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The steps shown for Jump-Starting the Project Portfolio are easy to continue, so that ongoing management reviews are based on current, management-ready information. At a minimum, it’s worth repeating this process for the upcoming set of management reviews, whether they are held weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, or informally.
Update Project 
Publish Management Report
Review Framework Report with Management
Over time, consider adding more depth to the information recorded and maintained about each project. For example, it’s natural to define the project team by inviting them to participate.
The Project Roster is defined by editing the project. This allows the project manager to define roles and cost rates for the team members, which drives deeper layers of reporting.
When Rosters are defined, the Framework Report takes on another layer of value, as shown here, by providing details in the embedded area under each project.
Over time, this report becomes increasingly detailed as project managers add information for their Budgets, Costs, and Benefits. The links for the project name and last management report provide quick drill-downs to the supporting information.
The other Project Portfolio Reports can take advantage of the growing depth of project information as TeamHeadquarters is adopted.
For example, the Economic Dashboard shown here compares spending to the planned benefits for your projects.
The Project Actuals Report is a portfolio report based on the actual task definitions and ‘rolled up’ impact of task completion and time sheet charges. In a highly evolved project management organization, this type of reporting may become the norm. The status of projects is calculated rather than directly entered by the project manager.
This is the type of project reporting that would naturally evolve from strict adherence to formal project management models. The ‘cost’ of managing this way is higher, since it requires proactive definition of detailed work plans by the project manager, high quality estimates for all project tasks, having team members closely follow the project plan, and accurate reporting of results on a regular basis.
In other words, it is more difficult to keep projects ‘management-ready’ this way. If you can, the benefits are significant because of the depth of accurate insights ready to be ‘managed’.
For many TeamHeadquarters implementations, this type of ‘calculated’ or ‘scientific’ project reporting is the long-term goal, after having mastered the incremental adoption approach described in the previous sections.
As the number of projects increases, it can become harder to make sense of the portfolio.
By categorizing projects based on type, risk, priority, and placement in the organization, you can sub-divide the portfolio for easier reporting using the Enterprise Project Portfolio Reporting tool.
