Projects and Portfolio (PPM)
Project planning, resource planning, project costing, work breakdown structure, and billing.
Workflow
- 01Project Setup
- 02Task Assignment
- 03Progress Tracking
- 04Resource Management
- 05Budget Control
- 06Project Reporting
If you change this
It implies 3 topics across one module.
See the path ahead →Why it matters
PPM is where the organisation decides what to do and finds out whether it worked. It spans strategy and the ledger, which is why it is simultaneously the most valuable module and the most frequently implemented badly.
- It carries the portfolio decision: What is funded, what is stopped, and what competes.
- It meets finance: Work in progress, revenue recognition and capitalisation all originate here.
- It holds the resource picture: Utilisation, capacity and who is actually available.
The workflow
- 01
Idea and investment
Demand captured, assessed, and funded or declined against portfolio criteria.
- 02
Planning
Scope, schedule, resources and budget set as a baseline.
- 03
Resourcing
People assigned against capacity, not against optimism.
- 04
Execution
Time, cost and progress recorded as the work happens.
- 05
Cost control
Actuals against baseline, with variance explained.
- 06
Billing and recognition
Billable work invoiced; revenue recognised on the agreed basis.
- 07
Closure and benefit
Project closed, benefits owned by someone operational.
The utilisation number is usually different in two systems, and whoever owns it effectively runs the firm. Agree the definition before the reports exist.
What you need in place
- Portfolio criteria: Explicit, so funding decisions are comparable.
- Resource capacity as data: Including leave and non-project commitments.
- Timesheet discipline: Late timesheets make cost control retrospective.
- Cost breakdown aligned to finance: Or project cost and ledger cost never agree.
- Revenue recognition rules: Configured to the accounting policy, especially for fixed-price work.
Questions to ask
01Capacity
Does resourcing account for leave and business-as-usual?
Plans built on gross availability always slip.
02Utilisation
How is it defined, and does everyone use the same definition?
Expect divergence; resolve it before reporting.
03WIP
How does work in progress reach the ledger?
This is the interface that breaks most often.
04Baselines
Are baselines held, or overwritten by replanning?
Without a held baseline, variance is unmeasurable.
05Closure
Who owns the benefit after the project closes?
Name them at approval, not at closure.
Metrics and KPIs to track
Schedule variance
Against the held baseline.
Cost variance
Actual against budget, with estimate at completion.
Resource utilisation
Billable and total, by team.
Work in progress
Value unbilled, and its age.
Benefit realisation
Against the approved case.
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