Portfolio management
Transport and Main Roads has an obligation to deliver 'value for money' in terms of the efficiency and effectiveness of its investments. Where change is required to the department's business, it must select the 'right initiatives' to invest in to ensure that this obligation is fulfilled. The 'right initiatives' are those that align with the Queensland Government's priorities and agency strategic objectives and will have the maximum impact on achieving these objectives.
The principal aim of managing initiatives as a portfolio is to co-ordinate successful delivery across an organisation's entire set of initiatives (programs and projects). Portfolio management provides an overview of the organisation's total investment in initiatives. Through that overview, management can monitor ongoing alignment between the initiatives and the organisation's strategic objectives, evaluate new proposals against current commitments, compare the relative benefits versus cost of proposals, allocate appropriate skills and capacity to initiatives and co-ordinate the transition of deliverables into operations.
A consistent approach to portfolio management across government will:
- increase the financial and non-financial benefits realised as a result of the portfolio
- increase the strategic impact of the portfolio, and
- reduce portfolio costs associated with overlap or duplication of initiatives (programs and projects).
The 'portfolio' is a grouping of programs and projects, managed and monitored to optimise business return and strategic alignment. The composition of the portfolio is adjusted in response to changes in the environment.
Portfolio management supports Transport and Main Roads to select and prioritise initiatives.
Benefits management
Transport and Main Roads has an obligation to ensure that value for money in terms of both efficiency and effectiveness is delivered through its ongoing investments.
Benefits management starts before a program or project is formally approved. An analysis is required to determine the broad anticipated benefits, initiative context and the range of stakeholders for inclusion in identifying and structuring detailed benefits.
Only those initiatives with clearly defined benefits should be considered for approval. The identification, tracking and realisation of benefits continue throughout the initiative and will continue after it has formally closed. At this point, managers responsible for operations or service delivery take on the responsibility for ensuring that the planned benefits are being optimised and the potential for realising additional benefits remains an ongoing priority. (This could be expected to become part of the agency's ongoing performance management framework.)
Identifying the benefits implies an iterative process of establishing the investment objectives and the potential business improvements that the new system and associated changes should or could deliver. The mapping of these objectives to benefits and the supporting enablers (including business, infrastructure and ICT) is a critical activity and underpins every subsequent step in the benefits management process.
The principal aim of Benefits Management is to ensure that benefits are clearly defined, are measurable and provide a compelling case for investment – and ultimately to make sure that those benefits are actually achieved. Benefits Management is the foundation on which a practical and successful approach to optimising the return on investment can be constructed.
Process flow
This site does not deal with the business or general management of ongoing business operations. It does focus on the much overlooked and misunderstood area of how business relates to and provides the governance for the projects (business improvements) it desires. The pre project process diagram (PDF, 16 KB) shows the process flow for the business activities (pre, during and post project) that are necessary for the business to establish best practice project governance arrangements. The pre project stage covers both development of business strategy (itself a project activity) and development and management of programs.
