Much like D-Day, it is a matter of using the right approach at the right time

 Things have come a long way in the theory and practice of project portfolios. We now have “Project Managers” running multiple projects (they always seem to use capital letters for their job titles), portfolio managers running project portfolios, and programme managers doing whatever it is they do. Of course, in the good old days, there were only these people running projects.

 To understand why these differences have arisen, let me take you back to 8 June 1944. The Allies have landed in Normandy and the problem is to get trucks carrying supplies to the troops. Each truck is loaded with deliverables. Each is driven by a skilled individual – the driver – with a clear objective: get the truck’s load to a specific destination by a specific time.

 He had a plan of how to get there. His job was delivery. But the drivers were not at liberty simply to drive off the ships and get on with their job – not at all! The resulting free-for-all as each truck competed for the limited space and resources of the quayside would have clogged up the docks and the exit routes. In its wisdom, the army put in beach masters: individuals whose job it was to shape and channel the flow of traffic to maximise throughput. If a truck broke down, the beach masters did not fix it, neither did they go and mentor the driver – they had it pushed off the road, even into the sea. Why? Because their role was to maximise the number of trucks that got through, not ensure that every truck got through.

 How does this relate to modern project-based organisations?

 These, too, have truck drivers (project managers) who are all about delivery; and they, too, compete for scarce resources; and in their focus on their projects, create bottlenecks. Portfolio managers (the beach masters) are there to optimise the use of resources and to de-conflict projects, maximising the throughput. But the problem never was that simple. When one truck is much the same as the next – all trucks are trucks – then this model works well, but suppose some trucks are more valuable than others?

 Is ammunition more valuable than food supplies? What about mail for the troops?

 When is it right to rescue a truck, rather than ditch it in the sea? How can the beach master know which of these tarpaulin-covered trucks, which all look the same, should be treated differently?

 This is dealt with using prioritisation schemes. There are many such schemes, but the best ones, as for the beach master, are those that rank by ‘value’. Indicating which trucks (projects) are carrying the most useful/valuable deliverables and give those the best chance to get through – even to the extent of siphoning off fuel from less valuable trucks: the equivalent of giving the favoured projects more resources.

 You can see this behaviour carried out by some senior information technology managers, often with little guidance from the business, making up priority schemes based on seriously flawed business cases – hoping that the resulting ranking bears some relation to relative value. Of course, once the drivers of the trucks realised what the special markings meant (i.e. they would not be unceremoniously dumped in the sea if the truck went wrong), a number of trucks turned up with spurious markings – a bit like some project business cases of which you may know!

 There is a problem, however, that is not really solved by prioritisation and which caused very unusual behaviour by beach masters. What is the correct marshalling behaviour when a load is distributed between two or more trucks? Suppose you are transporting a big gun.

 The barrel is in truck one; the breech is in truck two, and the wheels are in truck three. What do you do if truck one breaks down? Ditch it in the sea, of course – worked well last time. But now there is a difference: you also should ditch trucks two and three as well, as they have ‘no value’. They are a waste of road space, as wheels and breech block cannot deliver shells onto an enemy target.

 What about if truck three breaks down after truck one and two have gone?
To ‘rescue’ the investment already made by sending the other trucks, perhaps we need a more supportive strategy to get truck three back in service. Under these conditions, the beach master has to make much more complex decisions about the value of a truck.

 How do you take the decision, what determines value now?It is this problem – the problem of value created by interdependencies – that led to the creation of programmes, and the management thereof.D-Day was about delivery; my story of their issues works in my mind because the project management community is also about delivery.

 The planners in 1944 had to solve complex problems about getting the right stuff in the right places by the right time in a highly complex logistical and resource- constrained environment – so do senior managers today. The army solved its problems using trucks, manifestos and beach masters; we are solving ours by projects, portfolios and programmes. 

 Christopher Worsley