Jonathan Green
Manufacturing/ R&D

Jonathan is the CEO responsible for research and design projects of a large multinational pharmaceutical manufacturing organisation. It is his responsibility to ensure that all pharmaceutical development projects are cost effective and the benefits are shared across the organisation. Jonathan’s role is very demanding, as he has to make hard decisions regarding the prioritisation of project and portfolio risk across the organisation. These decisions are compounded by the lack of available and consistent information, as many projects and portfolios use different reporting mechanisms across the global.

Jonathan receives many different formats of excel spreadsheets and financial system printouts, which use different criteria and terminology for representing the financial standpoint of projects and portfolios. This creates huge difficulty for Jonathan when he tries to compare and benchmark projects and portfolios.

As it is not possible due to costs, timescales, licensing and legal regulations for all across the organisation to move to a single finance and reporting system Jonathan needed to find a different remedy to his problem.

Jonathan’s solution was Protocol, which provided a consistent reporting mechanism regarding time and budgets for all projects and portfolios without requiring a move away from existing financial and reporting practices. Furthermore, Protocol enabled all projects to use balanced scorecard principles for evaluating the project regarding aspects such as the business situation, use of resources, confidence & commitment and the project status. Evaluations of projects and portfolios on these non-traditional aspects had not been possible under the old disparate approach. Plus, with all in the organisation having access to virtual project rooms, best practices and risk reduction methods quickly spread across the company.

Protocol allowed Jonathan to obtain a complete picture of all portfolios and projects enabling him to prioritise resources to the most valuable projects and cease projects, which were not aiding or supporting the strategy of the organisation

Jonathan’s role was eased, and the roles of both portfolio and project managers were enhanced as they all now had mechanisms to benchmark their projects performance against the performance of other projects and portfolios. Through the use of Protocol Jonathan was able to improve and streamline not only the portfolio and project management practices of this organisation but also the company’s strategy. Protocol achieved this by allowing Jonathan and the rest of the Senior Management team to have more available information, enabling them to make better-informed business decisions.

Hear others experiences of Protocol

“Mistakes are the portals of discovery”

Protocol provides portfolio mangers and senior executives a single point of access into their organisation’s entire portfolios, letting them know:

• What's happening in every project
• Why it's happening the way it is
• Whether or not changes need to be made.

Capturing this information allows for baseline comparisons, shown graphically, and indicates if the portfolio is on target, behind schedule, over budget, at risk, or in need of additional resources. Portfolio managers and senior executives can then select the most successful portfolios and establish best practice around these, aiding lessons learned and reducing duplication of effort. Over time portfolios are continuously updated, reviewed, re-prioritised and possibly terminated. This enables cohesive portfolio management and ensures that portfolios are strategically aligned with the business strategy as it changes.