Watpac's Project Portfolio Management: A Detailed Analysis Report

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Watpac's project portfolio management (PPM), evaluating its implementation, strategic value, and impact on organizational performance. It examines the situational context of PPM within Watpac, highlighting the tools and techniques used, such as Meisterplan, Excel, and Smartsheet. The report assesses opportunities for improvement, including integrating environmental sustainability and aligning PPM with organizational goals. It also identifies challenges, such as accurate forecasting and data management across multiple systems, and proposes solutions. The report outlines key elements for successful PPM planning, including business requirements, project portfolio methodology, and practitioner capabilities. It discusses the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) and Modern Portfolio Theory and provides recommendations for project selection, resource planning, and the overall implementation of PPM within Watpac. The report concludes with a discussion of the benefits of PPM, such as improved project cost visibility, better planning decisions, and enhanced collaboration, while also acknowledging the challenges of accurate forecasting and data integration.

WATPAC Project Portfolio Management

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Executive Summary
In this report, the project management system has been discussed and how it is managed
by an organization. Evaluation of portfolio management is done of Watpac organization and
how they had implemented the PPM for improving performance and development. Various
portfolio tools and techniques helped in projects for improving the organization's performance
and help in creating efficiency and manage to deliver the projects on time. Analysis of
opportunities and threats helped the company in making better planning decisions; the company
can forecast incoming demand for future requirements. For achieving success, Watpac has
implemented the PPM process at various levels. They had made the planning for implementing
the PPM effectively and various key elements are discussed for the successful portfolio planning.
They had also faced the various challenges during the PPM process but they had overcome with
the situation. The report also concluded that Watpac can use the Meisterplan as the most
important tool for managing PPM.

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Introduction
Project portfolio management is the process that is used by the managers and the
organization to analyze and deliver the data which is help business to forecast the requirement of
new projects in order to organizational goals and objectives. Many organizations are looking
forward to implement it effectively and improve the process and reduce the risk of project
failures. And according to the recent report of PMI states that many organizations with the better
project portfolio management around 35 percent project successfully completed without wasting
time and money (Pennypacker, 2009).
Watpac is the leading construction company founded in 1983. The organization employs
800 employees across many countries. In December 2018 the company wholly owned by BESIX
and listed in the Australian security exchange. The project portfolio management team analyze
the current running project and predict problems, review progress towards goals adjust budget
and direct all the stakeholders of the company. This allows Watpac to see the big picture of
current and past projects and give Path for the future projects (Watpac, 2019).
The aim of this report is to evaluate the portfolio management in the Watpac and how
they improve the organizational performance through PPM. In addition the report will also cover
the opportunities and threats in context of portfolio management of the company. It will also
provide the recommendation for the development plan with tools and techniques to manage the
portfolio management.

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Project portfolio management
1. Situational context and evaluation
Project portfolio management is the management of more than one portfolio that helps to
achieve organizational goals and objectives. It includes the analysis the past and present projects
and prioritizes, select and allocates the internal and external resources to which will be used in
future projects (Morris, 2010).
Introduction of PPM Watpac
To be Construction Company, Watpac invests the various kinds of projects as they deal
in the construction, marine and civil and property and other services. Hence the company has a
different and wide range of projects (Watpac, 2019). With portfolio management, the company
uses various tool and techniques with their Lean PPM as they have diverse area of projects. With
the use of meisterplan Watpac quickly creates a project portfolio. In addition, they also use the
Excel, Smart sheet and various other tools to consolidate the data and make a better decision for
their future projects. Instead of looking all the aspect of every details company’s strategy gives
the project portfolio overview to prioritize and resources and programs so that the company can
find issues and challenges, feign the different options to analyze the best one and resolve the
issues at the early stage, minimize them, capitalize the opportunities and various activities. These
help company to take necessary action at the earlier stage of the portfolio planning (Watpac,
2019).

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Scope for improvement
Currently, the company utilizes PPM techniques to align all the project’s needs, optimize
the projects and resources to ensure the quality service and return to the company. However
often face various issues. In order to align with the strategy portfolio the company has to keep
analyze that what are the required changes and those mechanisms which are no longer required
or support to company’s strategy. Various techniques can help the company to create efficiency
and ensure the success and on-time delivery of different kind of projects (Blichfeldt B. E., 2008).
These techniques help the company by giving the project portfolio overview so that they can
identify the issues and determine the action and decision to implement in the new projects. Also
by using these techniques Watpac can instantly see the impact and adapt new projects
accordingly (Watpac, 2019).
Integrating environment sustainability and PPM of Watpac
With the ecologically sustainable design and material selection with the help of effective
PPM, Watpac measures the performance. Ecologically sustainable design remains the guiding
principle in the PPM of the company (Watpac, 2019). Company’s portfolio management
comprises the large portion of life-stage of focused projects and they capitalize on its diverse
capabilities in luxury hotels, residential to ensure that, the project portfolio brings the customer’s
vision to life and meet their expectation. Sustainability is major business practices for the
company to ensure the economic, environmental and social outcome for the stakeholders the
company operates. With the effective project portfolio, management portfolio manager ensures
responsible environmental management across all levels of operations and this project portfolio
allows the company to create sustainable value and create huge contribution beyond the core
business of the company (Blichfeldt B. E., 2008).

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Scope for improvement
Yet there is scope for the improvement as the organizational maturity plays an essential
role hence, the more mature capability helps to adopt the PPM process. PPM strategy as the
organization has to align the portfolio management with the company culture and goals. The
company has to root the portfolio management process deep into the organization and also has to
be prioritizing uniformly into the company (Pinheiro, 2018). Apart from this, the company has to
set aside resources for PPM. In order to do that the company has to usefully allocate the
organizational resources for great solutions. Also, Watpac has to hire professionals to manage
the project portfolio. Implementing the right and effective tools also can help the company to
easily maintain the competitive edge into the market. Efficient systems and applications and
other tools are also essential for the company to their sustainable portfolio management practices
(R. Kangari, 2006).
2. Opportunities and threats
Benefits
One of the major benefit and opportunity for the company is that the project’s cost scope
becomes more visible when aligning to new projects and services. By implementing better
portfolio management strategies Watpac can make better planning decision, the company can
forecast incoming demand for future requirement. According to the annual report of the company
the portfolio comprises a wide portion of life stage focused projects and they capitalizing in the
hotels, residential and healthcare to make sure that all the projects meet all the expectations of
the customers. With all of the projects of the company in place, they can compare projects more
effectively which helps the company’s operation to become more agile and achieve
organizational strategy (Lo, 2019).

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With the governance framework, Watpac can easily enforce standards and make sure that
all the compliance programs delivering against their commitments and also consistency within
the company. Also by implementing the PPM Watpac can easily reduce overhead and
bottlenecks and also helped the company to establish collaboration and business growth (Lo,
2019).
Challenges
However, there are various challenges for the company as they have a different area of project
services. It’s easy for the Watpac to get the views of everything from the portfolio yet it is
difficult to get it from one format and compare things in difficult. Also, accurate forecasting is
difficult; hence sometimes planning for the new project is also brigs partial success for the
company. Also, the company has to fond the way to reduce the number of projects to define the
acceptable budget with a suitable portfolio. Hence effective tools can help Company to get
accurate data and display it in the clear format so that the Watpac can achieve organizational
success (Hansen, 2018).
One more challenge the company faced while spreading data across multiple systems,
hence this leads to providing an inaccurate view of what is going on. Hence the company could
not be able to plan accurately. Reporting is also difficult for the company to put all the data and
information simultaneously in real-time with one place also with the consistent format. Because
it consumes huge time inefficient to maintain various projects (Stettina, 2018).
Hence Watpac has to implements the best portfolio management tool according to the
organization structure such as Coras. This can provide company all the data from the current and
past project which is needed to effectively manage the portfolio. Also, it is easy to get real-time

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reporting so that the company can see the actual view from the bird's eye. Hence this can also
support in resource allocation according to their diverse projects. This can lead to achieving
sustainability goals.
3. Development of plan
Key element to plan the PPM
There are three key elements towards the successful portfolio planning for the Watpac:
Business requirement
It is essential for the Watpac to identify the business requirement as without clear
business direction it is difficult for the company to measure how these initiates supporting the
business. Identifying the business needs will result in a great return and will lead to increase
organizational productivity (PMI, Project Management Institute The standard for portfolio
management (3rd ed.). Newtown Square, PA: Project Management Institute., 2013).
Project portfolio methodology
This provides a set of governance principles which help to establish the governance
framework. It likewise gives controls that empower and continue an oversight capacity and
blueprints a meaning of basic leadership specialist (PMI, Introduction to a project portfolio
management maturity model, 2019).
Capabilities of the Practitioners
For example, arranging and planning are basic capabilities that are required by
undertaking directors in all controls. Booking is unquestionably one basic part of EPM;
nonetheless, it is just one of the numerous skills required for effective venture arranging,

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execution, and control (PMI, Introduction to a project portfolio management maturity model,
2019).
Benefits Realization Management (BRM), Return on Investment (ROI)
An investment only successful when the intended benefits are measured realization
management supports key choices and action to achieve success. Hence it is essential for the
company to measure the ROI before implementing the PPM (PMI, Project Management Institute
The standard for portfolio management (3rd ed.). Newtown Square, PA: Project Management
Institute., 2013).
Project portfolio management model
Capital asset pricing model and Modern portfolio theory
CAPM proposed by jack Treynor. This is most appropriate model for the company to
handle the PPM as this model used to calculate the asset rate of profit and ROI. This model also
analyzes the market risk and calculates the expected rate of return in the resources which is used
by Watpac.
However modern portfolio theory also can be implemented with the Watpac as company
operates with different portfolio and use different asset and resources. Hence this theory analyze
the ratio of each asset should be chosen and combined in a portfolio for the maximum return and
risk (juneja, 2015).
Plan to implement the PPM
Project selection

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There are a various key component of the planning of the portfolio management; one
major key element to planning the portfolio management is that Watpac should choose the
initiates project-based according to the organizational structure for instance if Watpac works on
the different kind of projects hence the initiates have to be clear and different for each project.
Also, these initiates have to be aligned with organizational goals and capabilities. And for this
Watpac must have the systematic methods and process (Sweetman, 2019).
Resource
The company has to maintain resource planning so that it can meet all the business needs.
While having an accurate view of resource across the portfolio and get the information, which
enables them to prioritize where these resources should apply. This is the key aspect of the PPM
solution.
To be the successful project portfolio the company must know where employees are
working and what else should be done with the capacity available. The company must have the
appropriate tools to track the resources and they also need to identify where the location,
department, and division (Sweetman, 2019).
Information
To have the successful portfolio management Watpac should have common procedures,
application and also training for the sharing information for PP analysis, decision making,
project status, and goal setting. All through the venture lifecycle, from admission to closeout;
make certain to convey dangers, issues, choices, changes, exercises learned, and moves made
and report the thinking for each. Set up logs for each task to follow the data and make the data
accessible to all partners (Sweetman, 2019).

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4. Tools and techniques
There are various tools and techniques for Watpac to maintain PPM. Such as key
descriptors, KPI, portfolio balancing, PMLC, prioritization and Meisterplan software. Key
descriptors are the set of components which can help the company to categories the component
for decision making. It might determine project scope, schedule, budget and KPI, class, category
and evaluation scores. Also, KPI is the set of parameters that measures the performance of the
PPM and also how it contributed to organizational success. PMLC used to collect, identify,
categorize, evaluate, prioritize and review the components with the PP to make sure that, are they
performing compared to the KPI and the organizational plan (PMI, 2010).
However these tools creates various challenges such as selection challenges for instance
it is difficult to identify and define the KPI also PMLC is not the learning model and it is a major
criticism about it.
The tools which can help Watpac are the Meisterplan. It is the tool which can help the
company in both PPM and resource planning. The organization can see the real picture of the
project and the work is being done also what is useful and when to determine what can be
accomplished. This tool can also help the company to get information about employee’s skills,
availability, and capacity. Hence with the use of Meisterplan, the company can create a realistic
portfolio plan and roadmap that can help to achieve organizational goals and objectives (Walz,
2018).

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Conclusion
It can be concluded from the above discussion that Watpac is the leading construction
company which works on different projects. The first part discussed how the company manage
their PPM with the different tools and techniques and achieve organizational success and also the
area of improvement. The second part of this report discussed that the how PPM process helps
the company to achieve success at the various levels. It also analyzed the challenges faced by
Watpac with the PPM process and how they can be overcome. The third part of the report
provides the plan for Watpac to develop their PPM to achieve the objectives. The last part
discussed the tools and techniques which can be useful for the company to run the PPM
successfully and it concluded that the Meisterplan is the most useful tool for the Watpac to
manage PPM and resource allocation.