Project Portfolio Management
Project Portfolio Management (PPM) is a systematic approach to managing an organization's portfolio of projects and programs. It involves the selection, prioritization, and management of projects to align with strategic goals, maximize value, and ensure efficient resource utilization.
How PPM Connects Across Wayd
PPM sits at the intersection of strategy and execution:
- Strategic Themes tag projects and programs for alignment. Strategic initiatives carry no themes. See how themes connect to PPM.
- Work Items from workspaces can be associated with projects in the Project Work Items section.
- People — employees — hold roles on portfolios, programs, projects, and initiatives (Sponsor, Owner, Manager, and on projects Member), and are assigned to stages and tasks.
- Scoring Models can be assigned to portfolios so their projects can be scored and compared with the same criteria.
- Portfolio Ranking gives each project a human-managed stack rank within its portfolio, independent of the computed priority score.
Sections
- Portfolios & Programs — Top-level containers, program management, and portfolio governance
- Projects — Project lifecycle, stages, tasks, dependencies, health checks, and the plan section
- Strategic Initiatives — Initiative tracking with KPIs, checkpoints, and measurements
- Projects Dashboard — Triage view of the projects a person is involved in: health, overdue tasks, stages and end dates
- Bulk Import — Loading portfolios, programs, projects, tasks, stages, themes, and initiatives from CSV via the import API
Business Rules Summary
| Rule | Description |
|---|---|
| Delivery leadership | Changing a portfolio, program, or project requires the relevant Update permission and Owner/Manager standing on the record or something above it. Sponsors and project Members are excluded. See Permissions |
| Portfolio close | All programs/projects must be closed first |
| Program close | All projects must be completed/canceled before an active program is completed or canceled |
| Project approval | Lifecycle must be assigned before approval |
| Project activation | Start and end date required before activation |
| Project deletion | Only projects that have never left Proposed can be deleted |
| Portfolio scoring | Only Active scoring models can be assigned; project score history is retained when assignments change |
| Portfolio ranking | Every project is ranked within its portfolio from creation; portfolio Owners/Managers (and PPM administrators) can reorder non-closed projects in the Ranking section |
| Task hierarchy | Milestones cannot have children |
| Task deletion | Cannot delete tasks with children or active dependencies |
| Dependencies | A task cannot depend on itself, and both tasks must be in the same project |
| Lifecycle lock | Stages cannot be modified after lifecycle activation |
| Financial freeze | Expenditure category settings frozen after activation |
| Initiative read-only | Completed/Canceled initiatives take no KPI or linked-project changes, and their page offers no edits |