A PERSPECTIVE ON PRIORITIZATION IN PROJECT PORTFOLIO ENVIRONMENT

Abstract: The overbridging aspect of this interpretative master thesis is the implementation of a project prioritizing strategy. The concept is subdivided into three processes and entities, which could be seen as tools; project management office(PMO), project evaluation and project selection, which in turn are discussed separately. The thesis investigates how the tools impact the prioritizing strategy and why a company must follow a certain prioritizing strategy. The primary focus has been an IS/IT department at a large Swedish industrial company. Results from interviews at the industrial company have been compared to current theory. In order to map best practice methods a benchmarking study has been conducted at an auto manufacturer, medical company and a telecom company. When implementing a prioritizing strategy it is vital to have a project methodology in order to streamline the project management itself. Also, a PMO with a controlling objective should focus on the task of verifying project information quality and thus minimizing the information overflow to the decision makers. To continuously improve the project mythology and minimize the secondary failures, project should be evaluated. Prioritizing process should not only be made in the project selection phase but continuously during portfolio life cycle by comparing project relevance to risk. A prioritizing strategy would not only highlight the most important projects in the organization, but also make sure that they also receive highest support. A vision for a well defined prioritizing strategy is having project that consume more resources for a shortened time frame instead of having projects consuming less resources but for a longer time frame.