Business Management Software as a Portfolio Management Tool

A solid portfolio management tool is also used by senior and executive management to monitor the approved initiative, projects and programs. The software highlights the top risks and issues and, additionally provides a high level status report.

An exciting capability of business management software is that it can be used by senior and executive management as a portfolio management tool. A portfolio management tool prioritizes and selects initiatives, projects and programs within a company. It is particularly useful when human and financial resources are limited and management has to determine which projects will move forward and which will not.

Business Management Software for Portfolio Management

A solid portfolio management tool is also used by senior and executive management to monitor the approved initiative, projects and programs. The software highlights the top risks and issues and, additionally provides a high level status report. The monitoring provides sufficient information to permit upper management to determine if any of the following is warranted: Intervene because the project is in jeopardy, stop the initiative because the return on investment or the potential impact of the issues no longer justify continuing the effort, maintain approval to proceed and continue to monitor the work.

Another benefit of the application is that each element of what is being monitored can be customized. The nature and number of the top risks can be defined in advance. For example the software can be set to display the top three risks whose potential impacts exceed X dollars and/or Y days. In this same way top action items can be configured. The status of progress can be simplified to a color scale of green, yellow and red where green is on track, yellow X days behind projection but recoverable and red Y days behind and not recoverable. A financial indicator can, similarly, be color coded. In this way upper management can very quickly determine how the initiative, project, product, or program is progressing and be able to make a go-no go decision.

Uses for Senior Management, Business Management Software

While the use of business management software as a portfolio management tool appears to only benefit senior and executive management it also helps other levels of management. It aids other levels due to the information it contains. Additionally, by having teams provide the information it requires them to be aware of risks, issues, cost and status. From this perspective it is useful down to the team level.

A portfolio management tool can also compliment a corporation’s quality management system. There are different types of systems ranging from ISO to 6 Sigma and many in between. What quality management systems have in common is the use of metrics to help determine status and to make decisions. Business management software can be easily customized to output indicators and metrics that synchronize the work of portfolio management and that of the organizations quality system.