Knowledge Oriented Approach to Portfolio Management Application

Project portfolio management is the highest scope to view corporate projects. At the same time portfolios are quantifiable channels through which elements of a corporate strategy are delivered. Although there is a considerably evident path of expanding management methodologies from the ones focused on independent projects, through programmes to portfolios, application of portfolio standards is still insufficiently analysed by academia. Not only little has been revealed on the circumstances of launching project portfolio management in business environment, but there is also a gap in the knowledge on indicators of its successful implementation. On the basis of the scarce literature on the subject matter, the authors propose a hypothesis that the knowledge oriented approach toward adoption of portfolio management seems more effective than the process oriented one. The given assumptions are corroborated in the course of a case study of a company whose core business has the nature of continuous processes. However, all strategic changes into the internal and external operations are executed as projects. Thus, the company project maturity has reached the level at which the need for portfolio management methodology adoption becomes not only apparent, but also inevitable. The article has been inspired by a suggestion that there is no investigation into factors influencing fruitfulness of portfolio mechanisms introduction. It revises the existing publications on the issue and it contributes to the professional literature by giving real business examples of some of the assumptions and extending the current concepts into further hypotheses.