This is a two part assignment.
Part 1
First, develop project selection criteria and a high level process for applying the criteria and managing the portfolio. The criteria should be consistent with the business environment for the industry, consistent with your company’s overall mission/strategies, and consistent with the mission and strategies of your strategic business unit. You are proposing a process, not individual projects.
The deliverable for Part 1 is a written proposal for the project selection criteria and a high level description of a proposed portfolio management process. You may also be expected to make an informal presentation of the report in class.
The proposal should be in the form of a memorandum to your Vice President (your instructor) outlining your proposal. The memorandum should be no more than 10 pages, including any figures and tables. It should be double-spaced, 10 or 12 point font with one-inch margins. This is a summary for an executive, so be concise, to the point, and leave out the fluff. If you don’t need 10 pages to document your proposal fully, I am sure that your Vice President will be happy with less as long as it is complete. Using appropriate grammar, spelling, punctuation, and sentence structure will be part of your grade.
The actual proposal should include the following:
1. A description of the proposed portfolio process. You are explaining it to the executives.
2. The reasons it was selected (tie to strategies as appropriate.)
3. A description of the proposed selection criteria. How will the process be applied in your SBU?
4. The method for applying the selection criteria, and the justification for both. How are you going to score the projects and evaluate the scores?
Hints for a Successful Part 1:
This is not a complete project proposal or even a complete status report. You are making a specific proposal to management of a “Project Portfolio Evaluation and Selection Process”.
All reports and memos to executives should include an executive summary at the beginning. This one is no exception.
The discussion of the organization should be limited to how the SBU organization supports projects and the PPM process. It is not necessary to discuss the total company.
Pay attention to the specifics requested in the deliverables. Do NOT make your memo a list of questions and answers. That is not the way a business memo is written.
It is easy to select a process that is presented in a reference but you must propose one that works for your SBU.
When you think you are finished put yourself in the role of someone who was not working on the solution and read your presentation. You can assume you know the basics of PPM.
· Does your presentation provide a good description of the process and how it will be applied?
· Are there obvious questions that it raises that are not answered?
This is not a classroom assignment, it is a business memo. Also it is not a research report and you are not trying to demonstrate your academic expertise and how well you are read.
Part 2
In Part 1 of the project, the new Vice President (your instructor) of your Strategic Business Unit had asked you to create a portfolio management process and project selection criteria for use by the SBU. It is now time to apply this process in selecting this year’s projects for your portfolio.
In the annual budget cycle, your SBU was allocated $24 million dollars of funding uniformly spread over the next year for your portfolio. This means you have $6 million dollars to spend any given quarter. You may select any of the below projects to be included in your portfolio, but you cannot spend more than the allotted dollars allocated to your SBU. Your task is to select those projects, using your selection criteria, that most benefit the overall company without exceeding you quarterly budget of $6 million dollars. You must also lay out a plan for what quarter your selected projects will start in.
