Comments on 3rd Edition Portfolio Management Guide

Notification from PMI regarding your recommendations to The Standard for Portfolio Management—Third Edition

Thank you for participating in the exposure draft phase for The Standard for Portfolio Management—Third Edition. Below you will find a list of your recommendations and the committee’s decision for each. If you have any additional questions or comments please contact

If you are unsatisfied with the final decision made by the committee you have the opportunity to appeal. You will have until COB (Eastern Time, USA) Thursday 1 March 2012 to do so. Click on the “Go to Exposure Draft” link provided below for more information.

Go to Exposure Draft

Adjudication will end on: 2/16/2012

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The Standard for Portfolio Management – Third Edition

Your Recommendation

Add alignemnt with and cognisance of and explicit expression of the links to the duties and rights of officers of organisations due to an organisation’s legal constitution – The interfaces and points of influence must then be reflected in the rest of the writings – currently it is missing.

Your Justification

Portfoilo management (your title) is the care over an organisations complete constituient actitities and falls to those with a fiduciary duty of care to the organisations stakeholders – normally equity holders, debt holders and wider society. Under governance obligations those duties are delegated some arriving in the change community as project and programme management. Some delegated duties may be aggregated under people or bodies with interest in collections of projects IE portfolios. The portfolio may exist, the governance duty always exists: Section 1 does not give the reader a true, fair, complete, mature description of the context of management of a portfolio of projects – I guess that doesn’t bode well for later sections.

Our vote on your recommendation: Deferred

Our justification: Thank you for your recommendation. Recommendation does not align with generally accepted practices within the scope of this edition and has been deferred for discussion by the next edition committee.

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The Standard for Portfolio Management – Third Edition

Your Recommendation

Retitle the document “A Standard for Management of Portfolios of Projects” or more meaningfully realign its contents to actually be “Portfolio Management” – in which case I guess PMI’s charter needs examination for whether general business management is within the remit -you cant ‘do change’ without consideration of where you boundary with buisnes as usual lies. This thinking must the be tested in each paragraph – For example at line 753 the text is “portfolio” while the sentiment and intention is limited to “as applied to projects and programmes”

Your Justification

The document is mistitled or its content misaligned to the current title: An early and explicit discussion is needed that identifies the ‘portfolio’ as the total use of equity, debt, skills and resources of an organisation (see lines 230 et seq, 294/5, 428/9, **504/5** . The portfolio is ‘business as usual plus change projects whether projects are further grouped in programme or not. Following clear & correct definition of ‘portfolio’ the document can fulfil its title or as stated at line 115 focus on the porfolio of initiatives that create change to business as usual In the later case the significance of 115 needs to be more strongly stated – many people reading to understand portfolio mgmt will miss the subtlety of this foundational point if it is not spelled out – they will then read the rest of teh documnet with a misconception clounding understanding

Our vote on your recommendation: Deferred

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15 The standard is more tightly coupled to its companion standards: A Guide to the Project

Your Recommendation

revise the scentence

Your Justification

use of “more” requires at least 2 objects to compare some attribute of each to establish taht which is the extreme

Our vote on your recommendation: Accepted With Modification

Our justification: Thank you for your recommendation. The committee agrees with the basic principles in your comment and will revise the text to reflect your comment.

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Section I The Portfolio Management Overview, Framework and Processes

Your Recommendation

Edit the section to distil repetition

Your Justification

Section one currently includes much tautology, including but not limited to Lines 8 & 143, 26 and 103158 et seq and 262 & 287, 159 and 182, 242 et seq and several earlier expressions of project and programme, 564 and 605, 656 and 674, 696 and 546 – these weaken and confuse the messages that need to be delivered – Attention needs to be given to collecting together the duplications and distilling them to the actual point to be made

Our vote on your recommendation: Editorial

Our justification: Thank you for your recommendation. The Committee has determined that it is editorial in nature and has forwarded it to the PMI Editor for consideration.

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Section I The Portfolio Management Overview, Framework and Processes

Your Recommendation

Edit the section to reduce the padding/ waffle that adds more words than understanding to the readers journey through the text

Your Justification

Section one currently includes tracks of text that add words without insight and so will weaken and confuse the messages to be delivered. Sections that illustrate the point and need editing to distil out the messages include but are not limited to 322 et seq to 339, 377 et seq to 403

Our vote on your recommendation: Editorial

Our justification: Thank you for your recommendation. The Committee has determined that it is editorial in nature and has forwarded it to the PMI Editor for consideration.

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25 The project charter to update The Standard for Portfolio Management was to:

Your Recommendation

Move charter description to an appendix

Your Justification

25 et seq should probably be moved to an appendix, it inhibts a good start to the document

Our vote on your recommendation: Deferred

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99 The increasing acceptance of project portfolio management indicates that the application

Your Recommendation

Define “Portfolio management” and “Project portfolio management” before using the latter without context

Your Justification

the term “project portfolio management” needs introduction as a subset of portfilio management that deals with change to business as usual and includes programmes and subsiduary portfolios – see my earlier comment about teh documents title and alignment of content

Our vote on your recommendation: Rejected

Our justification: Thank you for your recommendation. Recommended change conflicts with other generally accepted material in standard.

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1.1 Purpose of The Standard for Portfolio Management

Your Recommendation

Add commentary on governance

Your Justification

portfolio management IS an elemnt of teh governance of organisation. Governance encompasses teh care of a pool of equity and cultural norms that exists in a stable business as usual state and is subject to internal and external influences causing change – ergo the purpose of portfolio management IS to satisfy and balance all stakeholder’s governance requirements

Our vote on your recommendation: Rejected

Our justification: Thank you for your recommendation. Your recommendation is covered in another section of the Standard.

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115 project management and will refer to simply as portfolio management throughout this

Your Recommendation

reword to “and will be referred to as”

Your Justification

corrects the grammer of “and will refer to as”

Our vote on your recommendation: Editorial

Our justification: Thank you for your recommendation. The Committee has determined that it is editorial in nature and has forwarded it to the PMI Editor for consideration.

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121 instead uses them to help pursue its goals. Government organizations exist under

Your Recommendation

change “government” to “public and charitable”

Your Justification

“public” includes government but governemnt does not include all public institutions

Our vote on your recommendation: Editorial

Our justification: Thank you for your recommendation. The Committee has determined that it is editorial in nature and has forwarded it to the PMI Editor for consideration.

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135 organizational and professional policies. Since practitioners come from diverse

Your Recommendation

Reword to reflect what you actually mean – Is it an aspiration to tell the world’s population how to behave or to be inclusive of teh population’s good behaviours

Your Justification

“Since” does not make the code apply globally – the faulty logic threatens teh integrity of the rest of the document

Our vote on your recommendation: Editorial

Our justification: Thank you for your recommendation. The Committee has determined that it is editorial in nature and has forwarded it to the PMI Editor for consideration.

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158

1.2 What is a Portfolio?

Your Recommendation

Add correct definition first

Your Justification

A portfolio **IS** a collection of items with some link. In an organisation what we refer to as “a Portfolio” is generally ALL activity of the people, resources and capital. The only label that aplies to what line 159 describes is the portfolio of change initiatives You need to start with the Business As Usual portfolio (which INCLUDES change) if you are to communicae clearly and explicitly with the reader – many of whom are reading in a foreign language where wolly thinking by authors is harder to detect and more misleading.

Our vote on your recommendation: Rejected

Our justification: Thank you for your recommendation. No substantive improvement in content – the content is addressed in detail in other sections of the standard.

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165 portfolios are not temporary, like projects or programs. An organization may have more

Your Recommendation

change ” are not temporary …” to “are a permenant feature of…”

Your Justification

Clearer English

Our vote on your recommendation: Accepted With Modification

Our justification: Thank you for your recommendation. The committee agrees with some or all of the basic principles in your comment and will revise the text to reflect your comment.

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179

Your Recommendation

Qualify top-box as “portfolio of changes” or add BAU

Your Justification

diagram is currently incorrect for what you want to style as “**THE** Standard…” –

Our vote on your recommendation: Rejected

Our justification: Recommended change conflicts with specific wording, vocabulary, or definitions used in standard.

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200 All portfolio components of a portfolio should exhibit certain common features as follows:

Your Recommendation

delete first “portfoili”

Your Justification

“All components of a portfolio…” is clearer to a wider audience (and correct). Your document has to be writen to communicate with a world at large

Our vote on your recommendation: Accepted With Modification

Our justification: Thank you for your recommendation. The committee agrees with the basic principles in your comment and will revise the text to reflect your comment.

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219 “Operations” is a term used to describe day-to-day organizational activities. The

Your Recommendation

Move or promote to a Sub-Heading of its own

Your Justification

ALL change portfolio activity is directed at Operations and ALL change is funded by Operations – So operations is the bigger and MORE SIGNIFICANT item to the world at large This opening chapter needs editing by someone whose eyes are open to what really matters in the wider world instead of focussing on your toes in the details of a suppliers concer to get eth project finished and the invoice submitted.

Our vote on your recommendation: Rejected

Our justification: Thank you for your recommendation. The standard is descriptive and the recommended change could be prescriptive.

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228 Portfolio management is the centralized management of one or more portfolios to achieve

229 strategic objectives. It includes a set of interrelated organizational processes by which

230 an organization prioritizes, selects, and allocates its limited internal resources to best

231 accomplish organizational vision, mission, and values.

Your Recommendation

Reformat in bold italic and move to the first page of eth document

Your Justification

its one of teh three most important statements of section 1

Our vote on your recommendation: Rejected

Our justification: Thank you for your recommendation. No substantive improvement in content – the content is needed to prepare the context for the rest of the standard.

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249

Your Recommendation

Revise (or extend) box “Portfolio Sucess” to reflect sentiment in easier words for the wider audience Add “E.G. Share Price (or Social contribution)”

Your Justification

Share price and social value are the measurse of sucess that show performance

Our vote on your recommendation: Rejected

Our justification: Conflicts with other content.

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262 providing the needed resources whereas program management harmonizes its projects and

Your Recommendation

Embolden, italisise and move (or copy) to start of Section 1

Your Justification

Continious provision or restriction of resources to achieve the aims of the organisation *IS* the first duty of all portfolio managemers – its all about rationing what we have today in anticipation of what that means for tomorrow

Our vote on your recommendation: Editorial

Our justification: Thank you for your recommendation. The Committee has determined that it is Editorial in nature and therefore will be referred to the PMI Editor for consideration.

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256 understand how they relate to organizational project management (OPM).

Your Recommendation

Explain what is “Organisational Project Management”? How is it different from “Projet Management”? If they are the same delete “Organisational”, if different then expand the point

Your Justification

OPM is meaningless without description of the differentiator

Our vote on your recommendation: Accepted With Modification

Our justification: The following text will be considered for insertion to provide a clearer definition of OPM. “Organizational Project management is a Strategy Execution framework utilizing project, program, and portfolio management as well as organizational enabling practices to consistently and predictably deliver organizational strategy producing better performance, better results and a sustainable competitive advantage.”

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287 Portfolio management is a bridge between traditional operations management and program and

Your Recommendation

emphasis

Your Justification

key point needs to stand out from the wordy low value text

Our vote on your recommendation: Accepted With Modification

Our justification: Thank you for your recommendation. The committee agrees with the basic principles in your comment and will revise the text to reflect your comment.

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293 of a competitive and rapidly changing organization environment. Portfolio management,

Your Recommendation

delete “rapidly”

Your Justification

makes te document longer without value, allows some to think this doesn’t apply to them and reflects a false but populist impression that change is only rapid now and wasn’t in the past. Every age thinks change around it is “rapid” whereas in fact its just change

Our vote on your recommendation: Editorial

Our justification: Thank you for your recommendation. The Committee has determined that it is editorial in nature and has forwarded it to the PMI Editor for consideration.

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297 is applied. However, before the emergence of portfolio management as a defined discipline,

Your Recommendation

Delete or reword to correctly reflect that fact that organisations have had stakeholders for millenia and the portfolio of activity has always been the accountability of the management of the organisation (or country).

Your Justification

Portfolio management isn’t emerging your just wrapping words around something that has go on for thousands of years. Its misleading and thus a flawed foundation for what needs to be understood and enacted for good portfolio management. Portfolio management **IS** the **accountability** of the Chair of the Board or equivelent in every household, Goverment, Quoted or privately held institution – to represent it otherwise dooms what youbuild on foundational concepts to be weake than it would otherwise be, to be flawed and to work less well in less contexts – Write a goo standard not a self-serving one

Our vote on your recommendation: Accepted With Modification

Our justification: Thank you for your recommendation. The committee agrees with the basic principles in your comment and will revise the text to reflect your comment.

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305 • Capitalize on opportunities,

306 • Minimize the impact of threats,

307 • Respond to changes in the market, and

308 • Reinforce focus on critical operational activities.

Your Recommendation

consolidate, perhaps reword as “promote the organisations utility (percieved value) to stakeholders”

Your Justification

one point restated 4 times

Our vote on your recommendation: Accepted With Modification

Our justification: Thank you for your recommendation. The committee agrees with the basic principles in your comment and will revise the text to reflect your comment.

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320

321

Figure 1-3. The Organizational Context of Portfolio Management

322 In Figure 1-3, vision, mission, and organizational strategy and objectives illustrate the

Your Recommendation

explain, define and differentaite “Vision” and “Mission”

Your Justification

Use of terms in a standard that dont communicate with clarity undermine teh standards acceptance and applicability. If you can’t defines and differentiate Mission, Vision(and Values) then don’t add confusion by using multiple terms

Our vote on your recommendation: Rejected

Our justification: Thank you for your recommendation. No substantive improvement in content – the content is addressed in detail in other sections of the standard.

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347 • Allocating financial resources. The priority of each portfolio component guides

Your Recommendation

Add two bullet points before this one – the second, to some degre consolidating lines 347 to356 * Allocating skills: access to subject matter expertise that understands market place, organisational culture and enabling technology is rarer and less fungible that money. * Assement of teh culture’s ability to embracechange: any enterprise can only absorb so much concurrent change and still generate the organisation’s benefits that sustain its existance – the board of management (portfolio or main/ executive board) must have “ability to absorb” as it central focus THEN ability to source skills and funds THEN degree of significance

Your Justification

As noted in teh suggested text – your current focus is wrong

Our vote on your recommendation: Accepted With Modification

Our justification: Thank you for your recommendation. The committee agrees with the basic principles in your comment and will revise the text to reflect your comment.

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357 • Measuring portfolio component performance. If the purpose of undertaking the

358 portfolio component is to achieve a strategic goal, its contribution must be measured in

359 the context of that goal.

Your Recommendation

Link, allude or replace with reference to general management of eth enterprise – this IS what the management and executive of every organisation is already charged with

Your Justification

Your thinking is too blinkered – this thinking is less of an issue in projects where your somewhat isolated from several thousand years of how economics really works but at this level your in the thick of teh board room with boiler room thinking and perspetives – The standard can’t develop into a real-world tool unless it stands on conceptual foundations that are how the world really does work 🙁

Our vote on your recommendation: Rejected

Our justification: Thank you for your recommendation. The standard is descriptive and the recommended change could be prescriptive.

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360 • Risk management. Each portfolio component should be evaluated for risks (both

361 positive and negative) at the organizational level and how those risks may impact the

362 achievement of the strategic plan and objectives. This includes external as well as

363 internal environment monitoring.

Your Recommendation

Reword to reflect “aggregation of responses” rather than just some senior duplication of what happens in projects – it isn’t “inspect the risks” it is understand the risk-set – it IS where statistical/ quantitative analysis is more likely to be useful.

Your Justification

First it is a nice observation that “risk” = uncertainty of outcome whether positive or negative” but the reality is that portfolios are comprised initiatves to persue opportunity each of which then weaves response to threat through its activities: the observation is less usefuly meaningful when seeking insight on how to apply uncertainty management in the real world All threats (and opportunities) need appropriate responses – but where the probability is low and the impact high these are hard for individual initiatives to economically handle – so PORTFOLIO risk managemnt is basically aggregation of risk for construction of contingencies – for threats the rest of the world and most boards call it insurance (including self-insurance like a bank’s capital-adequacy) and aggregation of factors leading to opportunity are – surprise – often called projects!

Our vote on your recommendation: Accepted With Modification

Our justification: Thank you for your recommendation. The committee agrees with the basic principles in your comment and will revise the text to reflect your comment.

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364

1.6 Business Value

Your Recommendation

Re-title to reflect organisations other than businesses

Your Justification

The document correctly expresses that it applies to organisations taht ar not businesses. In general this whole section lins 364-404 uses a lot of words to say very little

Our vote on your recommendation: Rejected

Our justification: The focus is on business value and how business value can be attained through the effective delivery of project, program, and portfolio management.

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370 greater business value from their project investments. While not all organizations are

371 businesses, all organizations conduct business activities. Whether an organization is a

372 government agency or a non-profit organization, all organizations focus on attaining

373 business value for their business activities.

374 Successful business value realization begins with careful strategic planning and

375 management. Organizational strategy can be expressed through the organization’s mission

376 and vision, including orientation to markets, competition, and other environmental

377 factors. Effective organizational strategy provides defined directions for development and

378 growth, in addition to performance measurement metrics for success. In order to bridge the

379 gap between organizational strategy and successful business value realization, the use of

380 portfolio, program, and project management techniques is essential.

381 Portfolio management aligns components (projects, programs, or operational work) to the

382 organizational strategy, organized into portfolios or subportfolios to optimize project or

383 program objectives, dependencies, costs, timelines, benefits, resources, and risks. This

384 allows organizations to have an overall view of how the strategic goals are reflected in

385 the portfolio, institute appropriate governance management, and authorize human,

386 financial, or material resources to be allocated based on expected performance and

387 benefits.

388 Using program management, organizations have the ability to align multiple projects for

389 optimized or integrated costs, schedule, and effort. Program management focuses on project

390 interdependencies and helps to determine the optimal approach for managing and realizing

391 the desired benefits.

392 With project management, organizations have the ability to apply knowledge, processes,

393 skills, and tools and techniques that enhance the likelihood of success over a wide range

394 of projects. Project management focuses on the successful delivery of unique products,

395 services, or results. Within programs and portfolios, projects are a means of achieving

396 organizational goals and objectives.

397 Organizations can further facilitate the alignment of these portfolio, program, and

398 project management activities by strengthening organizational enablers such as structural,

399 cultural, technological, and human resource practices. By continuously conducting

400 portfolio strategic alignment and optimization, performing business impact analyses, and

401 developing robust organizational enablers, organizations can achieve successful

402 transitions within the portfolio, program, and project domains and attain effective

403 investment management and business value realization.

404

Your Recommendation

Replace the text with something containing more value to the reader EG 1.6 Value What ever an organisation’s purpose the achievement of that purpose affects its stakeholders. How ever measured this is the organisation’s value: this assessment of value is subjective and is sometimes referred to as ‘utility’. In commercial contexts value may be share capital and dividends and in public contexts may be assessed in terms of the social benefits delivered such as national security. In all cases the absolute size of the benefits and relative efficiency of their creation from employed capital is of concern to stakeholders. Over time external, internal, marlet-pace and fashion influences affect who the stakeholders are, what they want or don’t want and how the evolving set of purposes are achieved. Portfolio management must always be focussed on the balance of maximising utility as seen by stakeholders with varying wants over both the short and long term

Your Justification

Current section is long but says little

Our vote on your recommendation: Accepted With Modification

Our justification: We agree a definition should be added. This definition should be applicable to all three practices, project/program/portfolio management. Business value is a concept that is unique to each organization. Business value is defined as the entire value of the business; the total sum of all tangible and intangible elements. Examples of tangible elements include monetary assets, fixtures, stockholder equity, and utility. Examples of intangible elements include good will, brand recognition, public benefit and trademarks. Depending on the organization, business value scope can be short-, medium, or long-term. Value may be created through the effective management of ongoing operations. However, through the effective use of portfolio, program, and project management, organizations will possess the ability to employ reliable, established processes to meet strategic objectives and obtain greater business value from their project investments. While not all organizations are business driven, all organizations conduct business related activities. Whether an organization is a government agency or a nonprofit organization, all organizations focus on attaining business value for their activities.

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407 A portfolio has a parent-child relationship with its portfolio components, just as a

408 program has a parent-child relationship with its projects. The portfolio components are

Your Recommendation

explain what yu mean without a comparison that may not be meaningful to the reader

Your Justification

your “standard” can only have meaning if read by someone withdetailed knowledge of another standard – which is at odds with the likely background knowledge of some of your espouced target audience Senior management (current and aspiring) do have to know what portfolio management ism they don’t have to know the PgMP or PMP syllabus

Our vote on your recommendation: Rejected

Our justification: Thank you for your recommendation. Submitter provided insufficient information regarding the specific recommended text/change to allow a review and disposition.

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410 Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide) – Fifth Edition and The Standard for Program Management – Third

Your Recommendation

remove the version number

Your Justification

it just makes this standard age unnecessarily

Our vote on your recommendation: Editorial

Our justification: Thank you for your recommendation. The Committee has determined that it is editorial in nature and has forwarded it to the PMI Editor for consideration.

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410 Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide) – Fifth Edition and The Standard for Program Management – Third

Your Recommendation

none – comment

Your Justification

Somewhat unfair to post an exposure draft based on a document whose own exposure draft is not due for release until a month after this one is closed for comment 🙁

Our vote on your recommendation: Editorial

Our justification: Thank you for your recommendation. The Committee has determined that it is editorial in nature and has forwarded it to the PMI Editor for consideration.

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428 Components within a program are related through a common outcome or delivery of a

429 collective set of benefits. If the relationship among the projects is only that of a

430 shared client, seller, technology, or resource, the effort should be managed as a

431 portfolio of projects rather than as a program. In programs, it is important to integrate

Your Recommendation

Embolden, italicise and move to start of section one At least move out of a section headed “program”

Your Justification

A crucial point buried in a sea of other mediocre words. These lines define a criteria to define portfolio. note thesy are not complete as a portfolio may contain programmes

Our vote on your recommendation: Rejected

Our justification: Thank you for your recommendation. No substantive improvement in content – the content is addressed in detail in other sections of the standard.

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442 • Responding effectively to risks spanning multiple components or the program;

Your Recommendation

emphasise this is programme risk not portfolio risk

Your Justification

project risk handles event & outcome by responses buried in baselines, Programme risk ADDS concern for risks that repeat within or span across projects and Portfolio risk ADDS response by aggregation

Our vote on your recommendation: Accepted With Modification

Our justification: Thank you for your recommendation. The committee agrees with the basic principles in your comment and will revise the text to reflect your comment.

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458 through the appropriate application and integration of the 47 logically grouped project

Your Recommendation

please provide source texts

Your Justification

…I though 5th ed had been heralded as “not going to change /PMBOK-G(r)/ much” and here you are saying it has 5 new processes 🙁 not possible to comment further without 5th Ed

Our vote on your recommendation: Accepted With Modification

Our justification: Thank you for your recommendation. The committee agrees with the basic principles in your comment and will revise the text to reflect your comment.

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494

1.7.3 Operations Management

Your Recommendation

Review, reword, replace EG “Operations constitutes all those activities of teh organisation that are ongoing in nature, often cyclic with a more or less repeating pattern of activity. Operations may be called the ‘day-to-day’ activity to satify the organisations purposes. Operations management consists of the procedures and their grouping and assignemt as roles with lines of delegation, levels of authority and mechanisms to report, escalate and decide how to achieve best value from resources available withing constraints. The portfolio of activity within an organisation is the sum total of all these activities. When the ongoing pattern of activity is subject to change ( EG by external factors) or may be improved by discretionary application of change then resources within the portfolio are diverted into projects. Projects may be further grouped as programmmes (due to a link between their results) and into portfolios due to linkage between any or all of their source, tinming, funding and or recipient”

Your Justification

This subsection currently has little to actually say about oerations or portfolis

Our vote on your recommendation: Accepted With Modification

Our justification: Thank you for your recommendation. The committee agrees with the basic principles in your comment and will revise the text to reflect your comment.

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504 the highest level, the strategic and operational portfolios are ultimately managed as a

505 single, comprehensive portfolio of work being undertaken by the organization.

Your Recommendation

embolden, italicise and copy to the front of section 1

Your Justification

A key point buried in a sea of less significant text Important to make this point early

Our vote on your recommendation: Rejected

Our justification: Thank you for your recommendation. No substantive improvement in content – the content is addressed in detail in other sections of the standard.

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535 Where program and project managers must focus on “doing work right,” portfolio managers

Your Recommendation

remove

Your Justification

A half decent point the first time it was made, but this is about the 3rd if not 4th time A sharper editing process would improve the documents ‘punch’

Our vote on your recommendation: Rejected

Our justification: Thank you for your recommendation. No substantive improvement in content – the content is addressed in detail in other sections of the standard.

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537 portfolio component performance and progress, and they convey to the portfolio management

Your Recommendation

Introduce Portfolio Management Board as a concept with definition (or reference to) before use

Your Justification

The PMB is a key decision making structure whose reltionship to the organisation board and governance structures must be clearly defined (and may be the one group of people performing one integrated action of operational management) ye here is a key term used without introduction – Result the standard does not establish a clear picture in the reader’s mind of what the topic is comprised of and how the bits inter-operate. When they get into the details of sections 2 through 8 they won’t be as well prepared as they need to be to improve the capability of our local, national and global institutions. Since your document has so much money and push behind it it will choke off other sources so your contents has to be the best we can make it in all our interests

Our vote on your recommendation: Accepted With Modification

Our justification: Thank you for your recommendation. The committee agrees with the basic principles in your comment and will revise the text to reflect your comment.

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542 the information required under the portfolio management processes. They are the primary

Your Recommendation

define stakeholder and reword with a definition of stakeholder that reflects “Everyone who has any sort of interest, and most importantly those with the most potential to influence” plus ensure communications is explcitly two-way horizontally and vertically across the organisation structures

Your Justification

Current implication is stakeholder is a narrow term and communications is from the portfolio manager

Our vote on your recommendation: Rejected

Our justification: Thank you for your recommendation. No substantive improvement in content – the content is addressed in detail in other sections of the standard.

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533

1.8 Role of the Portfolio Manager

Your Recommendation

Reword section to reflect the likely constitution of a portfolio’s decision making structure

Your Justification

The section has a distinct slant towards a portfolio managed by an individual, whereas a portfolio is as likely, if not more likely to be managed by a committee not an individual.

Our vote on your recommendation: Rejected

Our justification: Thank you for your recommendation. The standard is descriptive and the recommended change could be prescriptive.

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546 • Establishing and maintaining a framework (a conceptual structure of ideas) and

Your Recommendation

Reword to reflect “tailor teh organisations process assets to reflect the needs…”

Your Justification

unlikely that the framework is created (or owned) by a portfolio manager – much more likely to be within a PMO/ Centre of Excellence

Our vote on your recommendation: Accepted With Modification

Our justification: Thank you for your recommendation. The committee agrees with the basic principles in your comment and will revise the text to reflect your comment.

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545 assigned portfolios, and specific responsibilities may include:

Your Recommendation

“May include” should be something like “must ensure that within any portfolio these roles are assigned and may be held by an individual or a board…” The definition of these duties and at line 697 are almost certainly those of a board comprised many interests

Your Justification

Fulfilling the duties isn’t (by-n-large) optional, but how they are fulfilled is discretionary Establishing what teh duties are is a corporate govenance necessity

Our vote on your recommendation: Accepted With Modification

Our justification: Thank you for your recommendation. The committee agrees with the basic principles in your comment and will revise the text to reflect your comment.

OriginalText

561 intervention in) portfolio-level issues and risks that are impacting performance;

Your Recommendation

ensure portfolio risk as ‘oversight of contingencies for aggregate threats’ is included

Your Justification

you have to match the real world if your standard is to be useful and thus actually adopted and extend teh stae of teh art. As it stands you describe less than the state of th art, and what is described does in some places lack clarity

Our vote on your recommendation: Rejected

Our justification: Thank you for your recommendation. No substantive improvement in content – the content is addressed in detail in other sections of the standard.

OriginalText

565 requirements, and achieving the educational needs of current or future stakeholders, etc.;

Your Recommendation

Split bullet-point “and achieving the educational…” has NOTHING to do with teh rest of teh bullet so is a new bullet in its own right

Your Justification

Two material points in one formatted point is always a bad stylistic choice in a standard

Our vote on your recommendation: Accepted With Modification

Our justification: Thank you for your recommendation. The committee agrees with the basic principles in your comment and will revise the text to reflect your comment.

OriginalText

566 • Supporting senior level decision making by ensuring timely and consistent

567 communication to stakeholders on progress, changes, and impact on portfolio components’

Your Recommendation

Add section previous to here to give context to the decisions to be made or add illustrative points here

Your Justification

So far we have 567 lines of discussion of a topic whose essence is decision making that balances factors measured on dissimilar scales and evaluated by people with different world-views without having said anything concrete about what the decisions are, HOW to make them, HOW to link to mission and values. If section 1 is a portent of the details within section 2-8 then are these key elements of insightful guidance absent from S:2-8 (so standard ‘nice but useless as a practical start point’) or present in S:2-8, so section 1 is an incomplete reflection of the remainder of the document) ?

Our vote on your recommendation: Rejected

Our justification: Thank you for your recommendation. No substantive improvement in content – the content is addressed in detail in other sections of the standard.

OriginalText

569 • Participating in program and project reviews to reflect senior level support,

Your Recommendation

Add to an earlier section a reference to the seniority of these people Also link to lines 582 et.seq where confusion about whether portfolio management is conducted by people within the orgaisations inner circle or observers of the circle

Your Justification

This is teh first time it has been said explicitly that the portfolio people are senior. Indeed lines 566-568 emphasise the possibility that portfolio management is a comparitively administrative role lacking in decision making authority The standard must explicity (not implicitly) describe a clear and vivid picture, in language taht is simple even for a non-native reader of what actuall works in the real world – As curently drafted thee is scope for improvement and simeltaneous reduction in the word count

Our vote on your recommendation: Deferred

OriginalText

573 organization’s strategic goals and be able to assess and measure the benefits that the

Your Recommendation

reword to make explicit that “benefits must be measured” but that “measurment IS the job of teh organisation’s executive officers and managers with delegated duties” and that the portfolio management function may either be the executive management or may provide guidance as a service

Your Justification

as wriitten it reads that the portfolio management function displaces the organisational chain of command with governance duties for the tracking (and thus chasing) of benefits – that is plain wrong and very scary that it may have been this passages author’s thinking

Our vote on your recommendation: Accepted With Modification

Our justification: Thank you for your recommendation. The committee agrees with the basic principles in your comment and will revise the text to reflect your comment.

OriginalText

605 trend analysis, net present value (NPV), return on investment (ROI), and internal rate of

Your Recommendation

Address duplication at line 564

Your Justification

Sometimes duplication will add value, but it doesn’t here, it just adds length

Our vote on your recommendation: Accepted With Modification

Our justification: Thank you for your recommendation. The committee agrees with the basic principles in your comment and will revise the text to reflect your comment.

OriginalText

609 • Stakeholder Engagement. An effective portfolio manager is adept at working with

610 portfolio stakeholders in order to maximize portfolio and organizational performance. A

611 portfolio manager should communicate frequently with stakeholders using modes and

612 techniques appropriate for the context. The portfolio manager must deal effectively with

613 executives, managers, project and program managers, and other internal and external

614 stakeholders in a manner that is appropriate to the individuals and their roles.

Your Recommendation

Condense the valueless words and add the key duty to facilitate connections between stakeholder (while not trying to participate in every communication)

Your Justification

Lots of words, little value, omits key points 🙁

Our vote on your recommendation: Accepted With Modification

Our justification: Thank you for your recommendation. The committee agrees with the basic principles in your comment and will revise the text to reflect your comment.

OriginalText

627 wide range of organizational decision-making models, from autocratic to collegial.

Your Recommendation

Change “collegial” to “joint” or “group”

Your Justification

Surely the aim is best clarity of communication with the largest proportion of readers – words like “collegial” are counter-productive

Our vote on your recommendation: Accepted With Modification

Our justification: Thank you for your recommendation. The committee agrees with the basic principles in your comment and will revise the text to reflect your comment.

OriginalText

634 circumstances that can adversely impact the portfolio. Risk management is critical where

635 interdependencies exist between high-priority portfolio components, where the cost of

636 portfolio component failure is significant, or when risks of one portfolio component raise

637 the risks in another portfolio component. Opportunity management identifies and exploits

Your Recommendation

Consider how statements about risk are handled throughout this work. Specically in these lines reword to be explicit about threat or reword to make neutral about direction of risk.

Your Justification

Line 634 uses “adversely”, and L-636 uses the words “failure”, “risk” and “raise” – if “raise” is correct then “threat” would have been correct and if “risk” is correct then “affect” may have been better and the “adverse / failure” need replacing. Key point is that despite saying explicitky in places that “risk is uncertainty of outcome … [ that has a material ] impact whether positive or negative” the implications haven’t sunk in to change how derived consequences are expressed – 634 et. seq are written with a threat mindset, While this is probably more appropriate to the general reader it is at odds with other explicit passages and therefore decreases the clarity of the sandard’s guidance.

Our vote on your recommendation: Accepted With Modification

Our justification: Thank you for your recommendation. The committee agrees with the basic principles in your comment and will revise the text to reflect your comment.

OriginalText

642

1.9. Role of the PMO in Portfolio Management

Your Recommendation

Consider consolidation with or cross reference to 546

Your Justification

Two sections are largely repetition. The portfolio management function section should probably say “is responsible for applying the framework in a situation fashion” while this section sshould say “is responsible for defining and mantaining a framework that reflects best pragmatic practice

Our vote on your recommendation: Deferred

OriginalText

656 A PMO may support portfolio management in the following ways:

Your Recommendation

Consolidate with lines 674 et. seq

Your Justification

Fragementation and duplication make for a weaker document, consolidation and clarity make for a stronger standard that has wider and faster adoption through better retrun on effort

Our vote on your recommendation: Deferred

OriginalText

669

1.9.1 Project, Program, and Portfolio Management Office

Your Recommendation

rationalise, consolidate and deduplicate 669 et. seq and 533 et. seq

Your Justification

If this standard is to mmove us forward then the set of duties assigned to any portfolio management function, the organisation’s executive management (and their reports), any ‘support offices’ plus project and programme managers need to be set-out with clarity Many organisations struggle with the set of function, information flows, authorities, decisions, actions and their grouping into roles. As it stands this text does not describe the clarifications that are possble

Our vote on your recommendation: Accepted With Modification

Our justification: Thank you for your recommendation. The committee agrees with the basic principles in your comment and will revise the text to reflect your comment.

OriginalText

684 the organization. This newly established governing body is responsible for establishing

Your Recommendation

Delete “newly”

Your Justification

May be new to some organisations (scary if its new to the author’s thinking) but doesn’t have to be and isn’t in many

Our vote on your recommendation: Accepted With Modification

Our justification: Thank you for your recommendation. The committee agrees with the basic principles in your comment and will revise the text to reflect your comment.

OriginalText

685 the expectations for the derived benefits of portfolio management as the implementation of

686 portfolio management processes is authorized.

Your Recommendation

Reword to clarify the duties and consider consolidation and rationalisation with other roles in teh organisation as described at 1.7.3 (L-494) 1.8 (L-533) etc A PMO’s duties MAY (wrongly imho) be to define benefits but must always be to own the *process* by which benefits are defined, enabled, tracked and chased-down to delivery. The PMO may facilitate the use of the definition process or just audit that it was used

Your Justification

Currently 685 may be read to imply the PMO displaces the management of teh organisation from the duty to define benefits

Our vote on your recommendation: Accepted With Modification

Our justification: Thank you for your recommendation. The committee agrees with the basic principles in your comment and will revise the text to reflect your comment.

OriginalText

692 The portfolio management office may act as a stakeholder throughout the portfolio life

Your Recommendation

Reword to define how a PMO acts as a stakeholder. They are service provider who should be competent to provide useful frameworks and standards, who can provide opinion that has merit and may enforce the following of standards and procedures. They are not (should not be?) a stakeholder in the sense of ‘recipient of benefits’ unless this project is a PM maturing improvement project

Your Justification

Sentence’s meaning is unclear as written – what percentage of readers do you want to gain a clear understanding of your standard’s use?

Our vote on your recommendation: Rejected

Our justification: Thank you for your recommendation. The standard is descriptive and the recommended change could be prescriptive.

OriginalText

703 • Provide the broad level oversight and manage the overall portfolio value; and

Your Recommendation

Clarify/ Reword – presumably you mean “provide a service to the board that supports executive management of and non-executive oversight of…value”

Your Justification

Is the PMO now another name for the organisation’s exec? or is the exec expected to have delegated its core competencies to the PMO? Oversight of the organisation’s value IS the role of the Board of Directors (or other constitutional officers)

Our vote on your recommendation: Accepted With Modification

Our justification: Thank you for your recommendation. The committee agrees with the basic principles in your comment and will revise the text to reflect your comment.

OriginalText

695 The portfolio management office may provide the following services to project or program

696 management office:

Your Recommendation

Add bullet “aggregate results of the components of eth portfolio”

Your Justification

Of all the things that don’t have a natural home elsewhere and do have a natural place in the portfolio office the key one is missing – viz: “aggregation of demand on skills,capital, ability to absorb change, organisational culture and tone and strategic (portfolio) impact of teh total set of tactical (project) actions in play now and in the foreseeable future”

Our vote on your recommendation: Accepted With Modification

Our justification: Thank you for your recommendation. The committee agrees with the basic principles in your comment and will revise the text to reflect your comment.

OriginalText

669

1.9.1 Project, Program, and Portfolio Management Office

Your Recommendation

Add discussion of the PMO as a affected by top-down and bottom-up activity. IE T-D typically represents longer-term strategic intention while B-U typically includes short-term tactical response to current context.

Your Justification

“Life is what happens while your busy making plans” – john Lennon – The organisation’s executive must respond situationally to threat and opportunity as well as set a direction that it returns to when discretion allows. PMOs must reflect reality, standards must describe reality

Our vote on your recommendation: Deferred

OriginalText

705

1.9.2 Project or Program Team

Your Recommendation

Reword to include a team’s most importat duties and scess criteria “A project team plans specific steps to achieve a specific tactical goal within agreed constraints. Once agreed the plan is followed by the team or exceptions are raised for decisions outside teh team’s remit. Intermedate report of metrics may aid portfolio oversight.

Your Justification

Current lines 706 et. seq. may be common but they contain teh seeds of failure – sucess is in planning as a team not following a plan – see the writings of Von Moelke and D D Eisenhower

Our vote on your recommendation: Accepted With Modification

Our justification: Thank you for your recommendation. The committee agrees with the basic principles in your comment and will revise the text to reflect your comment.

OriginalText

719

1.9.4 Project Managers

Your Recommendation

Add reference to “the project manager’s reporting line may be to a program manager or direct to a portfolio board/ manager”

Your Justification

Description of the project manager’s upward reporting line can better reflect likely senarios for addition of only a few words

Our vote on your recommendation: Accepted With Modification

Our justification: Thank you for your recommendation. The committee agrees with the basic principles in your comment and will revise the text to reflect your comment.

OriginalText

745 component is approved, the sponsor helps ensure that it performs according to plan and

Your Recommendation

change “plan” to “objectives”

Your Justification

The Sponsor is always accountable for the achievement of objectives but only in a project (and not even always) would we expect that to be wholly encapsulated in a plan. The plan is ephemeral the objective (while it may vary) has greater longevity – see the writings of Gen. Patten

Our vote on your recommendation: Accepted

Our justification:

OriginalText

732

1.9.5 Portfolio Governance

Your Recommendation

Discuss “Governance” and a “Board” much earlier in the section and in that discussion explore 1) the dimensions of portfolio oversight as given to an individual or a group with investment decision making duties and 2) the dimension of portfolio oversight as running from idea to embedded modus operandi versus running from commission of change to delivery of capability to operations. 3) explore how your standard interfaces and overlaps with guidace in/ from The OECD, COSO, “The Combined Code” and other listing regulations, Contract and company law including Sarbanes Oxley, et.al.

Your Justification

Seems to me that more cognisance needs to be taken of the context within which the people who be asked to implement this standard live than is evident from this introductory section A standard in isolation of teh world as it really is is not very useful. One that doesn’t explicitly link to governance regulations even if correct is devalued and will be less used.

Our vote on your recommendation: Deferred

OriginalText

753 This standard focuses on processes that are unique to the portfolio management field,

754 which is a subset of the portfolio management body of knowledge, and has

Your Recommendation

Add “Project” or better yet “change” before “portfolio management

Your Justification

This standard only covers a subset of teh Portfolio management field and then only a subset of the subset

Our vote on your recommendation: Rejected

Our justification: Thank you for your recommendation. No substantive improvement in content – the content is needed to prepare the context for the rest of the standard.

OriginalText

144 portfolio of projects, programs, and other work. This includes, but is not limited to:

Your Recommendation

This is first use of ethe “other work” phrase and should explicitly reference day to day operations

Your Justification

The “Portfolio” is ALL the organisation’s work – which is for most organisations, most of teh time mostly client facing service/ product delivery. Only in the case of the specifically qualified “Portfolio of change activities” is “project and programme” the predominant acticity. To use teh phrase “projects, programmes and other work” in the context of just “portfolio” not “change portfolio” is a misleading emphasis

Our vote on your recommendation: Accepted With Modification

Our justification: Thank you for your recommendation. The committee agrees with the basic principles in your comment and will revise the text to reflect your comment.

OriginalText

775 Portfolio management is a process that enables executive management to meet organizational

776 goals and objectives through efficient decision making concerning projects, programs, and

777 other work. Portfolio management is performed in an environment broader than the portfolio

778 itself. Its roles and processes span the organization.

Your Recommendation

Reflect the true sentiment of this paragraph in all those previous paragraphs taht present the portfolio as if it is just about change.

Your Justification

The caveat given earlier that the document focusses on ‘project portfolio’ even when just saying “portfolio” is inadequate to ensure good communication o thise who don’t already know teh subject well – indeed your document is ambigious about when commentary is applicable across the whole portfolio and when comments are mostly focussed on activities creating change to the organisation’s existing modus operandi

Our vote on your recommendation: Accepted With Modification

Our justification: Thank you for your recommendation. The committee agrees with some or all of the basic principles in your comment and will revise the text to reflect your comment.

OriginalText

783 to how well they are performing in relation to the key indicators and the organizational

Your Recommendation

define “the key indicators” or drop the word “the”

Your Justification

grammer dictates taht “the” is a reference to something previously distinguished but you’ve not yet introduced the notion of indicators or distinguies which are key

Our vote on your recommendation: Editorial

Our justification: Thank you for your recommendation. The Committee has determined that it is editorial in nature and has forwarded it to the PMI Editor for consideration.

OriginalText

95 1.8 Role of the Portfolio Manager

Your Recommendation

Add discyssion of teh portfolio function and then the concept of the function’s duties being assigned to an individual

Your Justification

Portfolio management is a FUNCTION, that may be vested in an individual but in most organisations, most of eth time is a board. Where the portfolio function is vested in an individual then it is normally the IT director as owner of the infrastructure – networks, back-up capabiity etc and owner of eth resource pool for application development. – Is this standard written exclusively by and for the ICT community ! – Lets hope not

Our vote on your recommendation: Rejected

Our justification: Thank you for your recommendation. Your recommendation is covered in another section of the Standard.

OriginalText

802 The portfolio manager must also review the portfolio for balance (short-term versus

803 long-term return and risk versus benefit) and negotiate agreement(s) with relevant

804 strategic stakeholders (e.g., executive management, operations, or program management).

Your Recommendation

Consider the meaning of this segment and its implications across the whole of your document- what is described here is the combined role of the Chairman of teh Board, the Chief Executive and the exec and non-exec director. A far reaching shift in the conceptual foundations of eth document are needed to provide something taht really supports the operatin of organisations

Your Justification

as above

Our vote on your recommendation: Deferred

OriginalText

811 and will provide feedback to the portfolio manager. The portfolio manager should establish

812 criteria for governance actions, such as deciding when projects/programs should proceed,

813 be terminated, or suspended prior to originally planned completion dates. The processes

Your Recommendation

Again: reference the officers of the company as having the duty to decide the organisation’s criteria for appropriate composition of the portfolio

Your Justification

change (projects) is directed at teh company’s short & long term capability and this IS the defined duties of thhe executive & non-exec board of managemnt

Our vote on your recommendation: Deferred

OriginalText

835

2.3 Establishing a Portfolio Management Process

Your Recommendation

Add (replace current words to say) justification for introducing portfolio management is normally a need to de-bottleneck demands on rare skills that are creating log-jams

Your Justification

Standard must reflect corporate reality if it is to be credible

Our vote on your recommendation: Accepted With Modification

Our justification: Thank you for your recommendation. The committee agrees with some or all of the basic principles in your comment and will revise the text to reflect your comment.

OriginalText

848

2.3.1 Assess the Current State of the Portfolio Management Process

Your Recommendation

Shorten section to remove basic, valueless commentary

Your Justification

“assess…processes…insight asto what…exists” is hardly ‘informative or insightful. Thus the document is long without being valuable – shorten or increase the insight

Our vote on your recommendation: Accepted With Modification

Our justification: Thank you for your recommendation. The committee agrees with some or all of the basic principles in your comment and will revise the text to reflect your comment.

OriginalText

868 • Level of discontentment with the current practices.

Your Recommendation

reword to be neutral not emotive Eg “Determine priorities” or “Assess opinions”

Your Justification

emotive language and pre-judged bias has no place in a standard

Our vote on your recommendation: Accepted With Modification

Our justification: Thank you for your recommendation. The committee agrees with the basic principles in your comment and will revise the text to reflect your comment.

OriginalText

870 • Misinformation that exists that needs to be addressed.

Your Recommendation

Reword to be neutral and factual Eg “Information needs and the degre to which they are met in an acurate and timely manner”

Your Justification

emotive language and pre-judged bias has no place in a standard

Our vote on your recommendation: Accepted With Modification

Our justification: Thank you for your recommendation. The committee agrees with the basic principles in your comment and will revise the text to reflect your comment.

OriginalText

873 OPM3® is example of an assessment tool that can be used. The maturity assessments permit

Your Recommendation

reword “opm3 is AN example….

Your Justification

grammer

Our vote on your recommendation: Editorial

Our justification: Thank you for your recommendation. The Committee has determined that it is editorial in nature and has forwarded it to the PMI Editor for consideration.

OriginalText

876 focus on specific functions (project, program, and portfolio. These assessments allow the

Your Recommendation

add missing “)”

Your Justification

missing

Our vote on your recommendation: Editorial

Our justification: Thank you for your recommendation. The Committee has determined that it is editorial in nature and has forwarded it to the PMI Editor for consideration.

OriginalText

879

2.3.2 Define the Portfolio Management Vision and Plan

Your Recommendation

Add note that vision evolves

Your Justification

to counter the erroneous impression that this is all just at the beginning

Our vote on your recommendation: Deferred

OriginalText

880 When using this standard, the end state vision for portfolio management is defined and

881 vision for portfolio management is documented. This vision should be in alignment with the

Your Recommendation

add missing word “and THE vision for…”

Your Justification

missing word

Our vote on your recommendation: Accepted With Modification

Our justification: Thank you for your recommendation. The committee agrees with some or all of the basic principles in your comment and will revise the text to reflect your comment.

OriginalText

888 Program and project plans are created for the near term efforts.

Your Recommendation

delete program

Your Justification

while possible it is unlikely that installing portfolio management is a program rather than a project – certainly not “most of teh time”

Our vote on your recommendation: Accepted With Modification

Our justification: Thank you for your recommendation. The committee agrees with some or all of the basic principles in your comment and will revise the text to reflect your comment.

OriginalText

896

2.3.3 Implement the Portfolio Management Processes

Your Recommendation

simplfy

Your Justification

The process just isn’t this complex

Our vote on your recommendation: Accepted With Modification

Our justification: Thank you for your recommendation. The committee agrees with some or all of the basic principles in your comment and will revise the text to reflect your comment.

OriginalText

903 • Define responsibilities for portfolio management-related roles and identify staff

904 the portfolio manager; and

Your Recommendation

reword to “…staff AND the portfolio….”

Your Justification

missing word

Our vote on your recommendation: Accepted With Modification

Our justification: Thank you for your recommendation. The committee agrees with some or all of the basic principles in your comment and will revise the text to reflect your comment.

OriginalText

907 Changing business processes within an organization is a difficult undertaking. Proactive

Your Recommendation

Consider teh documets purpose – is it a gyuide or a standard? As a standard it has too much ‘guidance’ but here we are being told “this is tough but guidance is out of scope”

Your Justification

inconsistent level or tone of guidance/ standard specification

Our vote on your recommendation: Editorial

Our justification: Thank you for your recommendation. The Committee has determined that it is editorial in nature and has forwarded it to the PMI Editor for consideration.

OriginalText

912

2.3.4 Improve the Portfolio Management Processes

Your Recommendation

retitle or amend contents

Your Justification

The content is currently metrics not process improvement Either way the two should match up so one or other or both need changing

Our vote on your recommendation: Accepted With Modification

Our justification: Thank you for your recommendation. The committee agrees with some or all of the basic principles in your comment and will revise the text to reflect your comment.

OriginalText

912

2.3.4 Improve the Portfolio Management Processes

Your Recommendation

Add or reposition to include concept that portfolio management may either be being installed or improved

Your Justification

both ideas need representation

Our vote on your recommendation: Deferred

OriginalText

926 Organizations have many standard and recurring processes. External requirements (such as

927 fiscal reporting) or internal requirements (such as quarterly budget revisions) may drive

928 these organizational processes as well as portfolio management processes. While portfolio

Your Recommendation

reword to express taht the processes ARE the constituients of THE portfolio (but are not necessarily parts of eth portfolio of projects and programmes)

Your Justification

currently the concept of portfolio is missexpressed or implicitly reinterpretted only as change oriented

Our vote on your recommendation: Accepted With Modification

Our justification: Thank you for your recommendation. The committee agrees with some or all of the basic principles in your comment and will revise the text to reflect your comment.

OriginalText

930 scheduled start and end) certain activities may follow a regular timeframe annually as

Your Recommendation

delete annually

Your Justification

“regular” is suffieceint to include annually and quarterly etc

Our vote on your recommendation: Accepted With Modification

Our justification: Thank you for your recommendation. The committee agrees with some or all of the basic principles in your comment and will revise the text to reflect your comment.

OriginalText

938 The portfolio management information system (PMIS) consists of the tools and techniques

Your Recommendation

differentiate from PMIS as used in pmbok-guide eg PPPMIS Portfolio & Program & Project MIS

Your Justification

redfeines a term in widespread use through pmbok guide

Our vote on your recommendation: Deferred

OriginalText

950 • Software tools,

951 • Document repository and document version control systems,

952 • Change or configuration management systems,

953 • Risk database and analysis tools,

954 • Financial management systems,

955 • Earned value management processes and tools,

956 • Communication management processes and tools, and

957 • Other tools and processes required to support portfolio management.

Your Recommendation

divide mixed list into enablers and subjects or contents IE Software & skills are enablers while ‘earned value’ or ‘scope and quality definition’ are topics/ subjects/ contents of tools & tchniques

Your Justification

confusion of sperate categories of information weakes the standard’s clarity and applicability

Our vote on your recommendation: Deferred

OriginalText

964 may assume all or some of the portfolio management responsibilities including making

965 review board decisions.

Your Recommendation

Move to much earlier in the document

Your Justification

A key point that needs to be communicated ealier than this

Our vote on your recommendation: Deferred

OriginalText

958

2.6 Portfolio Management Governance

Your Recommendation

Describe the relationship between a Portfolio manager and a Portfolio Management Board – eg Manager is Chair of this board?

Your Justification

Two entities with duties and authority and no description of teh linkage between them

Our vote on your recommendation: Rejected

Our justification: Thank you for your recommendation. The standard is descriptive and the recommended change could be prescriptive.

OriginalText

975 Typical stakeholders may include CEO and other executives, functional management, legal,

Your Recommendation

Delete “may”

Your Justification

CEO must be a stakeholder in a portfolio even if eth ceo has 100,000 staff and this portfolio covers 10 of them the CEO is still a stakeholder

Our vote on your recommendation: Editorial

Our justification: Thank you for your recommendation. The Committee has determined that it is editorial in nature and has forwarded it to the PMI Editor for consideration.

OriginalText

976 finance, human resources, PMO and program/project teams, and others.

Your Recommendation

delete “others”

Your Justification

useless in a standard as it provides no guidance. The scentence may have been better structures as “Stakehoders include but are not limited to….” as this is providing guidance

Our vote on your recommendation: Accepted With Modification

Our justification: Thank you for your recommendation. The committee agrees with the basic principles in your comment and will revise the text to reflect your comment.

OriginalText

978 Successful portfolio management requires all management levels to effectively support the

Your Recommendation

rationalise the number of duplication of eth same point – in this case “we need support to suceed”

Your Justification

A standard must be succinct, unambigious etc etc and reptition in different words of eth same point in many places creates a fragmented,ambigious, rambling shambles from which it is hard to isolate key concepts and profound truths, limits and principles

Our vote on your recommendation: Accepted With Modification

Our justification: Thank you for your recommendation. The committee agrees with the basic principles in your comment and will revise the text to reflect your comment.

OriginalText

982 and dynamics brought to bear by the stakeholders. The art of portfolio management is to

Your Recommendation

reconsider teh document title: EG “Guidance for Best Practice Portfoilo Management”

Your Justification

The word “art” worries me in a document of this nature – how can you have a “Standrad” for art? Art is probably an appropriate word and therefore proof the document title isin error. It is a very profound mistake to publish under the wrong title as the title sets teh tone, intent and thrustof the whole topic treatment Your either putting something on a bookshelf to sell copies based on the organisation’s name or you really want to improve the global ability to execute – choose the title wisely

Our vote on your recommendation: Accepted With Modification

Our justification: Thank you for your recommendation. The committee agrees with the basic principles in your comment and will revise the text to reflect your comment.

OriginalText

988

2.8.1 Organizational Culture

989 The organization as a whole must understand the organization’s need for portfolio

990 management and commit its leadership, resources (i.e., people, capital, and equipment),

991 processes, and tools to make it successful. It is important that the philosophy of

992 portfolio management permeates the entire organization. This means that all other

Your Recommendation

Move to be much earlier in teh document.

Your Justification

This is a key point and the tone of the preceeding 1,000 lines is not well representative of this philosophical outlook or its significance See comments at line 1,000 et seq

Our vote on your recommendation: Deferred

OriginalText

1000 management is a major obstacle to portfolio management success. The portfolio management

1001 process and the decisions resulting from it need to be accepted by all levels within the

1002 organization. There is a risk that, while the process is accepted conceptually by senior

1003 executives in the organization, the resulting decisions may not be accepted. Consequently,

1004 failure to accept and act on portfolio management decisions could pervade the

1005 organization.

Your Recommendation

Tighten the writing to remove duplications and wordy low value passages BECAUSE this document increases the threat that executives who truly hold portfolio management responsibilities simply wont find teh content real-world

Your Justification

The document accentuates rather than combats the threat of non-acceptance – not because it isn’t needed but because the description as given here isn’t close enough to reality

Our vote on your recommendation: Accepted With Modification

Our justification: Thank you for your recommendation. The committee agrees with the basic principles in your comment and will revise the text to reflect your comment.

OriginalText

1002 organization. There is a risk that, while the process is accepted conceptually by senior

Your Recommendation

change “risk” to “threat”

Your Justification

if as you embrace “risk is uncertainty of outcome whether positive or negative” then in this statement where you mean a negative outcome the correct word is threat not risk

Our vote on your recommendation: Accepted With Modification

Our justification: Thank you for your recommendation. The committee agrees with the basic principles in your comment and will revise the text to reflect your comment.

OriginalText

1012 handle organizational change. The degree of organizational change that the organization is

1013 willing to accept as a whole may be one of the factors used in determining the balance of

1014 the portfolio. This is related to the strategic goals of the organization which serve as

Your Recommendation

Emphasis and maybe move earlier

Your Justification

Essential point ‘hidden’ in a mass of low value words

Our vote on your recommendation: Accepted With Modification

Our justification: Thank you for your recommendation. The committee agrees with the basic principles in your comment and will revise the text to reflect your comment.

OriginalText

1026 management. An example is the lack of a consistent resource assignment process to support

Your Recommendation

change “consistant” to “effective”

Your Justification

we DON’T want consistancy for consistancy’s sake we want appropriate which means it is situational and different where context is different. Consistent is only a bonus when context is unchanged – which just isn’t teh world of projects, programmes and change portfolios – this sort of wolly thinking and uninsightful thinking pervades teh whole document eroding the qualities it would need if it were to excell and we really do need an excellent set of insights into how to handle corporate change because thus far we are not good at it – poor guidance is 1/2 the problem and non-application of good guidance is teh other half

Our vote on your recommendation: Accepted With Modification

Our justification: Thank you for your recommendation. The committee agrees with the basic principles in your comment and will revise the text to reflect your comment.

OriginalText

1035 Portfolio management is a set of interrelated, strategic organizational management

Your Recommendation

Consolidate with line 228

Your Justification

228 and 1035 both claim to tell us what portfolio management “IS”. A standard should not creae multiple definitions that use different words and have varying emphasis – it weakens the definitive and authorative strength needed for a standard

Our vote on your recommendation: Accepted With Modification

Our justification: Thank you for your recommendation. The committee agrees with the basic principles in your comment and will revise the text to reflect your comment.

OriginalText

1041 In order to be successful, the portfolio manager needs to:

1042 • Understand the organizational strategy,

1043 • Establish strategic organizational criteria for managing the portfolio,

1044 • Consider all of the organization’s projects, programs, and other portfolio components, and

1045 • Follow agreed-upon processes mandated by the organization or selected by the team.

Your Recommendation

Add discussion of authority, up and down from the point at which portfolio decision making occurs

Your Justification

its crucial to understand how delegation and escalation of decisions works

Our vote on your recommendation: Rejected

Our justification: Thank you for your recommendation. No substantive improvement in content – the content is addressed in detail in another section of the standard.

OriginalText

1042 • Understand the organizational strategy,

Your Recommendation

change organisatinal to “organisation’s”

Your Justification

We may be interested in teh discipline of “organisational strategy” but we MUST understand THIS organisation’S strategy – the spicific rather than the general Again sloppy writing tha blurs the shar edges taht a standard needs if it is to be robust, a foundation and understood across cultures and by those to whom it is a foreign language – both the concepts embodied and the use of English to convey them

Our vote on your recommendation: Editorial

Our justification: Thank you for your recommendation. The Committee has determined that it is editorial in nature and has forwarded it to the PMI Editor for consideration.

OriginalText

1047 system consisting of strategic, functional, and operational organizational portfolio

Your Recommendation

Reflect this (and line 1064 et.al) statement’s CORRECT quaification of portfolios such as “operational portfolio” (L1064 “project portfolis”) into EVERY other use of eth word portfolio across the document

Your Justification

Currently the document does not discriminate portfolio sub-types where that differentiation IS MATERIAL to clear communication

Our vote on your recommendation: Rejected

Our justification: Thank you for your recommendation. No substantive improvement in content – the content is addressed in detail in another section of the standard.

OriginalText

1055 Portfolio management is accomplished through processes using relevant knowledge, skills,

Your Recommendation

Delete the sentence, ditto at line 1059

Your Justification

noise, words taht take space and add no insight – they make teh document longer which means it will be less widely read and less influential. Sentences with the same lack of value account for at least 1/3 of teh first 1,000 lines, and with effort applied to the editing 1,000 lines could become 350 that say more and say it more clearly and wil be accessed by more people as a result

Our vote on your recommendation: Accepted With Modification

Our justification: Thank you for your recommendation. The committee agrees with the basic principles in your comment and will revise the text to reflect your comment.

OriginalText

1056 tools, and techniques that receive inputs and generate outputs. A process is a set of

Your Recommendation

Starting “A process…” move to teh glossay

Your Justification

Definig “process” should not be embeded in the body of the text – especially when so many more deserving terms are unexplained (eg Criteria)

Our vote on your recommendation: Accepted With Modification

Our justification: Thank you for your recommendation. The committee agrees with some or all of the basic principles in your comment and will revise the text to reflect your comment.

OriginalText

1073 Portfolio managers and their teams should carefully address each process and its

Your Recommendation

Explain “portfolio manager’s team”

Your Justification

Does running a portfolio use an administrative team? is the “team” comprised of eth project/ programme managers orchestrating management of change activity and or technical staff executing tasks in the projects. This is teh first time a “team” working for eth portfolio manager” has been introduced, yet it is without description or qualification or context

Our vote on your recommendation: Accepted With Modification

Our justification: Thank you for your recommendation. The committee agrees with some or all of the basic principles in your comment and will revise the text to reflect your comment.

OriginalText

1077 Portfolio management is an integrative undertaking requiring organizational strategy as

1078 well as program/project processes to be aligned and connected with other processes to

Your Recommendation

consolidate with other repetitions of this same point

Your Justification

duplication of points weakens attempts to create a succinct, readable, unambigious standard

Our vote on your recommendation: Accepted

Our justification: Thank you for your recommendation. The committee agrees with the basic principles in your comment and will revise the text to reflect your comment.

OriginalText

1081 deliver capabilities back to the organization. Actions taken during one process typically

Your Recommendation

Emphasis “delivers capability back to the organisation”

Your Justification

Key point hidden in a sea of words

Our vote on your recommendation: Rejected

Our justification: Thank you for your recommendation. No substantive improvement in content – the content is needed to prepare the context for the rest of the standard.

OriginalText

1081 deliver capabilities back to the organization. Actions taken during one process typically

Your Recommendation

change “organisation” to “operational portfolio”

Your Justification

We need consistant and lucid expression of what, conceptually and actuall is being done if this document is to be a meaningful, reliable standard or source of quidance

Our vote on your recommendation: Rejected

Our justification: Thank you for your recommendation. Recommended change conflicts with other generally accepted material in standard.

OriginalText

1141 complex series of iterative and continuous processes. This is in contrast to programs and

1142 projects, which are temporary and finite. These processes accommodate organizational

Your Recommendation

delete teh “temporary / finite sentence ”

Your Justification

This point has been stated umpteen times – once in the narrative is enough, and possible repetition in each relevant glossary item is justified but scattering it through the document legthens without adding value and thus dilutes and weakens the standard

Our vote on your recommendation: Accepted With Modification

Our justification: Thank you for your recommendation. The committee agrees with the basic principles in your comment and will revise the text to reflect your comment.

OriginalText

1169

Your Recommendation

Move EEF out of the “Asset” box or relabel it “context”

Your Justification

EEF are not assets but the they part of the context

Our vote on your recommendation: Accepted With Modification

Our justification: Thank you for your recommendation. The committee agrees with the basic principles in your comment and will revise the text to reflect your comment.

OriginalText

1169

Your Recommendation

Describe teh elements shown within the diagram (like “roadmap” vesus “strategy” and “plan”) before grouping to contextualising as elements of a super-class

Your Justification

Introduction of these concepts/ elements without desciption means the section can only be comprehended by reading the document twice so that second time through the component parts are understood and thus the grouping has meaning to the reader

Our vote on your recommendation: Accepted With Modification

Our justification: Thank you for your recommendation. The committee agrees with the basic principles in your comment and will revise the text to reflect your comment.

OriginalText

1176 • Analyzing—Inputs are analyzed and information derived from the analysis that

1177 creates an output of the process;

Your Recommendation

Reword “inputs are analysed….that cretes an output…” isn’t gramatical – just what to you mean? perform analysis or sythesise elements into some output (or both?”

Your Justification

Currently unclear what the meaning is

Our vote on your recommendation: Accepted With Modification

Our justification: Thank you for your recommendation. The committee agrees with the basic principles in your comment and will revise the text to reflect your comment.

OriginalText

1188

3.1.2.1 Portfolio Process Assets

Your Recommendation

Reconsider expression of process assets throughout eth document to reflect a consistent hierarchy and groupings

Your Justification

portfolio process assets are simply a subset of organisational process assets taht group over the topic of portfolios – PPA are A PART of OPA and should be shown as such for robust description of the real-world reality thaht implementors will face when acquiring/ creating/ deploying and when assgning ownership/ maintenance dutues and usage rights to these assets

Our vote on your recommendation: Rejected

Our justification: Thank you for your recommendation. Recommended change conflicts with specific wording, vocabulary, or definitions used in standard.

OriginalText

1195 risk and performance data. The portfolio manager is generally responsible for updating and

1196 adding to the portfolio process assets as necessary, as follows:

Your Recommendation

Clarify rights and duties

Your Justification

Does a portfolio manager define proceses etc or are they obliged to use them (or both) I would expect a governance function to define and a portfolio manager be obliged to tailor and apply situationally – whether that portfolio fuction is a person or a board

Our vote on your recommendation: Rejected

Our justification: Thank you for your recommendation. No substantive improvement in content – the content is addressed in detail in other sections of the standard.

OriginalText

1195 risk and performance data. The portfolio manager is generally responsible for updating and

1196 adding to the portfolio process assets as necessary, as follows:

Your Recommendation

Clarify list of duties with respect to decision making in teh portfolio’s execution

Your Justification

I would expect a portfolio management function (person or board) to allocate resources – money but more importantly skilled resource – and crucially set the delegation/ escalation process in place – it is the flow down of delivery responsibilities and teh flow up of contradictions and the need for authority thaht is most profoundly a differentiator betweenn those organisatios that flounder and those that suceed

Our vote on your recommendation: Rejected

Our justification: Thank you for your recommendation. No substantive improvement in content – the content is addressed in detail in other sections of the standard.

OriginalText

1232 distribution system, or web interfaces to other online automated systems);

Your Recommendation

generalise “web interfaces”

Your Justification

The true need is “access to information” and that does not equate to what is accessed via the http protocol and encoded in html – there are many other encodings and protocols (like penscil an paper and English)

Our vote on your recommendation: Accepted With Modification

Our justification: Thank you for your recommendation. The committee agrees with the basic principles in your comment and will revise the text to reflect your comment.

OriginalText

1235 • Organizational work authorization systems.

Your Recommendation

Expand to differentiate (or at least recognise) authorisation at eth ‘project in portfolio level’ is different from authorisation of a work-package in project level – so probably this bullet should be “Project Authorisation System (PAS)” and WAS should be reserved to the PMBOK Guide for work-packages or “Organisational work authorisation systems at project and work-package levels”

Your Justification

Currently proposed usage creates ambigity for this standard AND weakens the existing PMBoK Guide usage of eth term

Our vote on your recommendation: Accepted With Modification

Our justification: Thank you for your recommendation. The committee agrees with the basic principles in your comment and will revise the text to reflect your comment.

OriginalText

1238 under the control of the portfolio organization, which influence, constrain, or direct a

Your Recommendation

Reword to rflectthe fact that EEF are context and factors have vary degree of influence – EG L1251 The organisation definately has influence and probably huge power over its personnel admistration. Indeed much portfolio management IS preciscly control over headcounts assigned where in respons to share-price and market conditions wich are all EEF and over which teh portfolio itself and teh hostingorganisation have varying degrees of influence

Your Justification

Wrong as stated

Our vote on your recommendation: Rejected

Our justification: Thank you for your recommendation. Recommended change conflicts with specific wording, vocabulary, or definitions used in standard.

OriginalText

1269

Your Recommendation

Row 1 column 2: clarify – why is “purpose” discussing strategic plan? Surely teh PURPOSE of a strategy is to set direction, Further: Strategy is made concrete by re-expression as a set of OBJECTIVES each of which must be bounded and either measurable or binary in nature. The plan is then a description of the intended steps (technical, quality, risk and management) by which objectives are pursued. A plan is created to assess practcality within constraints and communicate duties and timings to participants

Your Justification

Fails to describe the juxtapositioning of important concepts as currently expressed

Our vote on your recommendation: Accepted With Modification

Our justification: Thank you for your recommendation. The committee agrees with the basic principles in your comment and will revise the text to reflect your comment.

OriginalText

1269

Your Recommendation

Row 2 Colum 2: Reword A Strategic Plan does not justify anything (unless politics is seeking to sway opinions). What it should do is expresses the factors in a justification that aid decision makers decide if there is a net currentor future benefit to their stakeholding community

Your Justification

Profoundly, if subtely corrupted thinking expressed as currently worded. It is precisiely this sort of misconceptualisation that is keeping PM in the realm of disappointing performer at every level of human endeavor

Our vote on your recommendation: Accepted With Modification

Our justification: Thank you for your recommendation. The committee agrees with the basic principles in your comment and will revise the text to reflect your comment.

OriginalText

1322

Section 3 – Portfolio Management Knowledge Areas

Your Recommendation

make consistant with outher sections eg section 2 is “Section II” – should this one be “III”?

Your Justification

inconsistent with presentation in at least line1032

Our vote on your recommendation: Editorial

Our justification: Thank you for your recommendation. The Committee has determined that it is editorial in nature and has forwarded it to the PMI Editor for consideration.

OriginalText

3465 capabilities. The objectives of Portfolio Risk Management are to increase the probability

Your Recommendation

Reword to embrace correct concepts

Your Justification

Portfolio Risk Management IS primarily about providing reserves (or contingencies) across the threat pool within the component programmes and projects. The portfolio is in a position to hold an aggregate contingency pot to cover threats whose expected monetary value is an unreliable guide to contingenies due to a less than statistically significant number of risks within an individual initiative – typically threats with high impact and low probability. A portfolio MAY also aggregate risk responses by commanality of some characteristic, but otherwise the nature of a portfolio as an collection of initiatives only coincidentally coupled and not joined by outcome (ie impact or consequnce of the opportunity) means there isnt a “portfolio risk management” element – it is contingency provision TO the constituient projects and programs where the components cannot economically fund protection themselves from threats – mostly we call it underwritting and its exactly what “Insurance” is all about. The opportunity side at equity protection level IS the consideration of WHY we would sanction an initiative to be in the portfolio in the first place

Our vote on your recommendation: Accepted With Modification

Our justification: Thank you for your recommendation. The committee agrees with the basic principles in your comment and will revise the text to reflect your comment.

OriginalText

3502 To identify external competitor risks and opportunities, significant amounts of data are

Your Recommendation

change “risk” to “threat”

Your Justification

inapproprate use of terms. A risk is uncertainty…plus or minus” so use either “risk” or use “threat or opportunity” but do not say “risk or opportunity” as it shows the section authors thinking isn’t consistent, clear, reasoned, deep or rigerous. Illustrates therefore that other key insights will have been missed and begs the questions “what would better thinking have revealed?”

Our vote on your recommendation: Accepted With Modification

Our justification: Thank you for your recommendation. The committee agrees with the basic principles in your comment and will revise the text to reflect your comment.

OriginalText

4217

Your Recommendation

Profound rethinking is needed

Your Justification

Portfolio management is the balancing of all factors affecting use of a pool of capital by people with shared perception of how to interact for their mutual benefit – this standard mostly just describes portfolio management as super project management or PM with bells on – sure there are some valid insights and extensions, there are also misconceptions, obfuscations, duplications and fragmentations that all in all mean portfolio management is not advanced as a discipline: it is damaged In all it is sad because the PMI’s wealth and momentum makes delivery of better guidance harder

Our vote on your recommendation: Deferred

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