In the "Collect" area of Lean PPM™, opportunities are being created to add new project initiatives to the project portfolio.
Lean PPM™ Context and Roles Involved
New project initiatives are brought into the project portfolio management process by project initiators. They are examined and prioritized in two stages, first by the Portfolio Coordinator and then by the members of the Pipeline Review Committee. This ensures that the initiatives are evaluated against the corporate strategy as translated in the "Strategize" area, and that they are best prepared for deciding on the future portfolio in the "Decide" area.
Implementation in Meisterplan
Initiators can create their project initiatives directly in Meisterplan and, if needed, link them to more detailed project proposal documents maintained in other systems (e.g. internal wikis). The tool is also used during the Proposal Coaching meeting so all participants have the same level of knowledge. The portfolio coordinator can even monitor the pipeline before the next planning cycle.
Creating New Project Initiatives
For an efficient Lean PPM™ process, new project initiatives are created in a decentralized fashion by the initiators themselves in Meisterplan. To avoid wasting time, the initiatives should not be detailed any further in case they are rejected.
Step 1: Open the "Pipeline: Ideas" portfolio.
Step 2: Review existing proposals to avoid creating duplicate initiatives.
Step 3: If there is no project already in Meisterplan for your initiative, create a new project.
Step 4: For the new project, select the Stage Gate "Idea".
Step 5: If the initiative already has a project profile in another system, enter the link to the profile in the project information field Project Link.
First Review of New Project Initiatives
The first review of the new project initiatives will be done in the Proposal Coaching meeting with the portfolio coordinator and the initiators. To avoid wasting time with initiatives which will get rejected later, the Portfolio Coordinator first ensures that the initiatives created do not contain duplications or proposals with no chance of greenlighting for the foreseeable future. The remaining initiatives will be further developed so that they can be objectively evaluated later in the process.
Step 1: Open the "Pipeline: Ideas" Portfolio to see all the initiatives.
Step 2: Delete duplicate initiatives and hopeless proposals, and briefly explain the reasons to the initiator.
Step 3: For all other initiatives, the portfolio coordinator and initiator fill in the project details together:
- Project fields, particularly fields for strategic evaluation
- Financial events
- Roles and rough allocations
- Milestones
- Dependencies to other projects, if applicable
- Advice for the Pipeline Review Committee is added to the Notes field, if applicable
Use Actual Time Worked for Effort Estimation
For a rough estimate of the effort, it could be useful to refer to the actual time worked of similar projects that have already been completed.
You can find more information in the article Actuals - Time Worked.
Step 4: If the details have been sufficiently defined, the initiative will be put under the Cut-Off Line.
The project in Meisterplan should now look like the following Figure.
Figure: Details are added to new project initiatives in the Proposal Coaching meeting.
Step 5: Finally, change the Stage Gate of the project to "Seeking Review". The project will no longer be part of the "Pipeline: Ideas" portfolio.
If there is not enough information to fill in all of the details for an initiative, leave the Stage Gate as "Idea"and ask the initiator to provide the necessary information for the next Proposal Coaching meeting, e.g. by leaving a comment. The result of the meeting is, in any case, an initial refinement of the project pipeline.
More Information
All 4 Lean PPM™ Areas with Meisterplan