Completely agree with František, and would like to add a more elaborate answer: Portfolio management is an effective tool to manage financial investments in a company. A company can create multiple portfolios with common specifications, e.g. portfolio of HR projects, portfolio for processes effectiveness, portfolio of projects for infrastructure update. Portfolio management can be both implemented for internal and external projects and programs. Line managers are responsible to manage portfolios, define priorities, timelines, etc. They are also responsible to give priority to important projects within the portfolio, track it on a continuous basis, and re-evaluate. There is also an option to stop/freeze the project with the lowest priority in the portfolio and allow to start a new project. By using this tool, the company can better manage resources (human resources and other). Another Portfolio management goal is to collect a well-structured and categorized risk database and lessons learned to be applied in the future portfolio projects.
In short: The most important goal of the project portfolio management is
a) to execute the company strategy - valid for companies that buy some portion of project work (e.g. banks, insurance companies, telcos AND the internal development project portfolio in companies that sell project work - e.g. software houses, consultancies). In case of huge companies or if specific line managers are responsible for execution of specific part of strategy (e.g.HR, marketing) and the management of more portfolios is more effective than centralized approach, the comment of Rudolf correctly describes the situation.
b) to operate effectively in financial terms - valid for companies that sell project work, specifically for that part of their project portfolio which is performed for external clients.
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