What is the difference between a portfolio and a project program?

One of the more common confusions in project management is the failure to distinguish between a portfolio and a project program properly. Therefore, it is worth spending a few sentences to show the practical differences between these terms.

What you will learn from this article:

What is the difference between a project program and a project portfolio
What business goals are achieved by programs versus portfolios
How FlexiProject supports project portfolio and project program management

Difference between a project portfolio and a project program

Let’s start with the concept of a project program. This is usually a set of projects designed to achieve a specific strategic goal of the company – for example, to expand operations in the Asian market. Such a program will potentially include projects, i.e., building a strategy to enter the Asian market, registering products, building sales structures, organizing the company’s location, providing technological infrastructure, etc. As you can see, these projects are different – legal, organizational, IT, and other projects. In this case, the entire program must fulfill a specific business objective, not individual projects (although selected projects may also have their business objectives).

For example, a CRM system project will only produce business results with product registration and launching sales structures. From a business point of view, these projects should be considered together. The individual projects are dependent on each other, and isolation disrupts the implementation process. In addition, a program (just like a project) has a designated beginning and end of implementation. If it has been completed, it is closed. Unlike a program, a portfolio does not have an end date.

A project portfolio consists of similar projects, such as designing and launching new products. Portfolios are implemented continuously, which means that some projects in the portfolio end, others are discontinued, and new projects from the “ideas queue” take their place. Each project in the portfolio should have a defined business objective and the exact nature of the objective but correspondingly different parameters for its implementation. Projects, in principle, do not need to depend on each other, although such dependencies can exist between projects in various portfolios. You can manage them effectively with the project management software FlexiProject.

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Project portfolio and program management in FlexiProject

FlexiProject is a comprehensive tool that supports not only the management of individual projects but also the coordination of project groups through portfolios and programs. When managing a project portfolio, users can define any number of portfolios, assign projects to each, and monitor them on a visual roadmap. FlexiProject provides clear insight into each project’s status, milestone completion, and deviation from the approved plan. A built-in project attractiveness matrix helps leadership quickly assess which initiatives add the most value and which might need to be reconsidered or removed from the portfolio.

Project roadmap in the Project Portfolios module of the FlexiProject system

When it comes to project programs, FlexiProject allows the grouping of strategically aligned projects into a single program. This enables centralized tracking of the entire program schedule, analysis of interdependencies, and updating of project timelines based on task dependencies. As a result, organizations can manage complex strategic programs as a unified whole. Additionally, the automatic project review feature supports regular status reporting, which is especially valuable for PMOs and executive stakeholders.