Lean PPM
OK, hand on heart! If you are reading this article, it is very likely that you are responsible for projects in one form or another. And that means it is also very likely that you know the worrying feeling of having lost track. Maybe it started when something went wrong. Or three new projects suddenly came along at once and you had to turn all your previous plans upside down. Whatever the trigger, somehow one thing led to another and now you are standing there, with cold sweat on your neck and your brain in overdrive. Mr. Müller should be taking care of module A in project X this week, but he is also the only one who can lead the debugging in project Y. That can't work! It just can't work. How can it be that two priority 1 projects are entering the critical phase at the same time? Did I screw that up? And now what?
We've all been in situations like this. And you know what? That's OK. Where people work, there's always going to be something wrong. We can stand on our heads and wiggle our feet - something always goes wrong. It's also perfectly OK if such moments kuwait telegram data provide the material for anecdotes that you'll still be telling at the Christmas party three years from now: "Do you remember when we assigned the miller to project X and project Y at the same time? Man, that was really close!" But it's not OK if such things happen all the time. Then the problems have systematic causes that can, in case of doubt, destroy your company.
Project management and project portfolio management: Not only HOW, but also WHICH and WHEN!
When companies realize that problems have systematic causes, an obvious idea is to improve project management (PM). And that can be the right approach. There may be serious problems with HOW you run your projects. It makes sense to ask yourself this question and introduce improvements where necessary. But we also believe that preoccupation with the HOW often distracts from other questions. It is not only important HOW you run your projects, it is also about WHICH projects you run WHEN. But these are decisions that project management can only help you with to a limited extent. If you have a moment, think about what information a project manager needs to successfully run a typical project in your company from start to finish. Then think about what information is needed to decide whether a project should be run at all. You will quickly realize that even if there is some overlap, these are two completely different questions.