MoP Management of Portfolios
MoP Management of Portfolios is the latest guidance to be released by the UK Cabinet Office, and rather than representing a new discipline, it seeks to build on and better coordinate existing best practise processes.
A portfolio is the totality of an organisation’s investment in the changes required to achieve its strategic objectives.
Portfolio management is a coordinated collection of processes and ways of making decisions that balance organisational change and business as usual. While programme and project management help you do change initiatives right, portfolio management assists you to do the right change.
What is Management of Portfolios?
Intuitively organisations have maintained lists of projects and programmes for many years. The Cabinet Office have now assembled best practice in this field into their new publication Management of Portfolios (MoP) which includes:
Principles
The underlying basic ideas of portfolio management are expressed as five powerful principles that:
- Have been proven in practice
- Apply to portfolios of all sizes and
- Empower you by explaining what you should be aiming for
Context
MoP shows how portfolio management interacts with Business as Usual. Specifically, links to key strategic functions including Business Planning, Resource Management, Performance Management, Corporate Governance and of course Programme & Project Management are examined.
Cycles
MoP operates around two interlinking cycles: The Portfolio Definition Cycle provides clarity to senior management by collating key information on change initiatives:
- Understand existing change initiatives
- Categorise initiatives into groups based on strategic objectives
- Prioritise by ranking programmes & projects in a repeatable and transparent manner
- Balance the portfolio by considering practical issues such as timing, impact, risk and resource availability
- Plan by collating information from the Portfolio Definition Cycle into a Portfolio Strategy & Delivery Plan.
The Portfolio Delivery Cycle ensures successful implementation of the planned changes initiatives whilst ensuring the portfolio adapts to the changing environment.
- Management Control allows progress against the baseline to be monitored
- Benefits Management helps ensure the contribution to operation performance and strategic objectives is maximised
- Financial Management confirms the viability of the portfolio by aligning decisions with the financial cycle
- Risk Management ensures consistent and effective control of risk exposure
- Stakeholder Engagement helps maintain stakeholder support for the portfolio
- Organisational Governance gives clarity to when, where, and how decisions are made
- Resource Management balances resource availability and the demands or change initiatives
Benefits of MoP
- Focus the right programmes and projects, gaining greater financial benefits and measurable contributions to strategic objectives
- Remove redundant and duplicate projects
- Effectively implement programmes and projects by optimising the delivery pipeline
- Use resources more efficiently
- Optimise benefits realisation across the entire portfolio
- Enhance transparency, accountability & corporate governance
- Improve engagement amongst stakeholders
MoP allows you to optimise change initiatives by integrating programme management using MSP and project management using PRINCE2. A focus on Organisational Energy links to the human side of change and hence Change Management.
"Many thanks for your hospitality and training, I enjoyed myself and found both the MSP training and wider conversations very helpful"
- DT, MSP
"Can you pass on our thanks to the trainer, as he didn't teach us just to pass the exam, he taught us how to use it"
- MM, PRINCE2
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- SJW, MSP
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- KC, MSP
"This Benefits Management course is very useful with easy to understand diagrams and slides"
- GB, Benefits Management
