Project Portfolio Planning
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- Project Portfolio Planning
Project Portfolio Planning
The Project Portfolio Planning capability’s enablers include Business Requests, Demand Management, and Project Governance. Each capability within the Planview Capability Framework has a distinct set of features and functionality, business processes, best practices, and analytics and reports that deliver value to customers in the form of specific business outcomes.
Project Portfolio Planning Business Outcomes
Business Requests
- We have a single repository to collect requests from the business, which is available to all stakeholders in the organization.
- We have a structured process to categorize, assess, and carry out sizing estimation of these requests before taking them for consideration as new investments.
Demand Management
- We have a consistent demand management process for all work/projects.
- We can describe and categorize projects based on our organizational data model and attributes.
- We have a single repository of all projects, which includes new (not yet approved), approved, active, and completed projects.
Project Governance
- We have a structured process to capture, assess, estimate, and approve projects.
- We can ensure that the appropriate governance process is applied to projects, based on specific criteria.
- We can measure effectiveness, identify and remove bottlenecks, anticipate future issues, and adapt program workflow to optimize performance.
- We can control the progression of a project through the delivery process and ensure all appropriate actions/steps have been taken at each stage.
Project Portfolio Planning Processes
This capability supports a clear and consistent process for initiating new business requests, managing valuable programs, and progressing projects through execution/delivery.
Business Requests Process Steps
This supports a clearly-defined process to initiate a business request, including collecting relevant categorization/scoring information and initial financial data.
Business requests process flow
Process Step | Description |
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Initiate request
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Requests provide one way that new entities (e.g. projects, programs, products) can be initiated in Enterprise One. It is an opportunity to ensure that the incoming requests are well defined, categorized, and assigned to the right area(s) for delivery. This also allows requests to be evaluated against each other to compare scoring, impacts, and alignment. When a new request is created, certain fields will be required to ensure the data needed for appropriate categorization is provided. Request assignment and any lifecycle steps will start following your defined governance process. For more information, see the following articles: |
Describe and categorize request |
During the initiation of a request, information is populated into Enterprise One to describe and categorize the request within the register. Often a minimum level of required categorization/descriptive information is enforced during the creation of the request via a lifecycle workflow to satisfy the specific data and information needs of the organization. For more information, see the following articles: |
Review request |
Once you have a request portfolio, you can see detailed information regarding the requests that are included in your portfolio on the Portfolio Manager tile within the Request Portfolio View screen. This will allow the request to be reviewed in preparation for dispatch. For more information, see the following articles: |
Dispatch/associate request |
The purpose of this step is to connect the request with a relevant entity in Enterprise One. This can be achieved by either dispatching the request which generates a new entity or associating it with an already existing one. Enterprise One can route requests to a dispatcher, who is the user responsible for evaluating the requests and then performing the following tasks. Depending on whether your system supports request lifecycles, a dispatcher can perform those tasks through request lifecycles or from the Request View screen without the use of lifecycles. The dispatcher can:
A dispatcher can share dispatching responsibilities with other users. For more information, see the following articles: |
Close request |
If approval is not granted or the request is no longer needed, change the status to closed. This provides a record of its status for reporting and ensures that no further updates can be made to the request. Depending on the internal business process, the process to close the request can vary and may contain approval gates in a lifecycle workflow. In these instances, successful completion of the lifecycle steps by the relevant users will automatically close the Request. The status of the request can be changed in the Request Detail screen, or directly in the Portfolio Manager using an appropriate column set selection. For more information, see the following articles: |
Demand Management Process Steps
This supports the creation of new work/projects and the entry of descriptive and categorization information.
All work is centralized and can be tracked and reported on through various statuses.
Demand management process flow
Create project |
A project is where work is planned, the is also known as the Primary Planning Level (PPL). It contains the breakdown of the work in the form of tasks, assignments, financial information, timelines, roadmaps, baselines, and other information needed for a project to be successful. When a new project is created, certain fields will be required to ensure the data needed for appropriate categorization is provided. Project assignment and any lifecycle steps will start following your defined governance process. For more information, see the following articles: |
Describe and categorize project |
During the creation process for each new project, relevant description and categorization information should be captured through a lifecycle-driven configured screen. Project attributes can be edited on the Work View screen of the project and can be viewed in the Work Portfolio view. For more information, see the following articles: |
Plan high-level schedule dates and milestones |
To form a high-level project schedule, you can build out the Work Breakdown Structure. As part of this step, you should also add dates, durations, dependencies, and initial resource assignments. The project schedule consists of any elements in the Work Breakdown Structure that exist below the project level in the hierarchy, such as phases, tasks, and activities as well as dates, durations, and categorizations. For more information, see the following articles: |
Estimate project costs and benefits |
Capture a high-level estimate of the costs and benefits to deliver the project in the work financial plan based on the need of your organization. Cost accounts can include labor, capital spending, and expense spending. For more information see the Financial Planning and Cost Management. |
Project Governance Process Steps
This provides a process and governance structure for progressing projects through an approval lifecycle into execution/delivery, ensuring that decisions are made by the right people and are based on structured data for each project entity.
Project governance process flow
Process Step | Description |
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Governance point A |
Request intake information is reviewed. If approved, new projects or programs will be created. |
Governance point B |
Initial project planning information, such as description and categorization attributes, cost and benefit estimates, and roadmap dates, will be captured and reviewed to determine if enough is known to proceed with the project and include in the detailed portfolio planning process. |
Governance point C |
The process of investment planning allows planners to prioritize and analyze the list of proposed investments (projects) to determine which to move forward with. Analysis of investments is achieved by comparing what’s available, capacity (which can be in the form of resource capacity or financial a budget against what is required) versus demand (derived by the forecast of projects in the portfolio). Planners will create and compare a number of investment planning scenarios to model different investment decisions and various approaches to balancing investment demand with capacity. Once an approach is chosen, these decisions will be published as the agreed portfolio plan. |
Governance point D |
If required, projects can proceed through a gated governance process. Usually, each gate requires the project to comply with a checklist of activities/deliverables before proceeding to the next gate. |
Outputs, Reports, and Analytics
This solution capability is supported by the following outputs, reports, and analytics.
Type | Associated Outputs, Reports, and Analytics | Description |
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Dashboard |
The Gated Project dashboard provides an interactive view of project progress and performance through the organization’s stage-gate process, whether for IT or product development. Project managers, product managers, and gatekeepers can visualize and investigate status, scoring, and financial performance by gate to understand progress and trends. |
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Analytic |
Organizational (through a resource portfolio) view of resource capacity and the demand against that capacity. The demand is based on requirements, reserves, and allocations in the project schedules. Data can be pivoted by different resource dimensions, time-sliced in weeks or months, and displayed in hours, days, or FTEs. |
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Analytic |
Resource portfolio-based report that provides an analysis of timesheet actuals: work (project) and standard activity split, work analysis by any activity attribute (such as billable/non-billable), standard activity analysis by type, drillable table to detailed activities and timesheet hours. |
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Analytic |
Resource portfolio-based report that visualizes planned (scheduled) effort vs. actual/reported effort. Provides resource/activity/weekly level details of the hours planned for each activity and the hours reported. Additional summary charts allow analysis by work or resource attributes such as role or work type. |
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Screen |
Lets you do the following:
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Screen |
Gives you both an overview of the work items in a portfolio and easy access to the details of each work item in the portfolio. |
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Analytic |
Project or work portfolio-based report that provides project count analysis of projects in the portfolio by a primary and secondary work attribute. |
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Analytic |
Provides summarization of current condition (red, amber/yellow, and green) status of projects and how these projects have trended historically. |
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Analytic |
Based on an approved financial baseline and the current forecast to complete, this exception-based analytic identifies projects that are financially out of tolerance and are forecasting an over- or underrun on the approved baseline budget. |
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Analytic |
Portfolio exception-based analytic that compares the scheduled baseline effort, duration to the forecast (scheduled) effort, and duration, and identifies projects that are forecasting late delivery or require additional resources to complete. |
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Analytic |
Provides summarization of project/work effort, with a drill-down to detailed project and resource hours. |
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Analytic |
Change Request Log summary for a portfolio of projects. The matrix is used to classify change requests by two parameterized attributes, including project name. The matrix is drillable to slice/dice the list of change requests. The table shows key change request fields, attributes, ownership, and date information. |
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Analytic |
Risk Register summary for a portfolio of projects. The matrix is used to classify risk by two parameterized attributes, including project name. The matrix is drillable to slice/dice the list of risks. The table shows key risks, fields, attributes, ownership, and date information. |
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Analytic |
Issue Log summary for a portfolio of projects. The matrix is used to classify issues by two parameterized attributes, including project name. The matrix is drillable to slice/dice the list of change requests. The table shows key issues fields, attributes, ownership, and date information. |
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Analytic |
Tabular summary providing key fields relating to the status of the projects in a portfolio. |
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Analytic |
Summarizes key business case information on the project into a report for project stakeholders and investment review meetings. Includes project attributes and responsibility information, descriptive business case information, milestone information, commentary, and risk lists. |
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Analytic |
Summary of key information on the project into a “one-page” report for project stakeholders and project review meetings. Includes project attributes and responsibility information, trend of project condition/RAG/RYG, descriptive information, date and milestone information, commentary, as well as change request, risk, and issue lists. |
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Analytic |
Work portfolio-based report that counts and categories milestones across the portfolio. Milestones are categorized according to a milestone type (for example, Governance Milestone, Project Milestone) and grouped as either On Time/Early or Late, compared to the active schedule baseline, or as Dates Not Set, meaning they have not been planned. |
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Analytic |
Work portfolio timeline visualization. Parameters to determine the level of detail shown, Gantt bar coloring rules, and time horizon. |
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Analytic |
Change Request Register analysis for a portfolio of projects. Used to analyze the volume and type of change requests and the rate at which they are being raised and closed. The chart is drillable to slice/dice the list of change requests by a change request attribute or by project name. The table shows key change request fields, attributes, ownership, and date information. |
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Analytic |
Risk Register analysis for a portfolio of projects. Used to analyze the volume and type of risks and rate at which they are being raised and closed. The chart is drillable to slice/dice the list of risks by a risk attribute, or by project name. The table shows key risk fields, attributes, ownership, and date information. |
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Analytic |
Issue Log analysis for a portfolio of projects. Used to analyze the volume and type of issues and the rate at which they are being raised and closed. The chart is drillable to slice/dice the list of issues by an issue attribute or by project name. The table shows key issue fields, attributes, ownership, and date information. |
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Analytic |
A work portfolio/project-specific summary of all effort planned against the project, analyzable to the activity, resource, and day. |
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Analytic |
A work portfolio/project-specific summary of all effort reported against each project through timesheets. |
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Analytic |
Work portfolio-based report that visualizes planned (scheduled) effort vs. actual/reported effort. Provides resource/activity/weekly level details of the hours planned for each activity and the hours reported. Additional summary charts allow analysis by work or resource attributes such as role or work type. |
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Analytic |
Work portfolio report that allows the analysis of project and portfolio financial plan data, including effort (FTEs/Days/Hours) or financial data (Cost/Benefit/Revenue). A single financial planning version is selected, and the data type is selected based on type and/or specific accounts. The slicer can be any work alternate structure or a line attribute of the selected accounts. |
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Analytic |
Work portfolio report that allows the comparison of one/many versions of project and portfolio financial plan data, including effort (FTEs/Days/Hours) or financial data (Cost/Benefit/Revenue). |
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Analytic |
Work portfolio report that can select cost or revenue/benefit based measures from the financial planning data to drive bubble size. |
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Analytic |
Work portfolio report, based on financial plan data, where the user can select benefit/revenue measures for the X-axis, cost-based measures for the bubble size, and a risk-based attribute for the Y-axis. |
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Analytic |
A work portfolio dashboard that provides a count of projects in the portfolio based on different project attributes to aid analysis of portfolio balance. |
Business Requests Process Steps
This supports a clearly-defined process to initiate a business request, including collecting relevant categorization/scoring information and initial financial data.
Business requests process flow
Process Step | Description |
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Create request for new project |
New project requests provide one way that project work can be initiated in Clarizen One. It is an opportunity to ensure that the incoming work requests are well defined, categorized, and assigned to the right area(s) for delivery. This also allows program requests to be evaluated against each other to compare scoring, impacts, and alignment. When a new request is created, certain fields will be required to ensure the data needed for appropriate categorization is provided. Request assignment and any lifecycle steps will start following your defined governance process. Relevant users will receive notifications via Discussions and/or email. Requests can be initiated from the Requests module, as well as using a web form or email. For more information, see IT Request Intake. |
Submit request for approval |
The request must be assigned or reassigned to the relevant approval authority to gain approval from within your organization's governance structure. The user(s) assigned may take an action to approve the request, seek more information, or reject the request. When taking an action, the owner of the request will be notified via Discussions. |
Convert to project |
Once the project has been approved, it may be converted into a project. The originating request and project will be related. The request owner and project manager will be notified via Discussions. |
Close request |
If approval is not granted or the request is no longer needed, close the request. This provides a record of its status for reporting and ensures that no further updates can be made to the request. |
Demand Management Process Steps
This supports the creation of new work/projects and the entry of descriptive and categorization information.
All work is centralized and can be tracked and reported on through various statuses.
Demand management process flow
Process Step | Description |
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Create project |
A project is the basic level where work is planned. It contains units of work in the form of tasks, financial information, timelines, roadmaps, baselines, and other information needed for a project to be successful. New projects can be converted from new project requests or by creating a new project in the Projects module. When a new project is created, certain fields will be required to ensure the data needed for appropriate categorization is provided. Project assignment and any lifecycle steps will start following your defined governance process. Relevant users will receive notifications via Discussions and/or email. For more information, see the following articles: |
Plan high-level schedule dates and milestones |
Building out the Work Breakdown Structure allows a Project Manager to form a high-level project schedule. As part of this step, you should also add dates, durations, dependencies, and initial resource assignments. The project schedule consists of any elements in the work breakdown structure that exist below the project level in the hierarchy, such as phases, tasks, and activities as well as dates, durations, and categorizations. For more information, see the following videos: |
Estimate project costs and benefits |
In this step you can capture a high-level estimate of the costs and benefits to deliver the project in the work financial plan based on the need of your organization, cost accounts can include labor, capital spending, and expense spending. For more information see Financial Planning and Cost Management. |
Review and approval |
Once the project has a schedule, roadmap, and financials in place, the final step is submitting your project to the relevant governing body for review. Once approved, the project's lifecycle state should be updated from draft to active, which will also activate all of the tasks living within the project. For more information, see Case Assignment and Lifecycle. |
Project Governance Process Steps
This provides a process and governance structure for progressing projects through an approval lifecycle into execution/delivery, ensuring that decisions are made by the right people and are based on structured data for each project entity.
Project governance process flow
Process Step | Description |
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Governance point A |
At this potential governance point, the request intake information is reviewed and, if approved, new projects or programs will be created. |
Governance point B |
At this potential governance point, the initial project planning information, such as description and categorization attributes, cost and benefit estimates, and roadmap dates, will be captured and reviewed to determine if enough is known to proceed with the project. |
Governance point C |
At this potential governance point, the project goes through a process of analyzing proposed investments (projects) to determine which to move forward with, typically based on resource capacity and finances. For more information see Financial Planning and Cost Management. |
Governance point D |
If required, projects can proceed through a gated governance process. Usually, each gate requires the project to comply with a checklist of activities/deliverables before proceeding to the next gate. For more information see Work Management. |
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