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Deliver Engaging Portfolio Reports With Power BI
Help executive decision-makers lead from a position of knowledge.
- There is too much demand for projects and not enough people to work on them.
- There are not enough project managers and portfolio managers.
- Projects are “approved” without someone ensuring that they have sufficient resourcing.
- You are expected to provide reporting on project performance and insight into new requests.
Our Advice
Critical Insight
- A high percentage of the 33% who acquired a commercial project portfolio management (PPM) tool failed to adopt.
- The suitability and adoption of the new strategic portfolio management (SPM) tools remains largely unproven.
Impact and Result
- Start with established templates to get a head start on the solution.
- Deliver project portfolio visibility early and make it perpetually useful.
- Add resourcing if and when you can sustain it. This will help you become throughput focused as you avoid wasteful spending on good ideas you can’t resource.
- Make it your priority to have well-informed leadership with easy-to-consume reporting.
Deliver Engaging Portfolio Reports With Power BI Research & Tools
1. Deliver Engaging Portfolio Reports with Power BI – A step-by-step process for implementing and personalizing a set of PPM reporting templates based on Excel and Power BI.
The blueprint guides our members through decisions on process, personnel, and solution architecture.
Use it to get started quickly, develop your skills and processes, and prepare for investment in a commercial PPM solution.
2. Portfolio Manager 2.0 – A set of ready-to-implement reporting templates for the smaller PMO.
This is a series of Excel and Power BI templates that act as a starting point for Executive PPM dashboards and reports.
3. Portfolio Manager Change Plan Template – This template accelerates your deployment by recording decisions and design points in a central change plan.
This is a Change Plan template. Use it to gradually document your key decisions as you walk through the blueprint and prepare to implement the change.
4. Deliver Engaging Portfolio Reports With Power BI Comprehensive Business Case – A financial forecast template to document the costs and benefits of your project as an ROI forecast.
This is an Excel template for developing a cash-flow analysis in support of your implementation.
Deliver Engaging Portfolio Reports Using Power BI
Help executive decision-makers lead from a position of knowledge.
Workshop Overview
Analyst perspective
A well-informed decision maker doesn’t care what software you use.
What were we thinking? Almost half of us who run project portfolios have our official project list in Excel. Some have graduated to a SharePoint List, but by any measure, Excel holds more project lists than any other tool. There are a lot of impressive project portfolio management software products on the market, and we love to share what we know about them. But our research indicates that only 33% of the market bought a commercial tool. But there we are, managing the book of record for projects that consume many millions of dollars, with a list. We design it, maintain the data, fix broken formulas, distribute reports, and manage the file versions. We’re struggling with all of it. Our day job is to get projects done. Use this research to transform from “Do-It-Yourself” to “Citizen Developer." It includes Portfolio Manager 2.0, a vibrant and interactive project portfolio management reporting solution based on Excel and Power BI. You can use the ideas in your own reporting or start with ours. The templates, slide decks, and videos are here to help you grow your own PPM solution, run it like a professional, and understand when it’s time to upgrade to a commercial solution. We’ll help you grow your own, and then we’ll help you outgrow your own. Barry Cousins |
Executive summary
Your Challenge |
Common Obstacles |
Info-Tech’s Approach |
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Info-Tech Insight
If you’re going to have a home-grown portfolio reporting solution, make it an official Book of Record. Then, watch for opportunities to outgrow the home-grown solution by mastering your portfolio data, optimizing your processes, and engaging with a commercial PPM vendor.
Many PMOs have homegrown portfolio solutions
The PPM software space failed to thrive
Source: Info-Tech Research Group, 2016, N=433
1. Only 33% bought a solution, and user adoption is low
- We last polled the market in 2016, but little has changed since then.
- Approximately one in three organizations has a commercial PPM solution.
- Almost half, 46%, have a homegrown solution. Most of these involve Microsoft Excel, with some relying on SharePoint Lists.
- Project portfolio management suites hit the market in 1999, but still struggle to gain market share and get adoption.
2. Many PMOs have no budget for PPM software
- It’s entirely common that PMOs are viewed as project management-focused without formalizing portfolio management practices, resourcing, or software.
3. The market churns
- It usually starts with a list of projects in Excel.
- At some point, many organizations acquire and implement a commercial PPM tool.
- If you fail to adopt your solution and maintain the data, you end up in the 21% who don’t even have a current list of their projects
- What’s your next step? Are your going to start a new list in Excel or SharePoint, or will you invest in a commercial PPM suite?
Homegrown solutions have predictable challenges
Homegrown PPM solutions suffer from a lack of process diligence.
There’s an ongoing pressure to formalize with commercial software because of these common issues:
- Version management, especially when you distribute your reporting in Excel.
- Data currency, when you have multiple project managers and too many projects.
- Broken formulas, when someone hits the wrong key or taps the wrong area of their screen.
- Ineffective reports, when decision makers need to respond to emergent challenges.
- Poorly managed distribution, when multiple copies of your reports are circulating.
- Inability to scale, when the organization grows or merges with another.
- Vulnerability to personnel turnover, when your solution is a weakly document one-off.
- Lack of standardization, when you need consistency in calculation and nomenclature.
- Opacity of method, when your reporting is complex and volatile.
This research will help you:
- Decide if a homegrown portfolio solution is right for you.
- Engage the right mix of skills to deliver a professionally and diligently managed solution.
- Accelerate your path to insight by deploying previously developed report templates.
The optimal team for your citizen developer PMO
Running the PMO with citizen developers
It’s about DIY diligence.
The Citizen Developer PMO implies data discipline, software discipline, and operational discipline all at the same time.
Elevate your game from homegrown project list to citizen developer
PMO with no commercial PPM software |
PMO with citizen developers |
---|---|
Inconsistent and aged data, not version-managed or rigorously backed up |
Perpetually usable data that is diligently backed up and version managed |
The raw data is the report, viewed in Excel or SharePoint Lists |
Data source is separated from reporting, safely allowing for mass distribution |
Informal and ad hoc reporting cycle |
Cyclical portfolio reporting, usually monthly |
Seamless flow of requests and projects through the budget year |
Formalized fiscal year tracking and reporting with a distinct year end |
Focus is tactical, at the individual project level |
Focus is strategic at the portfolio level, before delving into the project level |
Portfolio management is unsanctioned and poorly supported |
Portfolio management is elevated to a strategically vital management function |
Core principles of a well-run PMO
Enabling everyone to succeed in their roles.
1. Executive decisions are sufficiently informed
- Any well-run PMO ensures that the leadership is continually provided with accurate, honest reporting on the status of the entire portfolio. This includes ongoing projects, recently completed projects, new ideas, and those which are approved but not started.
2. The focus is on throughput
- Great PMOs focus on throughput – getting projects done so ROI can commence.
- This mindset is more effective than the common alternative – focusing on getting projects approved without ensuring they can and will be done.
3. The organization is stable, but always ready to be agile
- When new projects cannot be ignored or deferred, the well-run PMO is ready to respond with resourcing options, timing alternatives, and recommendations to cancel other projects.
4. Risk is proactively surfaced and mitigated
- To inform your PMO risk assessments, consider Info-Tech’s Audit Standard for Project and Portfolio Management.
- The project should have a committed sponsor, explicitly forecasted outcomes, and defined expectations on what it will take to deliver those outcomes. Any threat to those outcomes is a risk that deserves diligent consideration.
“The art is to constantly refine your PMO service offerings with regards to what your company perceives as valuable.”
– Dr. Christoph Hirnle, Meisterplan
Making the case for a citizen developer PMO
It’s almost free, but you have to be careful and diligent to generate the value.
The concept behind making the case for a citizen developer PMO:
- Relentlessly updated, vibrant, interactive, professional reporting that your leadership trusts, understands, and relies on
- Seamlessly managed versions of both the data and the software that would satisfy an audit of your process and policy
- Carefully conducted change management to introduce and support the solution through changes to the business, the reporting, and the personnel
- Easily understood communications that are delivered in a timely fashion in the most effective formats and form factors
- The establishment of a formal Book of Record for the history of your project portfolio that facilitates multi-year planning, tracking, and reporting
See Deliver Engaging Portfolio Reports With Power BI – Comprehensive Business Case
If you can satisfy these needs, you are comparing the cost of a well-run Excel-Power BI solution to the cost of an enterprise software solution.
It’s an easy business case:
- Assuming you engage the right skills to build, deploy, and maintain the solution
- If you invest the necessary hours in using the solution
- Until you outgrow the solution
Before you begin: Ensure you have access to the tools and talent needed for a Power BI–based solution
Email Infographic
About Info-Tech
Info-Tech Research Group is the world’s fastest-growing information technology research and advisory company, proudly serving over 30,000 IT professionals.
We produce unbiased and highly relevant research to help CIOs and IT leaders make strategic, timely, and well-informed decisions. We partner closely with IT teams to provide everything they need, from actionable tools to analyst guidance, ensuring they deliver measurable results for their organizations.
What Is a Blueprint?
A blueprint is designed to be a roadmap, containing a methodology and the tools and templates you need to solve your IT problems.
Each blueprint can be accompanied by a Guided Implementation that provides you access to our world-class analysts to help you get through the project.
Need Extra Help?
Speak With An Analyst
Get the help you need in this 5-phase advisory process. You'll receive 9 touchpoints with our researchers, all included in your membership.
Guided Implementation 1:
- Call 1: Discuss the overall goals of the project and the skill sets required to succeed. Identify key players and their roles.
Guided Implementation 2:
- Call 1: Identify your approach and the high-level impacts on other parts of the organization.
Guided Implementation 3:
- Call 1: Install the core templates for Portfolio Manager 2.0.
- Call 2: Experiment with extending the data model and rebranding the presentation layer.
Guided Implementation 4:
- Call 1: Articulate your reporting strategy.
- Call 2: Incorporate your own data.
Guided Implementation 5:
- Call 1: Test and experiment with the year-end cutover/cleanse process.
- Call 2: Plan the monthly and annual reports.
- Call 3: Review and invoke your change plan.
Authors
Barry Cousins
Travis Duncan
Contributors
- Curt Brasel, Sr. IT Project Manager, Outdoor Sportsman Group
- Rick MacKenzie, Director, Canadian Food Inspection Agency, Government of Canada
- Matthew Gonderinger, Project Manager, Carlisle Weatherproofing Technologies
- Dr. Christophe Hirnle, Managing Director, Meisterplan
- 10 anonymous contributors
Related Content: Portfolio Management
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Search Code: 106034
Last Revised: October 24, 2024
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