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Management of Portfolios (MoP™) Foundation

Length 3 days
Inclusions Exam voucher

Course overview

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Why study this course

» This Foundation course usually runs consecutively with MoP Practitioner as a five-day Combined course at a reduced price.

Portfolio management is defined as a coordinated collection of strategic processes and decisions that together enable the most effective balance of organisational change and business as usual.

Management of Portfolios (MoP) approaches the management of change projects and programmes from a strategic viewpoint. It provides an overview of all change activities, including what is in the portfolio, what it is costing, what organisational and implementation risks are faced, what progress is being made, and most importantly what the impact on business as usual and organisational strategic objectives is.

MoP builds on and co-ordinates existing processes such as strategic planning, investment appraisal and programme and project management to be effective and add value.

Portfolio management addresses the fundamental questions:

Are we doing the right things?
Are we doing these things right?
Most significantly, are we realising all the benefits in terms of more effective services and efficiency savings from the changes we are implementing?

MoP is based on five flexible principles which provide the foundation for successful Portfolio Management practice, in terms of:

Senior Management Commitment: Any change initiative struggles without it, so top-level support comes first in MoP’s list. Change initiatives must have public champions to communicate the value and benefits of Portfolio management. They need to use both the stick and carrot – ensuring compliance with PfM standards and personally demonstrating the behaviours essential to the success of the Portfolio. So, no ‘pet projects’ – not even the Chief Executive’s!
Governance Alignment: Without proper governance – including clarity about what decisions are made – PfM will fail. MoP provides examples and diagrams of a successful Portfolio governance structure – from Programme and Project Mangers up through the Portfolio Progress Group to the Director / Investment Committee level. Supporting these are the P3O model and, working alongside them: Business As Usual areas that will be impacted by the change. A full set of role descriptions are provided in the MoP manual as ready-to-use templates.
Strategy Alignment: Change initiatives which do not deliver benefit = waste and confusion. The ultimate objective of PfM is to achieve the strategic objectives of the organisation. MoP suggests a driver based model starting with very high level strategy, down to strategic objective then benefits and finally, change initiatives that will deliver them. It provides useful, practical, examples for the private and public sectors.
Portfolio Office: There has to be a business area which provides up to date and accurate information to allow good decision making by Portfolio Managers. This is the role of the Portfolio Office and this MoP principle is strongly linked to the OGC standard: P3O. MoP shows different P3O models including linked (but temporary) Programme and Project offices as well the permanent Portfolio office and aligned Centre of Excellence.
Energised Change Culture: The success of the Portfolio depends as much on people as process so this principle recognises the need for an engaged team working together to define and deliver the Portfolio. Here, MoP gets into the ‘softer side’ by looking at areas such as communication, the learning organisation and listening and engagement with staff.

Examination
This course pricing includes a voucher for the Management of Portfolios Foundation Exam, which is an online proctored exam through PeopleCert. Practice exam papers are provided in the course, and reviewed to assist in preparation.

The exam is:

40 minutes duration
50 multiple choice questions
Pass mark is 25 out of 50 (i.e. 50%)
Closed book

After passing the exam, each student’s certificate will be made available to them via PeopleCert.

It is highly recommended that you spend some time each evening of this course reviewing and consolidating what you’ve learned, to be well prepared for the exam.

Aligns to certification

Management of Portfolios (MoP™) Certification

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What you’ll learn

Learning Objectives
To prepare candidates with sufficient knowledge and understanding to work as an informed member of a portfolio, programme or project management team.

To furthermore prepare candidates to be able to apply and understand how to tailor MoP effectively in terms of business case definition, implementation of portfolio management, selection and adaptation of MoP principles, practices and techniques and the evaluation and analysis of solutions related to a given scenario.

Successful completion of this course will enable participants to:

Understand: Portfolio Definition must start with the Understand practice – it is essential to get a clear and transparent view of what is in the current portfolio and the project development pipeline as well as performance to date and, looking forward, the forecast costs, benefits and risks to delivery and benefits realisation. MoP sets out the keys to success and explains how to go about each one.
Categorise: Once the Understand practice is complete the change initiatives (project and programmes) can be categorised so that senior decision makers can make decisions in areas like priority of resources and strategic alignment. MoP gives several examples drawn from real life experience from different industries.
Prioritise: This orders the projects and programmes – often along financial lines – and MoP gives examples of metrics that can be used such as NPV, IRR and Payback. “Money isn’t everything” however so MoP also describes multi-criteria analysis used by some organisations using factors such as “return on attractiveness” and the “risk or achievability” of each change initiative.
Balance: Prioritisation results in a ranked list of change but the purpose of the balance practice is to make sure that the resulting portfolio is balanced in terms of time, coverage of strategic objectives, impact across the business, risk : return and available resources. MoP provides an example of how Aston Martin, the luxury car manufacturer, balanced its IT portfolio.
Plan: The final practice of the Definition cycle collates information to create a portfolio strategy and delivery plan which will be approved by the portfolio direction groups investment committee. Planning serves to provide the “clear line of sight” about what initiatives are included, their schedule and timing, resource requirements, risks and benefits to be realised. MoP has a full appendix devoted to an outline of the contents of the portfolio strategy and delivery plan.

PeopleCert at Lumify Work

Lumify Work is an Accredited Training Organisation with Gold status for PeopleCert courses and certifications including PRINCE2, ITIL, MSP, AgileSHIFT, MoP, and P3O. PeopleCert is one of the leading players in the global certification industry, partnering with multi-national organisations and government bodies for the development and management of globally recognised certification schemes.

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Who is the course for?

Portfolio Managers
Programme Managers
Project Managers
Senior Executives
Portfolio, Programme and Project Management Support Office Staff

Course subjects

Management Control – this practice is about making sure that progress is on track against the portfolio strategy and delivery plan (typical contents for both are included in the MoP manual). Management control includes the creation of consistent business cases which can demonstrate the strategic contribution of change initiatives.
Benefits Management – is about identifying and managing the benefits being realised from the portfolio. This includes areas such as benefits categorisation (common approaches are suggested), a portfolio level benefits realisation plan and the arrangements for benefits tracking.
Financial Management – includes investment criteria and financial metrics, rules to standardise cost forecasting, efficiency savings and limits for reporting variances.
Risk Management – provides a consistent approach across the portfolio including dependencies. MoP sets out some of the key challenges to dependency management and suggests sample solutions which can be used by the portfolio executives.
Stakeholder Engagement – this practice provides a co-ordinated approach to stakeholder engagement and communication so that the needs of the portfolio’s customers are identified and managed and stakeholder support for the portfolio is gained by effective consultation and involvement in the definition and delivery of the portfolio. Modern approaches are encouraged – even Twitter gets a mention!
Organisational Governance – this must include a vision about what the portfolio is designed to achieve, role profiles (in the MoP manual), stage gates and escalation paths with tolerance limits along with regular reviews of the business case and progress. The portfolio office has a key role to play here.
Resource Management – at some level the amount of resource available to deliver change is restricted. Most organisations have more ambitions than people so the supply and demand has to be balanced and where there are gaps these must be filled by recruitment, external resource or staff development.

Prerequisites

This course has no prerequisites, however the following would be an advantage:

Previous or current experience of working within project, programme and portfolio environment
Previous training and development in programme or project management
Currently practising as a programme or project manager
Previous experience working in senior management, leadership or executive role

Industry Association Recognition

Project Management Institute (PMI®)

Contact hours: 21 hours
Professional Development Units (PDUs): 21 PDUs

Australian Institute of Project Management (AIPM®)

Continual Professional Development (CPD) points: 10 points

PeopleCert Exams

All PeopleCert exams are now conducted via online proctoring, with an improved web-based platform released in February 2024. Candidates can schedule their exam for any time within the voucher validity period of 12 months, to be taken anywhere, on any Windows or Mac computer. Live proctors will guide and invigilate the exam process. For full details please see PeopleCert's Guidelines for Web-Based Exam Driver.

To comply with PeopleCert requirements, Lumify Work cannot provide PeopleCert training courses (AgileSHIFT®, ITIL®, Lean Six Sigma, MoP™, M_o_R™, MSP®, P3O®, PRINCE2®, and PRINCE2 Agile®) without the corresponding official exam.

Terms & Conditions

The supply of this course by Lumify Work is governed by the booking terms and conditions. Please read the terms and conditions carefully before enrolling in this course, as enrolment in the course is conditional on acceptance of these terms and conditions.