Friday, October 15, 2010

Continuing Education

Several weeks ago I attended a 2 day class at the Fluno Center (University of Wisconsin Madison) on Project Portfolio Management.  The class was taught by Barbara Schrage, PMP , who previously was Vice President of a centralized PMO in a Fortune 500 company.  


The topics she covered were:


Clarify definitions, similarities/differences: Project, Program & Portfolio Management


Program management processes


Project portfolio Management processes


Out of Scope for the class were:  PPM software applications (which made me a little sad, but I have a pretty decent grip on what there is out there).


During the first day we went over what a portfolio is and some of the challenges of implementing them.  Here I saw all the basics including having staff that are unable to understand resource capacity.  We also spent a lot of time on governance.


During the second day, we talked about integration and strategic processes, mixed in some hands on items (using a pre-made Excel file to help select the right projects; screen shot below)  and spent a decent amount of time getting input from the students as to what they see in their own organizations.


I really enjoy attending the classes offered at the Fluno Center.  Not only do I learn from the teacher, I learn from the people in class. 

The Project Portfolio Management class is an excellent class for an organization that is thinking about starting up project  portfolio management, or for the person that is currently doing it as a refresher course.  Check it out!



No comments:

Post a Comment

Your comment will be reviewed to determine if it is appropriate. If you are adding links to your products, your comment will not be posted.