Project Portfolio Management Roles, Training, Coaching and Required Experience
Each task to be undertaken needs qualified personnel. A portfolio management project is in this sense not different from others. Important roles are the:
- Decision maker
- Project manager
- Domain expert (one per important domain)
- Workshop facilitator
- Workshop scribe
- Business analyst
Remark: As in other projects a role is not a person. A person can have one or more roles, and role can be implemented by one or more persons.
Roles and Responsibilities of the Existing Situation
Before the workshop you should write down of all important roles what are the:
- Activities;
- Knowledge;
- Deliverables.
Make sure that you consider this from different viewpoints like:
- Customers;
- Company;
- Business partners.
The decision maker
The most important role is the decision maker. Being the captain of the ship that sees to safe journey. He is especially active in the planning and control of the project. He also takes care of communication in the company and all political issues.
The project manager
The project manager takes care of all tactical issues. So creates the actual project planning, reports progress, and sees to it that all issues are properly solved.
The domain expert
The domain expert defines what he wants to achieve in detailed words. He knows everything of the subject, or can lay his hands on details if necessary.
The workshop facilitator
The workshop facilitator prepares and leads the workshops. He makes sure that the agenda is strictly followed, and that everybody gets a chance to give input. Per agenda point he gives a conclusion. When the discussion does not converge he puts the point on the open issue list in order to be solved later.
The scribe
The scribe documents all specifications. Also he makes sure that specifications are analyzed until they can be defined in SMART business terms.
The analyst
The analyst uses several techniques to define and refine the portfolio specifications. During his analysis he will use the open issues list to keep track of raised and new issues. He crafts the business case.
Training, Coaching and Required Experience
Portfolio Management is a task with abstract goals, easily influenced by politics. Therefore, workers in this field should have a solid background in the business domain, and also in IT. This is the only way to increase the transparency in this field.
