Effective Communication in Strategic Portfolio Management

The National Guard

Experts consider communication to be a key process underlying all aspects of organisational management. Organisational communication is “the social glue… that continues to keep the organisation tied together” and “the essence of organisation”. Basically, the structure, extensiveness and scope of the organisation are almost entirely determined by communication techniques.

In Strategic Portfolio Management terms, it means that for every US$1 billion invested, US$135 million is at risk out of which 56% percent (US$75 million) is at risk due to ineffective communications according to the Project Management Institute’s Pulse of the Profession report. However, before seeing how best address it in your organisation, it is important to understand how the discipline itself has evolved.

On the concept and processes forefront:

• Portfolio Management becomes more strategic: the propagation of Markowitz’s portfolio theory, a growing focus on cost visibility and the importance given firm-wide to accountability and governance implied that portfolio management now attempts to answer the ‘Catch 22’ problem according to which strategy without action is only a daydream, but action without strategy is a nightmare.
• Technology itself is changing the nature of the relations between stakeholders…