A friend is developing a project portfolio planning process. I was asking some questions about the decision criteria used to filter and prioritize projects and wasn't satisfied there was enough in the model. I wonder if any of you PPM and PMO readers could offer comment on this set of questions I just made up myself.
Worth Considering?
- What local and specific criteria apply here for your organization?
- A sponsor of sufficient authority?
- Do we have the ability to form the problem or opportunity into a coherent statement
- Common sense check/are we in this business?
- How important is it in the big picture?
- What other initiatives are more important?
- Do we have the fundamental skills and resources required for this initiative?
- Can we buy/hire/get the right resources?
- How does this initiative contribute to our mission?
- Do we have sufficient skills and resources?
- Do we have sufficient project delivery skills?
- Specifically who will be responsible for delivery?
- Do they have the time and ability to focus?
- Who will take over the product or service after the project?
- Are they capable of dealing with the outcomes without support?
- Can we provide sufficient support for the post-project transition?
- Are we introducing something new or changing something we already have?
- Urgency/Importance?
- Our Motivations?
- Dependencies?
- What is the specific and measurable differences we expect to see in our organisation today?
- How will you know when you are done?
- What does failure look like?
- What are the triggers to stop the project?
- Have we tried anything like this in the past?
- Did we fail? Did we succeed?
- What were the critical issues that caused failure/enabled success?
- How will we incorporate this learning into our planning?
If things start going wrong…
- What tools and systems will we use to discover problems?
- Who will monitor the situation for problems?
- What tools will we put in place to enable support?
- Who will be available to offer support?
