Reviewing the Project Portfolio
The 4 steering committee members have now received the approval task in their Xurrent Inbox. Howard Tanner is a member of this project’s steering committee. He is also the program manager for all ‘Data Center Improvements’ projects.
Go ahead and log in as Howard Tanner. Howard is the IT manager of the Widget Data Center organization.
| Howard’s email address is: | howard.tanner@widget.com |
| His Xurrent password is: | 4me |
All passwords in your training environment have been set to Xurrent
In Howard’s inbox, you will find the approval task ‘Approval from steering committee for project implementation’. As a program manager, Howard Tanner will want to check how this project compares with the other data center improvement projects.
To do this, go to the Analytics console (the 4th toolbar button) and select ‘Portfolio Management’. First check the project on the Bubble Chart Analysis. Make sure that the ‘Bubble Chart Analysis’ option is selected in the upper left corner. See how the filter in the upper right corner, as well as the legend below the chart, can be used to limit the projects in the bubble chart.
Question:
Looking at the bubble chart, should Howard approve the project?
The NNM10 project has a low risk and a high ROI (the size of the bubble represents the ROI). The value of this project, however, is not very large.
The BICS project is expected to generate more value, but at greater risk. Given the lower risk of the NNM10 project and the end of support within 3 months, Howard is probably going to approve this project first.
Switch from the ‘Bubble Chart Analysis’ to the ‘Waterline Overview’. Drag the NNM10 project above the waterline to see what happens.
Question:
What happened to the values in the waterline?
The waterline is the dark blue row in the Waterline Overview. It shows the totals of the projects that have been placed above the waterline. This makes it easy for managers to see when the budget, or the available effort, for projects is exceeded.
Now that Howard is comfortable with the project, it is time to approve it. You can do that in the next exercise.