Understand portfolios

Managers often have to figure out which projects would best help their company reach its goals and objectives. This means judging a current or potential project based on criteria that is important to those objectives. We can see these in portfolio optimization. This criteria can include things like the labor and expenses of a project, the potential risk budget, the net value, the ROI, and how well does the project align with the portfolio’s goals. With this information, managers can decide which projects should be done and when. A portfolio is a collection of projects that compete for the same resources, budget, and schedule. The best way to decide which projects should be approved and in what priority they should be executed is to compare them in a tool like the Portfolio Optimizer. The best way to prepare projects for comparison in the Portfolio Optimizer is to create a business case for each project. The next video will show you how to create a business case for a new or existing project. And the video to watch after that will show you how to use the Portfolio Optimizer. Now that you know what portfolios are capable of doing, we’ll show you how to create one. Navigate to the Portfolio section from the main menu, then click on New Portfolio. We’ll call this Marketing Portfolio 2. By default, the person who creates the portfolio is the Portfolio Manager, but you can change this in the Portfolio Details. We’ll assign Karen Sterling to be the Portfolio Manager. When a portfolio is first created, only the Portfolio Creator and the Portfolio Manager have access to it. You can give others access to the portfolio by sharing it. Doing this also gives them access to all the programs and projects that are added to the portfolio. Open the portfolio and select Share. We’ll share this portfolio with the marketing team, but we’ll limit their access to View Only. You can use the New Project button to add an existing project to the portfolio. Or you can create a new project directly in the portfolio. We’ll add the Vintage Fashion Expo booth project to our portfolio. A project can only be in one portfolio, so if the Vintage Fashion Expo booth was in a different portfolio, it has now been moved into Marketing Portfolio 2. Programs are a collection of projects within a portfolio. You can create a new program by clicking on the New Program button. Just like with projects, you can either create a new program or move an existing program from the portfolio it is currently in, into this portfolio. If you move a program, all the projects in the program will move with it.