Project and Portfolio Management

Beginning in 2019, the Institute sought to transform its administrative methods in order to manage its expanding portfolio of work and resources. Two critical changes in the management landscape of the Institute took place: (1) developing the second Buffett Early Childhood Institute Strategic Plan (described in Chapter 2) and (2) adopting a collaborative portfolio management tool to guide projects, resources, and practices.

The Institute’s second strategic plan provided the foundation for the Institute to align its investments and efforts, implement project and portfolio management practices, and collaboratively, systematically, purposefully, and consistently oversee its work. In addition to ensuring that our investments were consistent with our strategic goals, new project and portfolio management practices realized three additional purposes:

• A higher degree of collaboration between internal and external team members and partners

• Increased visibility and clarity about the Institute’s program and project investments and concomitant efforts among the Institute’s directors, project managers, and team members

• Enhanced and effective planning and decision-making based on information about detailed project scope and resource requirements

To assist and support the Institute’s project and portfolio management practices, a new software system was adopted. The Institute began implementing multiple modules within the software to promote effective and efficient execution of work and realization of Institute goals. These included:

• Project management. The collection, documentation, and tracking of such key project information as activities, timelines, resources, budget, project progress, risks/issues, and outcomes/deliverables

• Resource management. Planning, scheduling, and allocation of personnel to Institute projects and efforts, providing information that enables informed decisions about prioritizing efforts within and across the Institute’s and units’ portfolios, including decisions about the implications of committing the Institute to new programs and projects

• Service management. A means for service-focused units (Communications and Operations) to receive and track requests for support

• Portfolio management support. A holistic view of the Institute’s investments that leverages reports and dashboards to identify potential roadblocks before they occur and establish a framework to keep projects on track, on time, and on budget

In addition to implementing a project management system, the Institute made other significant changes to increase its effectiveness and efficiency. We created project manager positions to address our growing workload. This was particularly necessitated by the award of the PDG

Renewal Grant, a large multi-year, multi-project federal grant obtained in March 2020. The project manager positions assist principal investigators in planning and executing key grant activities. Additional project manager positions and roles were subsequently added or defined to ensure that Institute work is planned and monitored in a transparent and systematic manner across all aspects of the organization.

A second major change was conversion from unit independence to Institute-wide collaboration. As our staff size increased and the Institute’s portfolio of work expanded, it became increasingly evident that our work would benefit from cooperative engagement of all Institute units. Several changes were made to clarify authority and decision-making as well as to encourage and foster collaboration across the organization. These included:

• Creating program steering committees to assist with monitoring and governance of large projects

• Adopting new project request and approval processes to engage the Institute’s leadership team in discussion and planning of Institute investments

• Developing a new leadership meeting framework to create opportunities for administrative, portfolio, program, and project-related discussions, decisions, and updates to take place

• Developing cross-unit program director roles to assist in the management of large multiunit projects

Strategic planning and portfolio management are ongoing tasks. As resources and challenges grow or decline, planning and management must change as well. We have sought to create a management system that is fluid, dynamic, and responsive to the needs and goals of the Institute.

We will hold ourselves to a high standard of transparency, recognizing that we have a responsibility to demonstrate accountability to those who invest their resources in us.