3. Portfolio management & value creation

When projects are tackled agile and hybrid, this also has repercussions on project portfolio management. So while new ways of working often trickle down, we see an opposite movement here. The more traditional approach to project portfolio management has long been adhered to, despite more uncertainty and dynamics in the market. With strengthened ownership and commitment from the business to achieve optimal value creation, there is also more and more short-cycle and dynamic work at portfolio level. Examples are the processes around budgeting (LEAN budgeting), business case management and prioritisation (WSJF).

4. The importance of a good CPMO

The term PMO can mean either programme, project or project portfolio management office. Even within that, dozens of variations can be invented. Increasingly, we see a PMO being set up at an organisational level, under other headings (e.g. Central PMO, transition office, transformation office, strategy realisation office) to differentiate itself from the more traditional PMO.

This CPMO performs three tasks: 1) strategic portfolio management for management, 2) provision of central services for projects and 3) the knowledge centre on project & portfolio management. All this in line with the P3O^®-model. The CPMO is a versatile spider in the web that can grow and excel through deliberate positioning and clear scope delineation, where adding value should be central.

5. Capacity management

One of the aforementioned central services of the CPMO is capacity management. Given the current tight labour market, it is becoming increasingly important for organisations to make the best use of their scarce resources. This means balancing the supply and demand of resources. It must be ensured that the right people are doing the right work at the right time. Ultimately, capacity management will help answer the question of which projects the organisation can do at which time, and whether there are enough skilled employees available for all projects within the organisation for now and in the future.

6. Wider use of project management tools

More and more tools supporting project & portfolio management are choosing to go along with the hybrid trend, supporting agile, waterfall and hybrid forms of project management all together. But let's face it: some tools succeed in this better than others. The packages that manage to get this right will be the most successful. A complicating factor here is that just supporting the project team is no longer enough; organisations expect project portfolio management to also have a place in the tools, including, for example, a good link to strategy, the ability to run scenarios, business case management and capacity management.

The first six trends of this piece are all rather 'technical trends', focusing on setting up processes or systems for project & portfolio management. But there is also a lot going on on the side often called 'soft' or 'the people side'.

7. Success lies at the intersection of project & change management

A project is always a change from situation A to B, where employees have to perform different or new actions. Looking at a project in this way, it is strange that we often speak of project management and not of project & change management. Whereas change management used to be "just" added during the implementation phase, organisations increasingly realise that you have to pay attention to it and make preparations before the start of a project: what is the objective and the desired result? What behaviour contributes to this? What is the current situation? And how are we going to achieve the new situation?". The project manager then takes an integral approach in which project and change management activities are tackled hand in hand. In the process, therefore, the 'soft' side of change also becomes planable.

8. Good commissioning practices

Good project & change management requires good principalship. Firstly, the client plays an important role by propagating the central idea of the permanently changing organisation. In addition, the client has a role in keeping his/her projects going by propagating the vision, fast decision-making and good stakeholder management. In practice, it is not obvious that clients give clear direction to their projects, but instead leave this to their project managers.

We see that organisations where project ownership is performed by someone who takes real ownership of the project and the intended change have a higher chance of success. Within those projects, project owner and project manager then work closely and in a structured manner; they form a dynamic duo. They know how to find each other quickly when needed and do not wait for the next steering committee meeting. The project owner is continuously actively involved in informing and involving stakeholders, is always visible and a coach for the project manager.

9. Soft skills & EQ

For both the client and the project manager, they desperately need each other, because the environment is more and more a political web of interactions with people who know (and express) what they want. This makes stakeholder engagement increasingly complex.

The client and project manager should use an integrated approach to get stakeholders on board, as discussed in point 7. Within that approach, there should be a lot of focus on clear and straightforward communication that manages to motivate people in the right way and takes into account the personal characteristics and preferences of the stakeholders within the project. In doing so, showing empathy, genuine interest and understanding people (called EQ) is essential for successful project delivery.

10. Hybrid working

A complicating factor in an integrated change approach with a focus on the individual is that hybrid working - sometimes in the office, sometimes from home - has been fully adopted by a large proportion of organisations. The challenge for the project manager lies in collaborating and connecting teams and stakeholders who are not in one location. A hybrid project manager manages for accountability, working independently and small deliverables to keep progress insightful and monitored. Informal information retrieval is more difficult than before, so the project manager needs to put more emphasis on monitoring progress, for instance during structured meetings, without turning into micromanagement. Useful tools in this are, for example, the digital Kanban boards, in tools such as MS Teams, Jira or Trello.