Portfolio Management – A practical guide

If you are a student member or a fellow please go here to download a copy of this publication.

This guide illustrates how portfolio management is a key mechanism in enabling an organisation to optimise delivery of its strategic goals, maximising value, and do so in the required time frame.

The guide is designed to serve three main aims:

• to promote awareness of, and outline good practice in, portfolio management for the practising or developing portfolio manager or portfolio office manager. All organisations can learn from each other, but ultimately each needs to build its own version of portfolio management practice that addresses their own business need;
• to provide a benchmark for portfolio managers and the portfolio management community to assess their own organisation’s maturity in the discipline;
• to stimulate new thinking and contribute to the development of portfolio management practice.

Download sample chapter

Paperback: 246x189mm, 86pp, 2019
Author: APM Portfolio Management SIG
Publisher: APM
ISBN-13: 978-1-903494-86-8
Price: £19.99 

Review by Paul Howley, Director of Transformation at YBS

'I found this a very practical document with some great examples that help to bring out the key benefits and challenges of building an effective portfolio management practice. 

The guide looks at all the components of portfolio management in a way that is accessible both to project practitioners and also to business sponsors. Demystifying portfolio management for business and C-suite audiences is very important in gaining buy-in to the approach and this guide will be helpful in gaining acceptance of the case for building portfolio management capabilities.

I also liked the recognition of the challenges of running a bi-modal (waterfall and agile) portfolio. This is an area that we haven’t been able to embed yet to my satisfaction and the guide gives some ideas to think about in trying to ensure that portfolio management can demonstrate an appropriate level of control over a bi-modal portfolio'

 Review by Dr Ruth Murray-Webster, HonFAPM

'This is a short and well-written practical guide for anyone considering or involved in leading or supporting a portfolio of programmes, projects and business-as-usual work.

It is a vital part of APM’s project-based working jigsaw because it differentiates portfolios from programmes and projects really well.  What is different about portfolios and how portfolios add value to the organisation, working with programmes and projects, comes across clearly and succinctly leaving no doubt how an organization must proceed to be successful.

As the previous director of the change portfolio for a major ports operator, the challenges described of gaining alignment of the executive team to ‘play nicely’ when deciding the optimal portfolio really resonated with my experience.  The guide provides insight and suggestions of how to build portfolio management capability that makes it easier for senior leaders to sacrifice their own priorities for the benefit of the whole.  Getting the right portfolio level metrics in place is a key part of this in my experience and the guide deals with this really well.

Although building portfolio management maturity takes many years to get right, the guide offers practical steps to make a start, perhaps with a mini-portfolio within one part of the business first.  The time taken to build maturity is worth it in my experience and I recommend this guide to those who are thinking of where to start with portfolio management, those who are trying and struggling, and those who have it working but want to continuously improve.'