• When the projects in a portfolio vie for the same pool of resources, how do portfolio (and project) managers decide which activities in which projects get priority?

• What are the implications of their choice of heuristic?

• Findings:  The best prioritization heuristic depends on:

  • Whether minimizing delay to individual projects or to the overall portfolio

  • Project/Portfolio characteristics:

    • Network density

    • Iteration/rework intensity

    • Resource loading profile

    • Amount of resource contention

Key Publications: P21, P23, P34, P36  

A project or portfolio manager who uses the same heuristic in all situations will perform very poorly.