Making Project Portfolio Decisions—And Getting Buy-In

To deliver an organization’s strategic objectives, project leaders must be able to look across the portfolio and decide which projects provide value and should be pursued, which go on the back burner and which are abandoned entirely. We discuss this with:

Sunando Chaudhuri, PMP, PgMP, PfMP, director of IT, Abu Dhabi National Exhibitions Company Group, Abu Dhabi: Chaudhuri discusses why project leaders must understand their organizations’ goals to best prioritize projects, the different types of business value projects can deliver—and how that factors into project portfolio decisions—along with ways project managers can keep executive leaders aligned, even in the face of personal agendas and pet projects.

B. Firat Dengiz, PMP, PgMP, PfMP, program leader, Turkish Aerospace Industries, Ankara, Turkey: Dengiz discusses the metrics and data he considers when making project portfolio decisions, how he factors stakeholders into his decision-making process and ways to build buy-in from the C-suite.  Key themes [02:57] The different ways to calculate business value  [04:14] Ways to manage pet projects and personal agendas [07:10] Ensuring project portfolio decisions align with organizational strategy [10:28] Metrics to consider when prioritizing project portfolios [12:01] Engaging stakeholders to build support for decision-making [14:38] Tackling challenges project managers face when prioritizing portfolios [16:36] Determining how to build buy-in with different C-suite leaders