The purpose of this thesis was to explore what challenges are identified in project portfolio management (PPM) in an internal multi-project environment. The aim of this study was to find the underlying reason for the occurrence of challenges in terms of how these challenges occur, and why do they occur. To realize the purpose and the aim of the study, the research was conducted at ABB Components, a business unit of ABB Group. Further, based on identified challenges provide a set of guidelines and recommendations for managing and countering the challenges. To understand the research problem a literature review was employed and a case study was conducted at ABB Components. The purpose of the literature review was to gain a theoretical background related to the research topic, identify challenges or problems, and potential solutions, with the purpose of establishing a connection to the challenges identified in the case study. The empirical work consisted of the case study conducted at ABB Components and was constituted by interviews person. The analysis of the results was validated with a workshop held with interviewees, with discussions regarding the findings. Guidelines and recommendations for managing challenges related to project portfolio management were designed from the results of empirical and theoretical work. The 11 main challenges related to project portfolio management were identified throughout three defined project phases, initiation of a project, execution of a project and project closure, and was appearing either in one phase or across phases. The challenges in this research were correlated to four main causes; limited resources (budget & time), limited resources (personnel), vague directives, and project maturity. The identified challenges can be encountered and managed by utilizing existing models for project management, improved information handling, expanding the notion of criteria for project success, performing a resource capacity analysis, and planning for the project closure. The theoretical and practical work have contributed to a collective analysis of what types of challenges are evident in phases throughout a single project, and what outcomes these challenges can have on a project portfolio in an internal multi-project environment and . It has to some extent indicated differences among challenges and causes evident in multi-project settings, for projects that are classified as internal development or product development, implicating differences throughout the project phase. Furthermore the challenges have pivoted around the three main themes centered indicating that there are challenges related to each phase of the project life, as well as challenges which are apparent across the project phases.

Bakgrund Byggföretagen står för en väsentlig del av det svenska näringslivet och har de senaste åren upplevt en hög omsättningstillväxt. Dessa företag arbetar i en projektbaserad miljö vilket skapar ett behov av en styrning för att hantera alla projekt ur ett helhetsperspektiv. Med hjälp av Project Portfolio Management kan byggföretagen hantera den risk och låga marginaler som präglar branschen och i bästa fall öka sin lönsamhet. Syfte Syftet med denna studie är att skapa en helhetsbild av hur hanteringen av projektportföljen ser ut i svenska byggföretag och att analysera vilka faktorer som är betydelsefulla vid projekturvalet. Detta sker genom att utveckla en teoretiskt förankrad referensram som sedan används för att analysera byggföretagens process för hanteringen av företagets projektportfölj. Metod Studien är baserad på en kvalitativ forskningsmetod där semi-strukturerade intervjuer genomförts med beslutsfattare och chefer inom respektive byggföretag. Intervjuerna har genomförts för att söka efter mönster och samband mellan de studerade byggföretagens hantering av projektportföljen. Slutsats De svenska byggföretagens hantering av projektportföljen sker i en decentraliserad organisation där graden av formell styrning varierar beroende på företagets storlek. En formalisering av byggföretagens PPM kan bidra till förbättrad riskhantering och en möjlighet för ökad lönsamhet. Resurser, tid och kompetens är grundläggande kriterier för att byggföretaget ska kunna ta sig an ett projekt. Vem kunden är och vad det är för typ av projekt har också en betydelse då byggföretagen är riskaverta och föredrar att ge sig in i projekt de är duktiga på. / Background The construction industry represents a vital part of the Swedish GDP and have been experiencing a high revenue growth during the last years. The construction companies work in a project based environment which calls for a holistic management system. Using Project Portfolio Management, the construction companies can manage their risks and low profit margins that characterizes the industry and in best case scenario increase their margins. Purpose The purpose of this thesis is to create a holistic view of the management of the project portfolio in Swedish construction companies and to analyze which factors are important in the project selection process. This is done by developing a theoretically-based reference frame that is used to analyze the construction companies process for managing their project portfolios. Method The thesis is based on a qualitative research method where semistructured interviews were conducted with decision makers and managers within each construction company. Interviews have been conducted to search for patterns and relationships between the studied construction companies' management of the project portfolio. Conclusio The management of the Swedish construction companies’ project portfolios occurs in decentralized organizations where the degree of formal management varies depending on the size of the company. A formalization of construction companies' PPM can contribute to improved risk management and an opportunity for increased profitability. Resources, time and skills are fundamental criterias for the construction company to be able to undertake a project. Other significant criterias in this process are the customer and the type of project.

<p>Project Portfolio Management is a tool for effective resource allocation, for the selection of those projects with the highest potential to become tomorrow’s new product and service winners. The accurate implementation of project portfolio methodology is ultimately linked to sound innovation management practices. This paper aims to research a financial firm, ABN AMRO – Brazil, to uncover its project portfolio management practices and their role in fostering innovation. This study set out to define how project portfolio management methodology at the organization ultimately contributes to innovation, and to highlight some of the difficulties and challenges in picking the right projects. Thus, the focus of this paper is to understand how project portfolio management aids ABN AMRO Bank – Brazil in making strategic choices that will ultimately lead to innovation. A total of 11 semi-structured interviews were conducted with managers at the institution in order to assess the project portfolio management practices and their focus on innovation. The results indicate an organizational shift from a lack of formal project selection to the implementation of a sound project portfolio methodology that aims at selecting those projects aligned with business strategy. The results also indicated that innovation has a significant role in the process, by functioning as criteria in the recently defined explicit method for portfolio management.</p>

Project Portfolio Management is a tool for effective resource allocation, for the selection of those projects with the highest potential to become tomorrow’s new product and service winners. The accurate implementation of project portfolio methodology is ultimately linked to sound innovation management practices. This paper aims to research a financial firm, ABN AMRO – Brazil, to uncover its project portfolio management practices and their role in fostering innovation. This study set out to define how project portfolio management methodology at the organization ultimately contributes to innovation, and to highlight some of the difficulties and challenges in picking the right projects. Thus, the focus of this paper is to understand how project portfolio management aids ABN AMRO Bank – Brazil in making strategic choices that will ultimately lead to innovation. A total of 11 semi-structured interviews were conducted with managers at the institution in order to assess the project portfolio management practices and their focus on innovation. The results indicate an organizational shift from a lack of formal project selection to the implementation of a sound project portfolio methodology that aims at selecting those projects aligned with business strategy. The results also indicated that innovation has a significant role in the process, by functioning as criteria in the recently defined explicit method for portfolio management.

This thesis is focused on IT Project Portfolio Management and the creation of tools for teaching it. The objectives are first to summarize the evolution of IT Project Portfolio Management, then to extend the current process of project selection with other elements and points of view, and also to create a software tool for teaching IT Project Portfolio Management. The thesis deals with the emergence and subsequent development of IT Project Portfolio Management and its benefits, problems, and concepts, which are necessary for deeper understanding of the issue. Furthermore, the thesis describes the cycle of IT Project Portfolio Management and highlights the important moments and trends. In addition, it focuses on the processes used in the context of portfolio management and its impact on the company and its employees. It also lists some options how to limit its and how to improve the quality of project plans. The focus of the thesis is also on the process of criteria selection and ways of obtaining appropriate weights of criteria and on other methods of selecting projects. The last chapter contains a manual how to work with the attached MS Excel file. The file provides a tool for the assessment of projects.

A utilização de uma gestão de portfólio de projetos permite que as empresas possam se adaptar rapidamente frente as turbulências advindas do ambiente interno e externo e com isso, possam rearranjar os projetos para que estes estejam alinhados com estratégia da organização. Entretanto, o modelo tradicional de gerenciamento de portfólio possui procedimentos que não seguem necessariamente essa característica de agilidade e adaptação. Na maioria das vezes os procedimentos são pouco visíveis, extensos e poucas vezes são interativos ou divulgados por todos os níveis hierárquicos das organizações. Dessa maneira o propósito deste trabalho é a aplicação de práticas, métodos e ferramentas ágeis na gestão de portfólio de projetos. Para isto, foi realizada uma revisão sistemática da literatura, a análise crítica do modelo tradicional por 7 especialistas da área e desenvolvimento de um modelo com base na análise das respostas das entrevistas por três especialistas sendo 2 da área acadêmica e 1 profissional da área. Os principais resultados revelam, que a existe uma escassez de trabalhos referentes a utilização de ferramentas ágeis em gestão de portfólio de projetos e na percepção dos entrevistados, a aplicação de práticas, métodos e ferramentas ágeis atende o quesito de gestão visual, melhor interação entre as equipes de trabalho, democratização da informação relativa à tomada de decisão e ferramentas alinhadas com a proposição ágil. / The use of project portfolio management allows companies to adapt quickly to the turbulence arising from the internal and external environment and with that, can rearrange the projects so that they are aligned with the organization's strategy. However, the traditional portfolio management model has procedures that do not necessarily follow this characteristic of agility and adaptation. Most of the time the procedures are barely visible, extensive and are rarely interactive or disseminated by all hierarchical levels of organizations. In this way, the purpose of this work is the incorporation of agile practices, methods and tools in project portfolio management. For this, a systematic review of the literature, the critical analysis of the traditional model by 7 specialists of the area and the development of a model based on the analysis of the answers of the interviews by three specialists were carried out, being 2 of the academic area and 1 professional of the area. The main results show that there is a shortage of work related to the use of agile tools in project portfolio management and the perception of the interviewees, the incorporation of agile practices, methods and tools attends to the question of visual management, better interaction between work teams, democratization of decision-making information and tools aligned with the agile proposition.

Introduction: A trend for organisations to change from single to multiple project management has been observed over the last couple of decades. Organizations shifted their focus from single project management towards the simultaneous management of the whole set of projects as one entity – project portfolio. New multi-project settings require a new management approach and practices to successfully manage a portfolio. A common practice in organizations is to evaluate projects after they had been carried out. At that point not much can be done and it is impossible to improve performance and prevent failure. Hence, problems that occur in projects’ implementation phase remain unsolved and even unidentified. Constant control, review and monitoring of projects’ performance in the implementation phase could lead to the problematic portfolio areas being spotted and timely management decisions being made in order to improve the overall portfolio performance. Problem: How do organisations manage projects within a portfolio that perform poorly in the implementation phase? Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is: to describe to what extent and in what ways organizations control, review and monitor project performances in the implementation phase; to identify if organisations use any methods, tools or techniques in order to spot projects that perform poorly according to their expectations; and to discover what happens to the poorly performing projects in the implementation phase after they were identified. Method: An electronic qualitative questionnaire had been constructed and sent out to the 46 sampled Swedish companies currently running project portfolios. 115 most suitable respondents had been chosen to answer the survey. Frame of Reference: Theoretical framework is built on the literature within project portfolio management field, mostly concerning control, review and monitoring of projects of projects’ performance within their implementation phase; practices used to manage poorly performing projects as well as the value of organizational learning. Conclusion: The research results show that even though majority of the studied organizations are aware and striving towards efficient project portfolio control, review and monitoring, a lot of space for improvement still remains. Results reveal that organizations are trying to keep track of projects’ performance within a portfolio, however, very few poorly performing are identified. Moreover, the management practices for underperforming projects are still very limited if not non-existent.

<p><strong>Introduction: </strong>A trend for organisations to change from single to multiple project management has been observed over the last couple of decades. Organizations shifted their focus from single project management towards the simultaneous management of the whole set of projects as one entity – project portfolio. New multi-project settings require a new management approach and practices to successfully manage a portfolio. A common practice in organizations is to evaluate projects after they had been carried out. At that point not much can be done and it is impossible to improve performance and prevent failure. Hence, problems that occur in projects’ implementation phase remain unsolved and even unidentified. Constant control, review and monitoring of projects’ performance in the implementation phase could lead to the problematic portfolio areas being spotted and timely management decisions being made in order to improve the overall portfolio performance.</p><p><strong> </strong></p><p><strong>Problem: </strong>How do organisations manage projects within a portfolio that perform poorly in the implementation phase?</p><p><strong> </strong></p><p><strong>Purpose: </strong>The purpose of this thesis is: to describe to what extent and in what ways organizations control, review and monitor project performances in the implementation phase; to identify if organisations use any methods, tools or techniques in order to spot projects that perform poorly according to their expectations; and to discover what happens to the poorly performing projects in the implementation phase after they were identified.</p><p><strong> </strong></p><p><strong>Method: </strong>An electronic qualitative questionnaire had been constructed and sent out to the 46 sampled Swedish companies currently running project portfolios. 115 most suitable respondents had been chosen to answer the survey.</p><p><strong> </strong></p><p><strong>Frame of Reference: </strong>Theoretical framework is built on the literature within project portfolio management field, mostly concerning control, review and monitoring of projects of projects’ performance within their implementation phase; practices used to manage poorly performing projects as well as the value of organizational learning.</p><p><strong> </strong></p><p><strong>Conclusion: </strong>The research results show that even though majority of the studied organizations are aware and striving towards efficient project portfolio control, review and monitoring, a lot of space for improvement still remains. Results reveal that organizations are trying to keep track of projects’ performance within a portfolio, however, very few poorly performing are identified. Moreover, the management practices for underperforming projects are still very limited if not non-existent.</p>

A utilização de uma gestão de portfólio de projetos permite que as empresas possam se adaptar rapidamente frente as turbulências advindas do ambiente interno e externo e com isso, possam rearranjar os projetos para que estes estejam alinhados com estratégia da organização. Entretanto, o modelo tradicional de gerenciamento de portfólio possui procedimentos que não seguem necessariamente essa característica de agilidade e adaptação. Na maioria das vezes os procedimentos são pouco visíveis, extensos e poucas vezes são interativos ou divulgados por todos os níveis hierárquicos das organizações. Dessa maneira o propósito deste trabalho é a aplicação de práticas, métodos e ferramentas ágeis na gestão de portfólio de projetos. Para isto, foi realizada uma revisão sistemática da literatura, a análise crítica do modelo tradicional por 7 especialistas da área e desenvolvimento de um modelo com base na análise das respostas das entrevistas por três especialistas sendo 2 da área acadêmica e 1 profissional da área. Os principais resultados revelam, que a existe uma escassez de trabalhos referentes a utilização de ferramentas ágeis em gestão de portfólio de projetos e na percepção dos entrevistados, a aplicação de práticas, métodos e ferramentas ágeis atende o quesito de gestão visual, melhor interação entre as equipes de trabalho, democratização da informação relativa à tomada de decisão e ferramentas alinhadas com a proposição ágil. / The use of project portfolio management allows companies to adapt quickly to the turbulence arising from the internal and external environment and with that, can rearrange the projects so that they are aligned with the organization's strategy. However, the traditional portfolio management model has procedures that do not necessarily follow this characteristic of agility and adaptation. Most of the time the procedures are barely visible, extensive and are rarely interactive or disseminated by all hierarchical levels of organizations. In this way, the purpose of this work is the incorporation of agile practices, methods and tools in project portfolio management. For this, a systematic review of the literature, the critical analysis of the traditional model by 7 specialists of the area and the development of a model based on the analysis of the answers of the interviews by three specialists were carried out, being 2 of the academic area and 1 professional of the area. The main results show that there is a shortage of work related to the use of agile tools in project portfolio management and the perception of the interviewees, the incorporation of agile practices, methods and tools attends to the question of visual management, better interaction between work teams, democratization of decision-making information and tools aligned with the agile proposition.

A utilização de uma gestão de portfólio de projetos permite que as empresas possam se adaptar rapidamente frente as turbulências advindas do ambiente interno e externo e com isso, possam rearranjar os projetos para que estes estejam alinhados com estratégia da organização. Entretanto, o modelo tradicional de gerenciamento de portfólio possui procedimentos que não seguem necessariamente essa característica de agilidade e adaptação. Na maioria das vezes os procedimentos são pouco visíveis, extensos e poucas vezes são interativos ou divulgados por todos os níveis hierárquicos das organizações. Dessa maneira o propósito deste trabalho é a aplicação de práticas, métodos e ferramentas ágeis na gestão de portfólio de projetos. Para isto, foi realizada uma revisão sistemática da literatura, a análise crítica do modelo tradicional por 7 especialistas da área e desenvolvimento de um modelo com base na análise das respostas das entrevistas por três especialistas sendo 2 da área acadêmica e 1 profissional da área. Os principais resultados revelam, que a existe uma escassez de trabalhos referentes a utilização de ferramentas ágeis em gestão de portfólio de projetos e na percepção dos entrevistados, a aplicação de práticas, métodos e ferramentas ágeis atende o quesito de gestão visual, melhor interação entre as equipes de trabalho, democratização da informação relativa à tomada de decisão e ferramentas alinhadas com a proposição ágil. / The use of project portfolio management allows companies to adapt quickly to the turbulence arising from the internal and external environment and with that, can rearrange the projects so that they are aligned with the organization's strategy. However, the traditional portfolio management model has procedures that do not necessarily follow this characteristic of agility and adaptation. Most of the time the procedures are barely visible, extensive and are rarely interactive or disseminated by all hierarchical levels of organizations. In this way, the purpose of this work is the incorporation of agile practices, methods and tools in project portfolio management. For this, a systematic review of the literature, the critical analysis of the traditional model by 7 specialists of the area and the development of a model based on the analysis of the answers of the interviews by three specialists were carried out, being 2 of the academic area and 1 professional of the area. The main results show that there is a shortage of work related to the use of agile tools in project portfolio management and the perception of the interviewees, the incorporation of agile practices, methods and tools attends to the question of visual management, better interaction between work teams, democratization of decision-making information and tools aligned with the agile proposition.