Project portfolios in dynamic environments: organising for uncertainty

Project Portfolios in Dynamic Environments: Organizing for Uncertainty is a comprehensive report of research that addresses this important, rising issue. Authors Yvan Petit and Brian Hobbs present the results of their investigation in a report that significantly advances the theory and also offers tips for practice. Currently, those applying project portfolio management tend to focus on the selection, prioritization, and strategic alignment of projects. Little attention is afforded the potential disturbances to project portfolios such as new projects, terminated projects, delayed projects, incorrect planning due to high uncertainty, and changes in the external environment. Yet, these factors can have highly disruptive, even show-stopping influence. This research seeks to answer: How is uncertainty affecting project portfolios managed in dynamic environments? The authors adopted an uncertainty management rather than a risk management perspective. Traditional risk management deals with events, a scope simply too narrow for the matter at hand. They also used dynamic capabilities as a framework to study the management of project portfolios. In this framework, resources and capabilities must be constantly reallocated and re-optimized to adapt to changing environments. Initial research showed that this, too, was inadequate, so the authors developed an enhanced model that provides more flexibility to meeting changing environments