory’s bootcamps for PfMP and PgMP by completing a
separate form.
