What are action items in portfolio and project management terms?

An action item is a specific task assigned to someone, usually with a deadline, coming out of a meeting or review.

In PPM tools, this is one of the smallest units of accountability in project tracking. Typically logged with an owner, a due date, and a status. Most PPM tools can generate these automatically from meeting notes or status reports and track them through to closure.

What is an approvers workflow in portfolio and project management terms?

An approval workflow is the automated sequence of sign-offs a request, change, or stage needs before it can move forward.

In PPM software, approval workflows route items like business cases, change requests, or gate decisions to the right approvers based on pre-defined rules (such as project type, workflows or senior sign-off). Effective approval workflows minimize the need to chase overdue approvals and keep a manual audit trail of who approved what and when – because the current status is always tracked and visible in real time.

What are assumption logs in portfolio and project management terms?

An assumption log is a running record of things the project team believes to be true but hasn’t confirmed.

This often forms part of the standard RAID (Risks, Assumptions, Issues, Dependencies) documentation that’s used to track project uncertainty. Assumptions that prove false are usually converted into risks or issues, so many PPM tools link the two records together.

What is automated reporting in portfolio and project management terms?

Automated reporting is when a PPM system generates status updates, dashboards, or executive summaries on a schedule, pulling live data instead of someone building slides by hand.

This is one of the most searched-for PPM capabilities, largely because manual status reporting eats a huge amount of Project Managers’ time. Modern tools schedule recurring reports, populate them from live project data, and distribute them automatically, cutting out the copy-paste cycle that used to precede every steering committee meeting. The more mature versions let recipients drill down from a summary chart into the underlying project detail/portfolio data.

What is a balanced scorecard in portfolio and project management terms?

A balanced scorecard measures performance across four angles (financial, customer, internal process, learning/growth) instead of just looking at the numbers.

Developed by Kaplan and Norton in the early 1990s, a balanced scorecard is used at the organizational and portfolio level to make sure strategic performance isn’t judged on financial metrics alone. In PPM, it’s often adapted into a scoring model for prioritizing competing project proposals.

What is a baseline in portfolio and project management terms?

A baseline is the original approved version of a project’s schedule, cost, or scope, used as the fixed reference point for measuring change later.

Once a baseline is set, typically at a defined point in a project (for example once the requirements and expected outcomes are defined) any variance in actual performance is measured against the baseline rather than being seen as a constantly moving value.

PPM tools make baseline tracking easy, because they typically let you snapshot a baseline and then track drift automatically as the live plan changes. Variance, against baseline values, will indicate whether the values are ahead of (or behind) expectations.

Baselines in PPM tools tend to focus on: Metrics & KPIs, Dates in the project plan, or known risks / expected benefits that are already known near the start of the project.

What is budget variance in portfolio and project management terms?

Budget variance is the gap between what a project was supposed to cost and what it’s actually costing.

Related to baselines, budget variance is usually expressed as a percentage or a raw currency figure (against a baseline value), and reported alongside schedule variance as one of the two headline health indicators on a project dashboard.

What is a business case in portfolio and project management terms?

A business case is the justification that lays out why a project should happen, what it will cost, what it will deliver, and what happens if you don’t do it.

Often a form or physical document that sits at the front end of most phase-gate and portfolio prioritization processes, where a project’s expected benefits, cost, risk, and strategic fit are set out for the first time.

A good business case includes a cost-benefit analysis, a rough ROI or payback period, key assumptions, and alternatives considered (including doing nothing or deliberately rejecting the business case).

PPM software can simplify the process of building business cases through the use of templated forms and workflows. Here, users build their business case from within the system based on factors that the organization considers important to capture. This ensures that every proposal can be compared on the same criteria, and against other, potentially more desirable, options. The approved figures in a business case typically become the baseline value that any subsequent benefit tracking measures against later.

What is CAPEX in portfolio and project management terms?

CAPEX stands for capital expenditure or capital expense. It is the money a business spends to buy, build, or upgrade long-term physical and intangible assets like buildings, machinery, vehicles, or software.

Unlike its related sibling Operating Expense (described below), Capital Expense (CAPEX) is the money spent on longer-term assets. It goes on the balance sheet and is written off over time through depreciation costs.

In PPM terms, this may be the tracking of things like:

• Property, offices, land, and warehouses
• Equipment: Factory machinery, computers, and company cars
• Intangibles: Software, patents, and trademarks

What is a change log in portfolio and project management terms?

A change request is a formal ask to alter something already agreed, like scope, budget, or timeline.

Change requests are usually logged, assessed for impact, then approved or rejected. Typically through a change control process, and usually with a defined approval workflow so scope doesn’t creep in unnoticed.

What is a cost-benefit analysis in portfolio and project management terms?

A cost-benefit analysis weighs what a project will cost against what it’s expected to return, to help decide if it’s worth doing.

A cost-benefit analysis is often a standard input to a business case and to portfolio prioritization scoring. It can be as simple as a rough cost-versus-value comparison or as detailed as a full financial model that includes NPV and payback period calculations.

What is the Critical Path Method (CPM) in portfolio and project management terms?

The critical path method identifies the longest chain of dependent tasks in a project, which sets the minimum possible time the whole project can take.

Any delay to a task on the critical path delays the entire project, whereas tasks off the critical path have some slack (float) and can slip a little without affecting the end date. CPM has been a core scheduling technique since the 1950s and remains one of the most popular project management terms because it underpins how Gantt charts and scheduling software work.

Modern PPM tools like Bubble PPM calculate the critical path automatically as soon as tasks and dependencies are entered, recalculating it in real time whenever a task changes.

Knowing your critical path also tells you exactly where to focus if you need to compress a schedule, since speeding up non-critical tasks won’t change the finish date at all.

• More detailed descriptions exist on the websites of both the Institute of Project Management and the Project Management Institute (Note: Links open in a new window).

What is concept screening in portfolio and project management terms?

Concept screening is the early filtering step where raw ideas get assessed against basic criteria to decide which are worth developing further.

Concept screening often sits right after idea generation but before a full business case (see above) is built, using simple scoring criteria (strategic fit, feasibility, rough cost) to kill weak ideas early, before real money is spent on them.

In PPM software terms, concept screening may take the form of a project scorecard.

What is data visualization in portfolio and project management terms?

Data visualization is turning project or portfolio numbers into charts, heat maps, or trend graphs so patterns are easier to spot than in a table of figures.

Related to dashboards (above) data visualization covers everything from simple bar charts to interactive bubble charts plotting projects by risk versus value. Good visualization is what makes a dashboard actually usable rather than a wall of numbers.

What is decision gate in portfolio and project management terms?

A decision gate is the checkpoint in a project where leadership formally decides whether to continue, stop, pause, or redirect it.

Decision gates are essentially the same concept as a “gate” in stage/phase-gate management, phrased slightly differently. Decision gates are usually accompanied by a standard set of criteria and required deliverables that must be ready before the gate meeting happens. Failure by the project team to meet the required deliverables results in gate-keepers considering whether or not to continue, stop, pause, or redirect the project.

What is dependency mapping in portfolio and project management terms?

Dependency mapping is identifying and visualizing which tasks or projects rely on each other, so you know what has to happen before something else can start.

At the task level, dependency mapping feeds directly into critical path calculations. At the portfolio level, it shows where a delay in one project will ripple into others, which is one of the harder things to track manually and a big reason portfolio-level PPM tools exist.

What are deliverables in portfolio and project management terms?

A deliverable is a specific output a project produces, whether that’s a document, a piece of software, a report, or a physical product or service.

Deliverables are usually tied to milestones and gates, since most stage/phase-gate and New Product Development (NPD) processes require specific deliverables to be complete before a project can move to the next stage.

What is demand management in portfolio and project management terms?

Demand management is collecting, assessing, and prioritizing all the incoming requests for new projects or work before deciding what actually gets resourced.

Demand management sits at the front of the portfolio process, and often overlaps with idea management, business case assessment, prioritization and work intake. Its main job is to stop every incoming request from automatically becoming a funded project regardless of whether the organization has the capacity or strategic appetite for it.

What is an escalation path in portfolio and project management terms?

An escalation path is the predefined route an issue takes to reach someone with the authority to resolve it, when it can’t be sorted at the level it started at.

Escalation paths stop issues sitting unresolved because nobody was sure whose job it was to make the call. Most PMOs define these paths as part of their standard governance framework.

Escalation paths could relate to:

• Gate governance decisions
• Issue and Risk management decisions
• Change request decisions

What is an Estimate at Completion (EAC) in portfolio and project management terms?

An estimate at completion is the current forecast of what the total project will cost by the time it’s finished.

Estimate at Completion (EAC) is recalculated as the project progresses, using actual costs to date plus a revised estimate of remaining costs. It’s one of the standard outputs of earned value management (see description above).

What is an Estimate to Complete (ETC) in portfolio and project management terms?

An estimate to complete is the forecast cost of just the work that’s left to do, not including what’s already been spent.

Estimate to Complete (ETC) feeds directly into EAC (noting that EAC equals actual cost so far plus ETC) and is useful on its own for deciding whether remaining budget is sufficient to finish the work.

What is an executive sponsor in portfolio and project management terms?

An executive sponsor is the senior leader who champions a project, secures funding for it, and removes organizational roadblocks the project manager can’t clear alone.

Executive sponsors are not involved in day-to-day delivery, and in the case of PPM software are unlikely to take much interest in individual tactical project decisions, but they will likely be accountable for the project’s business case, responsible for signing off at major gate reviews and take a keen interest in program and portfolio insights.

What is financial forecasting in portfolio and project management terms?

Financial forecasting is predicting what a project, program, or portfolio will cost and return going forward, based on current trends and data.

Modern PPM tools increasingly automate financial forecasting by projecting forward from actual spend and progress data rather than requiring a Project Manager (PM) to rebuild a forecast manually every month. Some platforms layer in predictive analytics to flag when a forecast is likely to be optimistic based on how similar past projects actually played out.

What is fast tracking in portfolio and project management terms?

Fast tracking is compressing a schedule by running tasks in parallel that were originally planned to happen one after another.

Fast tracking is a common schedule compression technique that often sits alongside crashing (throwing more resources at the problem). While the technique can be effective, it also increases risk because tasks that often depend on each other’s outputs are now running at the same time in parallel.

What is funnel analysis in portfolio and project management terms?

Funnel analysis tracks how many ideas or proposals make it through each stage of a process, from initial submission down to approved and funded projects.

Funnel analysis is most often applied to the idea funnel or innovation funnel, showing conversion rates at each stage (submitted, screened, business case built, approved) and helping identify where good ideas are getting lost, or where too many weak ones are making it through.

What is a gate review in portfolio and project management terms?

A gate review is the formal meeting at the end of a project stage where decision-makers review progress and decide whether it moves forward.

The “gate” half of stage/phase-gate management outcomes are usually one of only four options: go (forward to the next stage), kill (the project), hold (the project or activity), or recycle (send back for rework in order to better meet the gate criteria).

To work effectively, and to ensure consistent governance across different projects, gate reviews tend to rely on a standard set of criteria and deliverables for each gate. PPM platforms present decision makers with an always live view of upcoming gates and overall gate-readiness (without having to know the full detail of delivery activity).

One of the key benefits of gate based governance is that decisions are consistent across projects rather than based on whichever team presents best.

What are Go/No-Go decisions in portfolio and project management terms?

A go/no-go decision is the yes-or-no call made at a gate review about whether a project continues to the next stage.

Go/No-Go decisions are meant to be a genuine decision point rather than a blind rubber stamping exercise. Mature stage/phase-gate processes make go/no-go decisions easier by defining clear, objective criteria in advance of the gate rather than leaving it to gut feel on the day.

Dr Robert G. Cooper, founder of Stage-Gate inc. and inventor of the Stage-Gate^® process, suggests that the go/no-go decision point should be considered as a double sided (project execution) “coin”. By authorizing a “go” decision, the project team are permitted to continue execution (in terms of delivery).  Conversely, when a “no-go” decision is made, the project is immediately executed (in terms of being ‘killed-off’).

What is a governance framework in portfolio and project management terms?

A governance framework is the set of rules, roles, and decision-making structures that determine how projects get approved, monitored, and controlled.

A governance framework defines who can approve what, at what cost threshold, and through which gates. In process mature organizations it’s usually owned and maintained by the Project Management Office (PMO).

A strong governance framework stops project approval turning into whoever shouts loudest getting funded.

What is goal cascading in portfolio and project management terms?

Goal cascading is breaking a top-level company objective down into smaller aligned goals for departments, teams, and individuals.

Goal cascading is often central to how Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) are meant to work in practice. They ensure a team’s quarterly or annual objectives actually connect back to company strategy rather than existing in isolation.

What is hypothesis validation in portfolio and project management terms?

Hypothesis validation is testing an assumption behind a new idea or product against real evidence before committing further investment.

Hypothesis validation is a core practice in early-stage innovation and New Product Development (NPD) work, where cheap, fast tests (e.g. customer interviews, product / service prototypes, small pilots) are used to prove or disprove an assumption before it becomes an expensive one to be wrong about.

In delivery terms, this often forms part of the initial stage of a project – sometimes known as Stage 0 – in stage/phase gate frameworks or as entirely separate idea projects that require validation before committing to a full project or further development.

What is innovation management in portfolio and project management terms?

Innovation management is how an organization systematically finds, develops, and funds new ideas, from research through to launched products or services.

Closely related to, and often including, ideation, innovation management covers the systematic and repeatable process for managing the whole innovation lifecycle. For example: idea generation and screening, concept development, business case building, and progression through a stage/phase-gate or similar process into a funded project. It also includes tracking products that have reached – or are nearing – the end of their useful lives.

A mature innovation management practice usually maintains an innovation portfolio deliberately balanced across strategic horizons, making it easy for the organization to track incremental improvements to existing products alongside a smaller number of bigger, riskier bets.

PPM software supports innovation management by connecting the idea management (front-end conceptualization) to the same stage/phase-gate and portfolio tracking used for regular projects. Meaning innovation work is measured and governed with the same rigor as everything else (instead of living off to the side in presentations, emails, and spreadsheets).

What is an issue log in portfolio and project management terms?

An issue log is a running record of problems that have already happened on a project and need to be resolved.

Unlike a risk (e.g. something that might happen), an issue is something that has happened.

An issue log tracks who owns fixing the issue, by when, and its current status. It is often the third leg of a RAID log alongside risks, assumptions and decisions and can be viewed as a set. Either at the project level, or rolled up – by project groupings or shared attributes at the portfolio level (e.g. grouped by project manager, program, country, business unit, brand etc).

What is investment prioritization in portfolio and project management terms?

Investment prioritization is ranking competing projects and initiatives to decide which ones get funded when there isn’t enough money or capacity for all of them.

Investment prioritization is a central activity of portfolio management that typically uses a mix of scoring models, cost-benefit analysis, and strategic alignment criteria (see above for definitions).

In PPM software terms, it’s often visualized through tools like an efficient frontier chart (balancing rate of return and risk tolerance), a simple value-versus-cost bubble chart or a formal prioritization list that’s automatically or manually updated to reflect strategic priorities and available resources.

What is a key result in portfolio and project management terms?

A key result is the specific, measurable outcome used to prove whether an objective in an OKR has actually been achieved.

Key results, is a component of Objectives and Key Results (OKR) defined below. Each objective typically has two to five key results attached. Unlike the objective, which can be aspirational and qualitative, key results are always numeric and time-bound so progress can be tracked without ambiguity.

In PPM software, OKRs are often tracked as portfolio level reports.

What is a knowledge management in portfolio and project management terms?

Knowledge management is the process of capturing what a project or organization has learned so that future projects or teams don’t have to relearn it from scratch.

Lessons learned is the process of documenting what went well and what didn’t on a project, so future projects can benefit from the experience. In PPM software terms, this most commonly shows up as a lessons learned log or repository, linked to project closure, that future project managers can search before starting something similar.

More mature organizations capture learned lessons throughout the project rather than only at the end, since memories fade and people move on.

The value only materializes if lessons are actually stored somewhere searchable and referenced by future teams, which is why PPM tools increasingly tag and index lessons learned against project type, so relevant ones surface automatically when a similar project is being planned. By digitizing the process of tracking lessons learned, repositories can rolled up to the portfolio level in order to track trends according to project type or common issues / risks etc.

What is milestone tracking in portfolio and project management terms?

Milestone tracking is monitoring the key dates a project must hit, distinct from routine tasks, usually because something important depends on them.

Milestones typically mark the end of a phase, a gate review, or a major deliverable (such as a launch date). PPM tools usually surface upcoming and overdue milestones automatically via e-mail alerts or on project, program or portfolio dashboards rather than requiring anyone to check manually.

What is market sizing in portfolio and project management terms?

Market sizing estimates how big the potential market is for a new product or idea, usually broken into total addressable market, serviceable addressable market, and serviceable obtainable market.

Market sizing is often a standard input to a business case for new product development, helping justify whether an opportunity is big enough to be worth the investment before committing to build anything.

PPM tools often have multiple mechanisms, from simple to complex, to track market size. Scorecards, Calculated metrics and Keywords are just some of the tools used to align projects to potential markets.

What is Net Present Value (NPV) in portfolio and project management terms?

Net present value is the value today of all the future cash a project is expected to generate, after accounting for the fact that money now is worth more than money later.

Net Present Value (NPV) is calculated by discounting future cash flows back to today’s value using a chosen discount rate, then subtracting the initial investment.

A positive NPV means the project is expected to add value; a negative one means it’s expected to destroy value even if it looks profitable on paper without discounting.

Net Present Value is one of the most commonly used financial metrics in project and portfolio prioritization because it accounts for both the size and timing of returns, unlike simpler metrics like payback period, and most portfolio scoring models include it alongside ROI and strategic fit.

What is a north star metric in portfolio and project management terms?

A North Star metric is the single measure an organization or product team agrees best captures the value it’s delivering to customers, used to align everyone around one number.

A north star metric is meant to cut through competing priorities by giving teams one shared measure of success rather than a long list of disconnected metrics. It often sits above the individual KPIs and OKRs that different teams track day-to-day.

What is an operational plan in portfolio and project management terms?

An operational plan is the detailed, near-term plan for how a team or department will execute its part of the broader strategy.

An operational plan sits below the strategic and annual operating plan, translating higher-level goals into specific actions, budgets, and timelines a team actually works from day to day.

In PPM software terms operational plans may manifest themselves into operational programs or portfolios.

What is OPEX in portfolio and project management terms?

OPEX stands for operating expenditure or operating expense. It is the money an organization spends on its everyday running costs to keep the business active.

Unlike its related sibling Capital Expenditure (described above), Operating Expenditure / Operating Expense (OPEX) is the Short-term, recurring, and routine costs required for daily functions, fully deducted in the period they occur.

In PPM terms, this may be the tracking of things like:

What is program management?

Program management is coordinating a group of related projects together so they deliver a bigger benefit collectively than any of them could alone.

Program management sits between project management (delivery of individual work) and portfolio management (strategic selection of which programs and projects to fund). PPM tools support program management mainly through dependency tracking, consolidated reporting, and defined program management  timelines that manage the program as a whole as well as the program’s component projects.

A program typically shares a common strategic goal across a collection of projects, along with shared dependencies, risks, and resources that need to be managed centrally rather than left to each project manager individually.

A classic example is a company launching a new product platform, where each system or feature of the product is its own project, all coordinated under one program. Another common example is a collection of projects that relate to delivery of a key strategic goal (e.g. Company IT upgrade program – holding any number of IT improvement projects designed to deliver the goal).

What is project management?

Project management relates to the planning, organizing, and oversight of a piece of work that has a defined start, end, budget, and set of deliverables.

Project management covers the core disciplines of scheduling, budgeting, resourcing, risk management, and stakeholder communication needed to deliver a specific outcome.

To achieve the outcome, project management generally includes:

• Setting goals
• Scheduling and delivering tasks
• Managing team activities
• Monitoring progress and risks/issues
• Collaborating with other stakeholders

Numerous frameworks exist to help individuals and teams achieve their project delivery objectives (e.g. Waterfall, Agile, Hybrid). Although these frameworks take different approaches and are managed in different ways, each focuses on taking the necessary steps to complete the project on time and within budget.

Most PPM software platforms started life as project management tools before expanding upward into program and portfolio capabilities, which is why core features like Gantt charts, task tracking, and dependency management remain the foundation nearly every other PPM capability is built on top of.

In deployment terms, standalone project management tools are often a cheaper and quicker alternative to implementing an enterprise focussed project and portfolio management platform. However, they also lack the aggregated insights, data and senior management benefits that PPM platforms deliver.

What is a Project Management Office (PMO)?

A PMO is the team or department responsible for standardizing how projects are run across the organization and giving leadership visibility into how they’re all performing.

PMO maturity varies widely: at a basic level a PMO might just provide templates and administrative support; at a more advanced level it plays an active role in resourcing, risk management, and reporting; at its most mature, it’s directly involved in strategic and investment decisions rather than just tracking delivery after the fact.

Typical responsibilities include standardizing methodology and templates, consolidating status reporting into portfolio-wide dashboards, tracking KPIs, running or supporting gate reviews, and managing resource capacity across projects. An enterprise PMO (sometimes called an EPMO) operates at a higher level again, overseeing multiple portfolios across an entire large organization rather than one business unit.

A lot of PMO time historically went into chasing status updates and building slides for steering committees, which is exactly the manual work PPM software is designed to eliminate through automated reporting and live dashboards.

What is a payback period in portfolio and project management terms?

A payback period is how long it takes for a project’s returns to cover its original cost.

A payback period is a simple, easy-to-explain metric (compared to NPV or IRR). It specifically ignores the time value of money and anything that happens after the payback point, so it’s usually used alongside other financial metrics rather than on its own.

What are predictive analytics in portfolio and project management terms?

Predictive analytics uses historical project data to forecast what’s likely to happen next, such as whether a project will finish late or over budget.

Predictive analytics in portfolio management is not a brand-new field, but rather an evolved discipline. Rooted in decades-old quantitative finance, modern statistical modelling, and Modern Portfolio Theory, it has recently transformed from basic historical forecasting into an advanced, automated practice driven by machine learning and Artificial Intelligence (AI).

When it comes to exciting developments in PPM software, one of the main practical applications of AI insights is models trained on past project outcomes to flag emerging risk before it shows up as an obvious red flag on a current projects status report. Accuracy depends heavily on having enough consistent historical data, which is why predictive analytics using AI tends to be more reliable in organizations that have been logging structured project data for years and have robust mechanisms for querying that data at scale.

What is pipeline management in portfolio and project management terms?

Pipeline management is tracking everything currently in progress toward becoming a funded project, from early ideas through business case development to approval.

Pipeline management gives visibility into what’s coming, not just what’s already been approved. Closely tied to demand management and idea management, it’s often visualized through funnel analysis showing the number of projects converting through each stage.

What is resource allocation in portfolio and project management terms?

Resource allocation is assigning specific people, budget, or equipment to specific tasks or projects.

Resource allocation in portfolio management is the tactical, day-to-day counterpart to the broader, more strategic practice of capacity planning. One of the PPM capabilities most commonly automated, since manually tracking who’s assigned to what across dozens of active projects quickly becomes unmanageable in a spreadsheet.

Good resource allocation tools flag overallocation, someone booked for more hours than they have available, and let planners rebalance workload across a team or portfolio without checking every project plan individually.

What is resource capacity planning in portfolio and project management terms?

Resource capacity planning is forecasting whether your organization will have enough people and skills available to deliver everything planned over the coming months, not just right now.

Extends capacity planning further into the future, informing decisions like whether to hire, whether to delay a project, or whether to bring in contractors, based on a forward view of committed demand against available supply.

What is Return on Investment (ROI) in portfolio and project management terms?

ROI measures how much value a project returns compared to what it cost, usually expressed as a percentage.

Return on Investment (ROI) is calculated as gain from investment minus cost of investment, divided by cost of investment.

ROI is one of the most popular financial metrics in project and portfolio management because it’s simple to calculate and easy to explain to non-financial stakeholders.

Its main limitation is that a basic ROI calculation doesn’t account for when the returns actually arrive, which is why it’s often used alongside NPV (which does account for timing) and payback period (which shows how long you’ll wait to break even).

In portfolio prioritization, projected ROI is a standard scoring input for ranking competing proposals, though mature organizations are careful not to rely on it alone, since a high projected ROI on a proposal is only as trustworthy as the assumptions behind it, which is exactly what benefit tracking exists to check after the fact.

What is a roadmap in portfolio and project management terms?

A roadmap is a high-level visual plan showing what’s planned over time, for a strategy, a product, or a portfolio, without getting into the day-to-day task detail of a project schedule.

There are different types of Roadmap but they have the common thread of connecting individual projects to programs, portfolios and higher-level initiatives.

• A strategic roadmap shows how major initiatives support company goals over the coming years
• A product roadmap shows planned features and releases over coming quarters.

Unlike a detailed project schedule, a roadmap is meant to be a communication tool for stakeholders and leadership, so it deliberately stays at a higher level and gets revisited regularly as priorities shift, rather than being locked down once and left unchanged.

What is strategic planning in portfolio and project management terms?

Strategic planning is deciding, at the highest level, what an organization is trying to achieve over the coming years and how it intends to get there.

Strategic planning is generally a collaborative, often in-person, process that typically produces a strategic plan or roadmap that cascades down into annual operating plans, portfolio investment decisions, and eventually individual project approvals, so what actually gets funded and delivered can be traced back to a stated strategic objective rather than existing in isolation.

Common tools include SWOT analysis, scenario planning, and horizon planning, and increasingly OKRs are used as the mechanism connecting strategy to measurable, trackable execution.

The core challenge strategic planning tries to solve in PPM is strategic alignment: making sure the projects an organization is actually spending money and people on are the ones that genuinely move its strategy forward, rather than a portfolio that drifted there through inertia and internal politics. PPM software can help in this regard, as all data is available in real-time and across strategic portfolios.

What are scorecards in portfolio and project management terms?

A scorecard is a standardized set of criteria used to score and compare competing projects or ideas on a consistent basis.

Scorecards typically weigh factors like strategic fit, expected value, cost, and risk, producing a single comparable score used in portfolio prioritization so decisions aren’t made purely on subjective judgement or who argues their case best.

What is schedule variance (SV) in portfolio and project management terms?

Schedule variance is the difference between the work that was planned to be done by now and the work actually completed.

In earned value management, calculated as earned value minus planned value. A negative number means the project is behind schedule; a positive number means it’s ahead.

What are success criteria in portfolio and project management terms?

Success criteria are the specific, agreed conditions that determine whether a project should be judged a success once it’s complete.

Defining success criteria upfront, rather than after the fact, avoids the common problem of a project being declared successful or unsuccessful based on shifting or unstated expectations.

What are timelines in portfolio and project management terms?

Project timelines are the sequence of dates and milestones showing when a project’s key activities are expected to happen.

Project timelines are the simpler, less detailed, cousin of a full project schedule. They are most often used for stakeholder communication at the portfolio level, where individual timelines can be compared against others, rather than day-to-day task management.

What is variance analysis in portfolio and project management terms?

Variance analysis is comparing actual project performance against the plan to understand what’s different and why.

Variance analysis covers schedule variance, cost variance, and scope changes together. As one of the most routine forms of project reporting, it’s usually automated in PPM tools by comparing live actuals against the baseline.

What is a work breakdown structure in portfolio and project management terms?

A work breakdown structure is a project broken down into progressively smaller, manageable pieces of work, from the overall deliverable down to individual tasks.

Work breakdown structure is typically shown as a hierarchical tree or an indented list, with each level breaking the one above it into smaller components until you reach tasks small enough to estimate, assign, and track individually.

It’s usually the top level of a project schedule, since a Gantt chart, resource assignments, and cost estimates are all built on top of the tasks it defines.

What is a work intake process in portfolio and project management terms?

A work intake process is the standardized way new project requests enter the organization, get logged, and get assessed before anyone starts work.

Without a work intake process, work tends to get started informally through side conversations and email, bypassing prioritization entirely.

A defined process, usually built into PPM software as a request form and approval workflow, makes sure every new ask gets the same basic assessment before consuming organizational resource.