The Strategic Portfolio Management Manifesto or SPM Manifesto is a six-point call to action that outlines the objectives, principles and steps organisations, whether they are public or private, large or small, global or regional, need to embrace in order to outperform by aligning much better than before strategy with operations. In a nutshell:

1. Objectives: optimise stakeholders’ value while helping others to outperform
2. Drivers: be cost-aware, opened, social, scalable and layered
3. Sequence: If, and only if stabilised, platform and framework enable stakeholder-oriented SPM
4. Infrastructure: a fool with a tool is still a fool; however, a thoroughbred without horseshoes is a rogue
5. Governance: tailor and simplify standards while keeping their essence, have regional and/or functional support offices report centrally and embed rules into processes
6. Services: empower people and nurture sense of community

A growing focus on cost visibility following various financial crises, the repetition of corporate scandals, massive programme failures, and the importance given organisation-wide to accountability and governance are some of the factors impacting the rise of Strategic Portfolio Management as a business discipline. However, there is a prevailing tendency to forget lessons from the past. “Why do we always make the same mistakes?” could well be the recurring question asked by those concerned, directly or indirectly, with change, transformation as well as innovation activities.

1. Objectives

The objectives of Strategic Portfolio Management are twofold:
- make sure that all parties involved get the highest possible value and, at the same time,
- give the means and an environment enabling people to perform and deliver at levels higher than without SPM in place.

2. Drivers

Basically, how to get there?
- Be cost efficient: bigger and expensive is not anymore the way forward
- Opened: project, programme and portfolio management activities go far beyond organisations boundaries
- Social: vendors, consumers and other stakeholders must be dynamically listened at
- Scalable: simple ideas, issues, new feature requests and multi-million multi-year undertakings can be captured, planned and monitored from the same environment
- Layered: opened does not mean unsecured. Security, compliance and governing bodies help shaping the who, how and when with regard to access to information.

3. Sequence

It sounds counter-intuitive and, as a matter of fact, it is not a common practice having platforms and framework stabilised before raising project portfolio management maturity level; however, experience shows that, over time, these become of secondary importance with ever-growing competing priorities. Therefore, structures, even those with lower project management maturity levels, shall decide what solutions will be used early in their journey towards excellence so as to bridge the gap between business and IT for instance.

4. Infrastructure

Technology per se can be left aside if i. it does not bring value for money and ii. is not accepted or used (the "fool with tool" part). However, even the best individuals or teams will not work optimally without an infrastructure catering for, in a structured manner, idea generation, business cases and other project outputs, conversations, service desk, strategic partnerships, customer and vendor involvement (the "horseshoe" lifecycle bit). Each organisation will decide where best various datasets shall be hosted. What matters is to avoid:

- stovepipe systems often advised by people with vested interests; the more complex your landscape is, the bigger and longer they will invoice for services; and
- recreating yet another silo. SPM is transverse by nature; infrastructure-wise, automated interfaces can tap on existing information repositories and transform the use of existing tools such as email or document management systems.

5. Governance

- Tailor and simplify standards while keeping their essence
- Have regional and/or functional support offices report centrally
- Embed rules into processes

How? By leveraging standards from the Project Management Institute's Standard for Portfolio Management or The Office of Government Commerce's Management of Portfolios as well as Industry Practices (Best) and Leading Practices (Next, http://www.leadingpractice.com/) avoiding governance overlaps and refreshing existing bodies for making them transverse.

6. Services

"Empower people and nurture a sense of community"

Nowadays, organisations should further develop their most strategic asset: people. This topic was addressed in an article entitled "Effective Communication in Strategic Portfolio Management" a short while ago.

Practically speaking, it means to solidify mandates and let people obtain certifications (cf. for instance "The PMP Exam: How To Prepare and Pass"). Feedback received from HR departments indicates that there is no factual elements correlating certification obtention and staff departure, to the contrary. It is also key to find the right escalation mechanisms by chasing the sweet spot between hierarchy and network.

Last but not least, regular training and celebrations such as yearly gatherings will help to build a sense of community.