"Presenting information that is current with The Standard for Portfolio Management, Third Edition, this book supplies in-depth treatment of the five knowledge areas and identifies best practices to help ensure balanced portfolio management that is critical to organizational success. This book is an ideal reference for those pursuing the new portfolio management credential from the Project Management Institute. The book is also a suitable as a reference for executives and practitioners in the field and as a textbook for universities offering courses on portfolio management"--

"Preface While portfolio management has been applied in the financial industry since the early 1950s, it is only within the past two to three decades that academic research plus guidelines for practitioners have been conducted and made available. Although some organizations used portfolio management techniques to select and prioritize programs and projects to pursue since the 1960s, these organizations rarely discussed its use recognizing it was a competitive advantage for them to do so. In the late 1970s and 1980s, software to assist in prioritizing programs and projects and to allocate resources became available, and there was increased interest in organizations to adopt the software and then recognition that tools alone were insufficient to manage a portfolio. Portfolio management requires a culture change, with processes and procedures in place that are consistently followed at all levels to support organizational strategies and promote organizational success. It requires strategic goals to ensure the work being done, whether a program, project, or an operational activity, supports these goals; having an inventory of existing work in progress available to determine if it supports organizational strategy and should be continued; and business cases, which are prepared and approved for proposed work to undertake. Such a culture change takes time and dedication to implement, but increasingly, organizational leaders are doing so recognizing its necessity especially in terms of the complexity of work under way and the often lack of qualified and available resources to do this work effectively. "--