Project Management Principles: Report and Analysis of Articles

This report analyzes the article "Empowering project portfolio managers: How management involvement impacts project portfolio management performance" by Daniel Jonas. The report examines the main assertions of the article, which focus on the increasing complexity of project portfolio management, the need for a project portfolio manager, and the impact of changing managerial roles. The article asserts that project portfolio management increases the diffusion between managerial roles and this leads to the evolution of a new managerial role. The report presents supporting research and evidence from the article and other peer-reviewed sources, including Jonas (2010), Tonchia (2018), Hu & Szmerekovsky (2017), Petro & Gardiner (2015), and Stettina & Hörz (2015). These sources support the assertions regarding the complexity of project portfolio management and the need for a dedicated project portfolio manager to handle the complexities. The analysis highlights the importance of effective communication and resource allocation. The report concludes that other peer-reviewed articles support the main article's assertions, emphasizing the importance of a project portfolio manager to manage complexity.

Running head: PROJECT MANAGEMENT PRINCIPLES
Project Management Principles
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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i) What are the main assertions put forward in the article?
The article establishes the fact that the project portfolio management increases the
diffusion between the managerial roles and this is the reason that there has been the evolution of
a new managerial role of Project Portfolio Management (Jonas, 2010). Therefore, the main
assertions that the article puts forward can be listed and discussed as follows:
 Complexity of Project Portfolio Management: The article describes how the
complex landscape of the projects deals with the problems in implementing the
portfolio management within the projects for the innovations in management.
 The need for the introduction of a new post of Project Portfolio Manager:
Empowering a project portfolio manager as a result provides more clarity as well
as the significance of handling the portfolios within a complex project (Tonchia,
2018). When the role of a project portfolio manager is handled well, it provides
the balance between the complex job roles of the senior managers, the project
managers and line managers.
 Significant impact of the change in roles of the management body: The paper
makes it clear that the roles change significantly between all the managerial posts
and the possibility of the brewing new tensions between the traditional system
between the lead managerial posts and the new roles that has been set up for the
reduction of the overall performance of portfolio management (Hu &
Szmerekovsky, 2017). The paper clearly defines the new job role of the project
portfolio manager and the interplay that the project portfolio managers set up with
the line managers and the senior managers.

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 Impact of the managerial involvement: The article enunciates that this
managerial involvement in complex project management can impact the portfolio
both positively and negatively affecting the success of the project portfolio
management as a whole.
ii) What research is presented in the article to support these assertions?
There have been various researches done on the feasibility and complexity of the project
portfolio managements that support the issues that have been put forward by various other
literary sources developed by researchers. According to the assertions raised in this regard as
above, following are the evidences as presented by the different authors in support of the above
mentioned assertions:
 Complexity of Project Portfolio Management: According to Jonas (2010), it
has been presented that maintaining the management of a project is not a complex
procedure, but when the project involves maintaining various portfolios involved
in the process as well, it becomes a handful for the people involved within the
project to handle. Therefore, complexity indeed gets raised compared to the
project management features. As a result, it can be said that the entire assertion
regarding the complexity of project portfolio management is true as per the
reviewed article.
 The need for the introduction of a new post of Project Portfolio Manager:
The ways by which the projects are handled have been researched by various
authors. According to Tonchia (2018), the more portfolios are to be managed
within a project; it becomes difficult for the senior managers and the line
managers to handle all the portfolios in the intermediate stages. Thus, it can be

3PROJECT MANAGEMENT PRINCIPLES
said that there are needs of introducing managerial posts, which are true to the
assertion as put forward by the reviewed article.
 Significant impact of the change in roles of the management body: Since, the
managerial posts become increase in number, the authors Stettina & Hörz (2015),
have presented the fact that the changes in the roles of the management body is
effectively seen. The coordination between the people in charges of the
managerial posts would be definitely affected, but this could be solved easily with
effective communications as per the views of the author.
 Impact of the managerial involvement: The authors Hu & Szmerekovsky
(2017), justifies that if the dimensions are changed within the job role of a project
portfolio manager because of the constant changes with regards to the agility of
the portfolios, the involvement of them would be affected. This again falls true to
the enunciations made by the author for the reviewed literature.
iii) What is the result of the academic research from at least 2 (two) peer reviewed articles
to support or refute these assertions?
Project Portfolio Management is described in various literatures and articles as a complex
process to manage as a whole. Various articles have focused on the issue and have stated that one
of the most confusing parts of the project portfolio manager is to begin with an initial idea about
the entire plan of the project. The authors Petro & Gardiner (2015), suggest that there are various
roles and responsibilities in a project portfolio management plan that deals with the merging of
several methodologies which somehow overlap within themselves. Since, the Project Portfolio
Management or PPM is an organized process dependant centrally on the used methods and tools,
the management roles, including the line and senior managers are complex and require extensive

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time management as well as organizational skills. Therefore, it can be said that the various other
peer reviewed articles are of the same opinion about the fact that there is a necessity of providing
a new post of project portfolio manager since the line and senior management levels at the
handling of the job requires proper management procedure (Lopes & Almeida, 2015). The
overlapping of the traditional managerial posts needs extensive resource allocation and budget
management for the above complexities. This can only be subdued by the introduction of a
project portfolio manager. Therefore, it can be said that the other peer reviewed articles do not
refute the opinion of the main article under review but synchronizes or supports the assertions
led by the author of the primary article.

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References
Hu, Q., & Szmerekovsky, J. (2017). Project portfolio selection: A newsvendor
approach. Decision Sciences, 48(1), 176-199.
Jonas, D. (2010). Empowering project portfolio managers: How management involvement
impacts project portfolio management performance. International Journal of Project
Management, 28(8), 818-831.
Lopes, Y. G., & de Almeida, A. T. (2015). Assessment of synergies for selecting a project
portfolio in the petroleum industry based on a multi-attribute utility function. Journal of
Petroleum Science and Engineering, 126, 131-140.
Petro, Y., & Gardiner, P. (2015). An investigation of the influence of organizational design on
project portfolio success, effectiveness and business efficiency for project-based
organizations. International Journal of Project Management, 33(8), 1717-1729.
Stettina, C. J., & Hörz, J. (2015). Agile portfolio management: An empirical perspective on the
practice in use. International Journal of Project Management, 33(1), 140-152.
Tonchia, S. (2018). Portfolio Management. In Industrial Project Management (pp. 173-178).
Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.