Managing Your Portfolios › Explore Alternate Portfolio Plans › Generate Versions of the Plan or Scenarios

Generate Versions of the Plan or Scenarios

Modify your plans and save them as alternate versions or scenarios. You can view comparison reports for your portfolio plan versions and can arrive at the best possible decisions about your portfolio investments.

You can generate alternate versions of a plan by potentially changing the portfolio targets, content, and specific investment attributes (for example, dates, status, resources). For example, copy a plan and create another version by reducing the cost by a specific percentage.

Example: Generating Plan Versions

At a planning meeting with the CIO staff, the IT portfolio manager at Forward Inc. selects the 2014 IT PMO Plan. The portfolio manager presents the Waterline view for the plan to show the following details to the staff:

• All projects and their current ranking.
• The project demands as they compare to the targeted constraints for costs, resources, and benefits.
• The capital costs, engineering resources, business analyst resources, and project management resources as they are compare to the targeted constraints for costs and resources.

The staff reviews the priority list and makes the following observations:

• Out of the $20 million targeted cost budget, they have $15 million worth of projects currently above the waterline or funded.
• Out of the $30 million benefits they are targeting, their funded projects only represent $20 million worth of benefits. The funded projects appear above the waterline in the view.
• Out of the 70 resources available for project work, they have already committed 60 to the funded projects.

The CIO speaks about how employees must use resources more efficiently and must work towards accomplishing the following business objectives:

• A company initiative to reduce costs by 10 percent by outsourcing 20 percent of the staff. IT is committed to this target.
• The need for IT to be more strategic. The Sales team wants to invest in a new SaaS (software as a service) sales solution. The solution costs $6 million and there is only $5 million left in the IT budget. The new solution promises an extra $10 million in benefits that can help meet the benefit target.
• The Finance team has just delivered a mandatory project that costs $ 500, 000. The project does not produce any benefits but meets a regulatory requirement for the company to stay in business.

The portfolio manager creates another version of the plan by copying the 2014 IT PMO Plan and renaming it to "Option One: 10 Percent Cut plus CIO Commitments". In the new plan version, the portfolio manager makes the following adjustments:

• Reduces the target cost by 10 percent in the distributed target.
• Changes the mix of planned IT resources so that 20 percent are outsourced.
• Changes the staffing of roles from local roles to outsourced roles to reflect the desire to outsource.
• Moves the mandatory finance project above the waterline, consuming $ 500,000.
• Approves or moves the SaaS project above the waterline, consuming $6 million.

The portfolio manager reviews the new version of the plan with the CIO and staff.

Together they observe that the department is still $1.5 million over their cost target but is meeting their benefit target. Also, they are still missing their local and outsourced targets. They make the following changes to the plan:

• Move the low priority, Web-Based Benefits System project below the waterline, freeing up $1 million in costs and four resources. Now they are only $ 500,000 over the budget.
• Outsource 20 percent of their work and close the gap between their local and outsourced targets.
• Assign the task of creating new resource plans and cost plans with the new resourcing targets to the PMO director.

The portfolio manager saves the changes to the plan and notifies the staff. The CIO likes the new plan but expresses that they are doing business in the reactive mode. If the IT group can focus more on the strategic opportunities in the company, they could add much more value to the bottom line. They can make a bigger impact by generating more funds. For example, there are two small projects on the list, a Contact Management initiative and a Sales Compensation Transformation proposal. The projects are relatively low in cost ($1.3 million), but they promise a $13 million return on the investment.

Based on the CIO inputs, the portfolio manager creates another version of the plan called “Option 2: Increase Budget and Strategic Work with Significant Impact”. In this version, the portfolio manager makes the following adjustments and shows the new plan to the CIO:

• Increases the high-level target for cost as defined in the portfolio properties by $2 million.
• Raises the high-level target for benefit as defined in the portfolio properties by $13 million.
• Moves the Web-Based Benefits System project that the team previously decided to suspend below the waterline freeing up $1 million.
• Moves the mandatory finance project above the waterline, approving it and consuming $500, 000.
• Moves the SaaS project above the waterline, approving it and consuming $6 million.
• Adds the two strategic projects that the CIO mentioned above the waterline, consuming $1.3 million in costs and adding $13 million in benefits.

Follow these steps:

1. Open Home, and from Portfolio Management, click Portfolios.
2. Open the portfolio for which you want to create a plan version.
3. Click Plans.
4. Select the plan for which you want to create a version and click Copy.
5. To create a different version of the plan, rename the plan.
6. Edit the plan properties that are based on the new requirements.