2.1b Portfolio Management

While Project Management is about "Doing things right," Portfolio Management is about "Doing the right things." It is the centralized management of projects to achieve strategic objectives.

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🧭 The Hierarchy of Work

Understanding the distinction is vital for the exam.

Portfolio

The Strategy

• Focus: Strategic Value
• Scope: The entire enterprise
• Success: Aggregate investment performance

Program

The Synergies

• Focus: Related Benefits
• Scope: A group of projects
• Success: Benefits Realization

Project

The Deliverable

• Focus: Specific Output
• Scope: Defined Scope Statement
• Success: Time, Cost, Quality

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⚖️ Portfolio Balancing

A healthy portfolio is a balanced mix of investments.

🚀

Transform

High-risk, high-reward "Moonshots" that create new markets.

📈

Grow

Medium-risk enhancements to expand existing products.

💡

Run

Low-risk operational maintenance (Keep the lights on).

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⚡ Resource Capacity

The hardest part of portfolio management is the Resource Constraint.

• WIP Limits: Reducing the number of active projects to prevent "Resource Peanut-Butter" (spreading people so thin they perform poorly everywhere).
• Bottlenecks: Identifying scarce skills (e.g., Security Architects) that throttle the entire portfolio.

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📝 Exam Insight: If your project is "Green" (on time/budget) but the Portfolio Manager asks to cancel it, do not argue. The strategy may have shifted, making your project irrelevant. Your role is to execute an orderly administrative closure.