Making Choices: Aligning Strategic Business Execution with Strategy through Project Portfolio Management

As a recent portfolio manager leading the enterprise portfolio management office (PMO) of a growing consulting firm, Isabella Garcia found herself confronting a series of real-world firestorms that includes: poor adoption of new knowledge management (KM) systems, punishing schedule changes on mission-critical projects, managing difficult resources and capacity challenges, attracting strong talents to her team, prioritizing projects within the portfolio, determining requirements in an enterprise resource planning (ERP) implementation, managing up, down, and across the organization, and leading a merger and acquisition (M&A) endeavor. As a contemporary woman, Isabella is also confronting the challenges of balancing life, work, and more work. This a fictionalized business book based on actual and highly relevant situation that many project professionals, especially portfolio management professionals will face. The book is vital and relevant for those who aspire to complete the Project Management Institute’s Portfolio Management Professional (PMI PfMP) credential as one of the requirements is an experienced-based examination. Isabella’s many firestorms provide insights on the actual role of a portfolio manager and greatly enhance both the understanding and application of project portfolio management.

Prof. Dr. Te Wu is the founder and CEO of PMO Advisory LLC, a management consulting firm specializing in strategic business execution and a PMI Global Registered Education Provider providing training in portfolio, program, project, agile, and risk management and project management office (PMO). With more than 25 years of experience, Te is an expert at implementing transformative change including enterprise resource planning (ERP) and master data management (MDM) and building PMOs. In his spare time, Te has held professorships at multiple universities in New Jersey and New York teaching international business, organizational change, and project management. These include Stevens Institute of Technology, Touro Graduate School of Business, and Montclair State University. Te is certified in PMI’s Portfolio (PfMP), Program (PgMP), Project (PMP), Risk (PMI-RMP) Management, and ITIL Foundation. Te is an avid volunteer with Project Management Institute where he serves on the core committees for portfolio and risk management. He is also a voting member of the U.S. Technical Advisory Team (US TAG) 258 for Project, Program, and Portfolio representing United States in the corresponding committee of the International Standard Organization. Mr. Brian Williamson is a strategic portfolio, program, and project management executive, with over 20 years of experience managing and implementing large-scale enterprise software applications. He has extensive experience in the micro verticals of financial, supply chain, and human capital management. Over the course of his career, he has been very fortunate to have worked with selective industry leaders including Praxair, Western Connecticut Health Network, Avaap, PMO Advisory, Big 4 Tax & Audit firms, and Oracle. He is an expert in business analysis, requirements management, strategic planning, leading transformational change, and helping organizations align their portfolios with their mission, vision, goals, and objectives. Brian is one of the few people globally to hold all the renewable certifications from the Project Management Institute: Portfolio (PfMP), Program (PgMP), Project (PMP), Business Analysis (PMI-PBA), Risk (PMI-RMP), Scheduling (PMI-SP), and Agile (PMI-ACP). In addition, Brian also holds the designation of ITIL Expert in IT Service Management. He is also a Certified Fraud Examiner (CFE) by the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE) and has received extensive training in Six Sigma.