Making R&D Portfolio Management More Effective

OVERVIEW:R&D organizations are among the leading users of project portfolio management (PPM). PPM plays a critical role in making R&D investments more productive in terms of delivering desired results. PPM performance can be improved by benchmarking PPM performance against best practices and improving those practices that fall below best practice standards. This paper presents a benchmarking study focused on PPM best practices in R&D organizations, including benchmarking data and some general findings supported by that data. The best use of the benchmarking database is to analyze the process in individual organizations, identify key challenges and areas for improvement, and make appropriate recommendations on how to improve PPM processes to make them more effective.