Field notes on running project portfolios. Written for PMO leads, portfolio managers, and the program teams who turn a list of projects into delivered outcomes.
Project prioritization frameworks fall into three families: scoring models, categorical methods, and visual grids. Here is a side by side comparison of RICE, WSJF, weighted scoring, MoSCoW, and the impact effort matrix, plus a simple rule for choosing and combining them.
Strategic portfolio management (SPM) is how leadership turns strategy into funded, prioritized work and adjusts it as conditions change. Here is a plain definition, how SPM differs from project portfolio management, why Gartner split it into its own market, and who owns it.
Resource utilization is the share of available time your people actually spend on work. Here is the formula, what counts as a healthy rate, the difference between billable and productive utilization, and how utilization differs from capacity and allocation.
Continuous planning replaces the once a year budget with a rolling rhythm that revisits priorities and funding every quarter or month. Here is what it is, how it differs from annual and rolling wave planning, the process, and how it supports strategic portfolio management.
The MoSCoW method sorts work into must have, should have, could have, and won't have this time. Here is what each category means, the 60 percent rule, how to run the workshop, how it compares to weighted scoring, and where it breaks.
Cost of delay is the economic cost of finishing later rather than sooner. Here is the formula, the four delay profiles, how to calculate it, the CD3 shortcut, and how it drives portfolio sequencing.
Demand management is how a PMO captures, categorizes, assesses, and prioritizes every project request against real capacity. Here is the process, the types of demand, and how it differs from intake and from supply-chain demand planning.
A RAID log tracks risks, assumptions, issues and dependencies in one place. Here is what each letter means, why the A and the D are contested, the columns a working log needs, who owns it, and how a PMO rolls RAID up across a portfolio.
A RAID log template you can rebuild in a spreadsheet in ten minutes: the shared columns, the fields that differ per row type, worked example rows, and the four mistakes that turn a template into an archive nobody reads.
Project portfolio management is the practice of choosing which projects to fund and which to stop, so that limited money and people go to the work that advances strategy. Here is what PPM means, what it involves, the benefits, and a worked example.
A steering committee is the small group of senior people who can fund, change, or stop a project. Here is what SteerCo means, who belongs on it, the decisions it owns, how often it should meet, and why most of them quietly turn into status meetings.
The project sponsor owns the business case, funds the work, and is accountable for the benefit. Here is the PMI definition, the responsibilities across the lifecycle, how the role differs from the project manager, and the four signs of a sponsor who has gone missing.
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