Understanding Enterprise Program & Portfolio Management (EPPM)

Gartner considers EPPM to be one of the core elements of Strategic Portfolio Management.

Enterprise Program & Portfolio Management is focused on ensuring organizations are able to execute on their strategy in a way that is as effective as possible while maintaining effective and efficient control over all elements of that work. It contains elements of governance and funding and supports the ability to adjust portfolios to maintain alignment with strategy with minimum disruption and maximum effectiveness.

Control Strategy Execution Effectively and Efficiently

Today’s world is moving faster than ever before. As a result of that speed, elements of strategic execution that are perceived as slowing down performance – like governance and funding controls, are viewed as inherently bad. But those controls are necessary, and applied appropriately can actually accelerate performance – just like the right brakes on a performance car can help it to get through the bends faster. Modern business twists and turns more than any racecourse and EPPM allows business leaders to retain control as they navigate those changes in direction.

3 Elements of Enterprise Program & Portfolio Management

EPPM is focused on two key pillars – governance and funding, with the ability to maintain alignment between strategy and work through continuously adaptive planning added to those pillars in order navigate the ever-changing environment of strategic execution and benefits attainment.  As a result, the elements are:

1. Applying lean governance to retain control without limiting performance
2. The use of bulk funding models to ensure resources are managed at the right level
3. Implement continuous and adaptive planning to maintain alignment

1. Applying lean governance to retain control without limiting performance

Enterprise Program & Portfolio Management focuses on the right amount of control.  That means avoiding restrictive funding practices that insist on funding initiatives at the lowest level of execution.  Instead, funding must focus on balancing control of investments with freedom to deliver.  That requires:

• Bulk funding (dollars and resources) by value stream (program, product, initiative, service, etc.) with freedom for execution teams to allocate funding at more detailed levels.
• Effective and timely management of funding across all portfolios, asset and investment types as well as for all strategies.
• The ability to shift that funding as environments evolve, driven by the continuous planning model detailed below.

2. The use of bulk funding models to ensure resources are managed at the right level

EPPM focuses on the right amount of control.  That means avoiding restrictive funding practices that insist on funding initiatives at the lowest level of execution.  Instead, funding must focus on balancing control of investments with freedom to deliver.  That requires:

• Bulk funding (dollars and resources) by value stream (program, product, initiative, service, etc.) with freedom for execution teams to allocate funding at more detailed levels.
• Effective and timely management of funding across all portfolios, asset and investment types as well as for all strategies.

The ability to shift that funding as environments evolve, driven by the continuous planning model detailed below.

3. Implement continuous and adaptive planning to maintain alignment

Business today is constantly evolving.  New opportunities and threats are emerging and organizations must have the ability to retain alignment between strategy and delivery, no matter how dynamic the environment.  To do that without compromising the ability to deliver requires:

• Continuous and adaptive planning models that identify the need to shift and the changes needed.
• Resource management tools provide the ability to reallocate funds and resources, and to reprioritize work as needed to retain the ability to deliver objectives.

Why Enterprise Program and Portfolio Management is Important

To succeed in today’s world requires organizations to be able to execute on their strategy quickly, to pivot when needed with minimal disruption, and to ensure that the work being done always aligns with the goals and objectives of the organization.  That can be difficult to achieve, requiring a balance between effective oversight and flexible delivery.

Enterprise Program & Portfolio Management – a key component of strategic portfolio management – helps an organization maintain that balance by providing a lean governance model that retains control with leadership but provides delivery teams with the ability to adapt and adjust within that framework.  It also supports bulk funding that allows investments to be managed at the top of the organization, where they should be, and leaves individual allocation decisions to the execution teams that are closest to the need.  Finally, EPPM allows all of that to exist in a dynamic environment with numerous shifting variables.

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