<p><strong><em>“While project management and program management have traditionally focused on ‘doing work right’, portfolio management is concerned with ‘doing the right work’” (PMI,2006)</em></strong></p><p><strong> </strong></p><p><strong> </strong></p><p>Nowadays organizations are facing problems with too many projects and having limited resources to execute these projects. Therefore the role of portfolio control is gaining more importance to yield the right balance, mix and number of projects, and also to deal with the challenge of maximizing the value of the portfolio. Therefore the organizations rely on effective portfolio management and are developing new methods to deal with these challenges. Hence present study involves study of those organizations that rely on portfolio control techniques to effectively manage their portfolio of projects.</p><p> </p><p>The aim of this research is to investigate the role of portfolio control techniques in achieving efficiency in project based firms, examine relationship between control techniques and the portfolio efficiency, and to find the role of contextual factors like project and governance type in impacting the portfolio efficiency. Three portfolio control factors: portfolio selection, portfolio reporting, and decision making style were identified and portfolio efficiency was explained by two measures: achievement of portfolio results and achievement of project and program level purpose.</p><p> </p><p>The research was conducted at two multinational organizations, a pharmaceutical company in Europe and engineering and contracting transportation company in Asia. Case study research strategy was used, and data was collected through semi- structured interviews to investigate the impact of using these portfolio control techniques in a project based firms.</p><p> </p><p>The results of the research indicate that these control techniques helps to select and analyse the portfolio from strategic, financial and risk perspective. Furthermore it helps to balance the organizational priorities by taking into consideration project type, market sector, resource constraints and product lines. The portfolio control techniques also involve portfolio reporting which is considered as formal way of communication and information sharing and is believed to be significant project-level factor contributing to portfolio efficiency. Lastly, portfolio decision making helps the organizations in making the right decision in the best interest of the organization. All these control variables were found to have a significant impact on achieving results and achieving project and programme level purpose which in our research are the dimensions of portfolio efficiency.</p><p> </p><p>In our study we also found that there exists a positive relationship between the portfolio control techniques and portfolio efficiency which is affected by the contextual variables such as project type, governance type, organizational complexity, co-localization of team members, communication and clarity of goals and objectives.</p>

<p>Increased globalization has come with it increased competition, multitude of international competitors, dramatic and frequent changes in customer tastes, shorter product life cycles, and frequent and rapid technological/product upgrading. Resultant competitive pressures have led to the emergence of two trends among some firms and industries. Firstly, there is an increased premium placed on the role of continuous learning and knowledge accumulation as the most dependable base for sustainable competitive advantage in today’s dynamic global markets. Secondly, there is increased trend towards organizing more economic activities as distinct projects. The above two trends provides both opportunities and challenges for any firms, especially project-based firms (PBFs). A number of past researches have emphasized the importance of investment in interproject learning as a means to foster continuous upgrading of project competencies. This is equally applicable to more knowledge intensive project-based firms in the Consultancy services sector. However, no study had been done in Sweden on Consultancy firms, from the perspective that they are project-based firms.</p><p>This study explores, describes and analyzes the various characteristics of interproject learning mechanisms and project competencies found in a sample of consulting firms in Sweden. The study focuses on the perceived importance of different interproject learning mechanisms and their perceived impact in developing project competencies in consulting firms. The study interrogates the ‘perceptions’ of ‘key’ informed project management practitioners, who have experience of managing consulting projects. Their perceptions about project activities in their respective firms helped capture a ‘managerial’ view, as well as, provide ‘expert’ opinion.</p><p>The study find that the most highly ranked and valued interproject learning mechanisms involved some degree of face-to-face interactions. Learning mechanisms that enable the capture, storage and transfer of explicit knowledge, though important, were not ranked highly in importance as person-to-person communication. The difference might be due to the efficient way the latter mechanisms have in transferring socially embedded and context-dependant tacit knowledge, which comprise a large part of knowledge applied in projects. Most of the respondents seem to indicate that their respective firms emphasized development of project competencies that were underpinned by ‘product knowledge’, which emphasize capabilities to deliver short-term project goals (i.e., delivering a particular service/product on a certain date). Respective firms didn’t seem to invest more in project competencies that are underpinned by ‘process knowledge’. The latter is aimed at long-term continuous improvement of project processes, which in turn has impact on developing dynamic competitive advantage. With regard to organizational learning infrastructure needed to support interproject learning and the development of project competencies, the results from the survey provides a mixed picture. While some firms had put in place a series of well implemented organizational structures, procedures, processes and routines to support interproject learning, some other learning supporting infrastructure were not that well implemented (i.e., explicit scheduling of time to do ‘reflections’ during project execution, emerging of a ‘no blame’ culture, instilling a culture of experimentations). Based on our research findings, a number of recommendations are outlined.</p>

“While project management and program management have traditionally focused on ‘doing work right’, portfolio management is concerned with ‘doing the right work’” (PMI,2006) Nowadays organizations are facing problems with too many projects and having limited resources to execute these projects. Therefore the role of portfolio control is gaining more importance to yield the right balance, mix and number of projects, and also to deal with the challenge of maximizing the value of the portfolio. Therefore the organizations rely on effective portfolio management and are developing new methods to deal with these challenges. Hence present study involves study of those organizations that rely on portfolio control techniques to effectively manage their portfolio of projects.   The aim of this research is to investigate the role of portfolio control techniques in achieving efficiency in project based firms, examine relationship between control techniques and the portfolio efficiency, and to find the role of contextual factors like project and governance type in impacting the portfolio efficiency. Three portfolio control factors: portfolio selection, portfolio reporting, and decision making style were identified and portfolio efficiency was explained by two measures: achievement of portfolio results and achievement of project and program level purpose.   The research was conducted at two multinational organizations, a pharmaceutical company in Europe and engineering and contracting transportation company in Asia. Case study research strategy was used, and data was collected through semi- structured interviews to investigate the impact of using these portfolio control techniques in a project based firms.   The results of the research indicate that these control techniques helps to select and analyse the portfolio from strategic, financial and risk perspective. Furthermore it helps to balance the organizational priorities by taking into consideration project type, market sector, resource constraints and product lines. The portfolio control techniques also involve portfolio reporting which is considered as formal way of communication and information sharing and is believed to be significant project-level factor contributing to portfolio efficiency. Lastly, portfolio decision making helps the organizations in making the right decision in the best interest of the organization. All these control variables were found to have a significant impact on achieving results and achieving project and programme level purpose which in our research are the dimensions of portfolio efficiency.   In our study we also found that there exists a positive relationship between the portfolio control techniques and portfolio efficiency which is affected by the contextual variables such as project type, governance type, organizational complexity, co-localization of team members, communication and clarity of goals and objectives.

Increased globalization has come with it increased competition, multitude of international competitors, dramatic and frequent changes in customer tastes, shorter product life cycles, and frequent and rapid technological/product upgrading. Resultant competitive pressures have led to the emergence of two trends among some firms and industries. Firstly, there is an increased premium placed on the role of continuous learning and knowledge accumulation as the most dependable base for sustainable competitive advantage in today’s dynamic global markets. Secondly, there is increased trend towards organizing more economic activities as distinct projects. The above two trends provides both opportunities and challenges for any firms, especially project-based firms (PBFs). A number of past researches have emphasized the importance of investment in interproject learning as a means to foster continuous upgrading of project competencies. This is equally applicable to more knowledge intensive project-based firms in the Consultancy services sector. However, no study had been done in Sweden on Consultancy firms, from the perspective that they are project-based firms. This study explores, describes and analyzes the various characteristics of interproject learning mechanisms and project competencies found in a sample of consulting firms in Sweden. The study focuses on the perceived importance of different interproject learning mechanisms and their perceived impact in developing project competencies in consulting firms. The study interrogates the ‘perceptions’ of ‘key’ informed project management practitioners, who have experience of managing consulting projects. Their perceptions about project activities in their respective firms helped capture a ‘managerial’ view, as well as, provide ‘expert’ opinion. The study find that the most highly ranked and valued interproject learning mechanisms involved some degree of face-to-face interactions. Learning mechanisms that enable the capture, storage and transfer of explicit knowledge, though important, were not ranked highly in importance as person-to-person communication. The difference might be due to the efficient way the latter mechanisms have in transferring socially embedded and context-dependant tacit knowledge, which comprise a large part of knowledge applied in projects. Most of the respondents seem to indicate that their respective firms emphasized development of project competencies that were underpinned by ‘product knowledge’, which emphasize capabilities to deliver short-term project goals (i.e., delivering a particular service/product on a certain date). Respective firms didn’t seem to invest more in project competencies that are underpinned by ‘process knowledge’. The latter is aimed at long-term continuous improvement of project processes, which in turn has impact on developing dynamic competitive advantage. With regard to organizational learning infrastructure needed to support interproject learning and the development of project competencies, the results from the survey provides a mixed picture. While some firms had put in place a series of well implemented organizational structures, procedures, processes and routines to support interproject learning, some other learning supporting infrastructure were not that well implemented (i.e., explicit scheduling of time to do ‘reflections’ during project execution, emerging of a ‘no blame’ culture, instilling a culture of experimentations). Based on our research findings, a number of recommendations are outlined.