Summary Project in the Portfolio

Summary projects can be added to a project portfolio and edited there. This lets you connect the operational planning of an undertaking with the evaluation of the entire project landscape.

Note

The summary project and a project portfolio with summary projects require Rillsoft Project with Rillsoft Integration Server or Rillsoft Cloud.

Video: Summary Project in the Portfolio

Watch the video "Summary project in the portfolio – Rillsoft Project" on YouTube

Summary project in the portfolio – Rillsoft Project (YouTube, in German, approx. 3 minutes)

When to Combine Summary Project and Portfolio

Summary project

Project portfolio

Purpose

Plan related projects of one undertaking together

Evaluate and control many projects and undertakings together

Typical users

Overall project management, involved project managers

PMO, executive management, resource managers

Typical questions

Does the overall schedule work? Are the dependencies between the projects correct?

Which undertakings have priority? Where do resource bottlenecks arise across all projects?

Combine both when:

  • several undertakings are planned as summary projects and compete for the same resources

  • PMO or executive management want to see an undertaking as a whole in the context of all other projects

  • priorities, status, and utilization should be evaluated across undertakings

Workflow

  1. Plan related projects as a summary project, see Plan Related Projects of Several Project Managers Together.

  2. Create or open the portfolio, see Build a Project Portfolio.

  3. Add the summary project to the portfolio. The procedure is shown in the video.

  4. Evaluate the portfolio, for example in Human Resource Capacity Balancing, see Portfolio Analysis.

Maintain status and priority in every project of the summary project. Only then can the portfolio be sorted and evaluated meaningfully.

Typical Mistakes

  • The projects of the summary project use a different resource pool than the other projects in the portfolio.

  • The portfolio is evaluated without reloading it first. Changes made by the project managers are then missing.

  • Summary project and portfolio are confused: dependencies between tasks belong in operational planning, priority decisions in the portfolio evaluation.

summary project, portfolio, project portfolio, evaluate undertakings, multiproject planning, multiple projects, master project, pmo, executive management