Project Portfolio Management

There is no question that this is a busy time of year. For businesses, this time of year entails wrapping up projects, making plans for the new year, and tying up any loose ends. It’s easy to get swept up in the hustle and forget to celebrate the successes you and your company experienced this year. Even if this year had many hardships or if you missed many of the goals you wanted to accomplish, it is incredibly important for companies to set aside time to recognize all successes (big or small) before launching into the new year.

As we quickly approach the end of the year, companies are beginning to celebrate their successes from this year and make plans for the new year. While these two activities are important, they are most effective when paired with an activity that is commonly left out: analyzing this year’s failures. While people are often uncomfortable associating themselves with failure, it would be a huge mistake to try and move your company forward without evaluating shortcomings. When you take the time to learn from your mistakes, you can prepare yourself (and your company) to overcome these challenges and make even more powerful plans.

Failed projects cost companies a huge amount of money and frustration. One of the reasons for this is projects that lack strategic orientation. Learn why projects fail and how to solve this problem by establishing a strategic project portfolio.

Many businesses believe a chaotic and unsuccessful project portfolio is caused by a lack of project data. This leads them to put great effort into documenting and obtaining as much project data as possible. But is the problem really that they don't have enough data?

In an era of digitalization, customers are more demanding than ever. In a project environment, that typically means delivering what customers want, when they want it, at the cost agreed... Not so simple. How can companies manage demand and capacity in this dynamic environment?

Have you ever found yourself Googling “what is project management,” "project coordination,” or even “project help!”? You are not alone.

If you’ve ever managed many projects or portfolios at once, you’ve probably heard of or at least seen a Gantt chart. Gantt charts are a powerful tool for portfolio and task management used by professionals across a wide variety of industries. While now they are almost exclusively created and edited on computers, they were actually created long before computers and the internet. For over 100 years, Gantt charts have been the MVP of project portfolio management, which is why project portfolio managers are loving how Meisterplan utilizes Gantt charts in their project planning. 

“Agile” has been a buzzword for quite a while. Teams work Agile. Modern management is Agile. Using an Agile framework to reorganize classic production processes is a big initiative at a lot of companies these days. Somehow, everything is Agile – and, as always, when a trend reaches its peak, we have to ask ourselves: How much of this is hype and how much of it is substance?

Ask five different colleagues what they think the most important project in your organization should be and you will get five different answers. We’re going to break down three of the most common prioritization methods so you can determine which one is right for your organization.