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International Journal of Project Management 26 (2008) 357–365

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Project portfolio management – There’s more to it than

what management enacts
1
Bodil Stilling Blichfeldt *, Pernille Eskerod
University of Southern Denmark, Department of Environmental and Business Economics, Niels Bohrs Vej 9, 6700 Esbjerg, Denmark

Received 21 August 2006; received in revised form 25 May 2007; accepted 12 June 2007

Abstract

Although companies manage project portfolios concordantly with project portfolio theory, they may experience problems in the form
of delayed projects, resource struggles, stress, and a lack of overview. Based on a research project compromised of 128 in-depth inter-
views in 30 companies, we propose that a key reason why companies do not do well in relation to project portfolio management (PPM) is
that PPM often only covers a subset of on-going projects, while projects that are not subject to PPM tie up resources that initially were
dedicated to PPM projects. We address and discuss the dilemma of wanting to include all projects in PPM, and aiming at keeping the
resource and cognitive burden of doing PPM at a reasonable level.
Ó 2007 Elsevier Ltd and IPMA. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Managing programmes; Managing projects; Organisation resources; Strategy

1. Introduction during their project life cycle); (2) Management and

At any given point in time, most companies engage in
many projects. Some of these projects may relate to prod-
uct development and marketing, others relate to changes in
work processes and production flows, while yet others
relate to competency development, strategic turns, the
implementation of new IT systems, environmental issues,
etc. A key managerial task is to dedicate resources across
all of these projects (as well as do daily work) and conse-
quently, management across projects (project portfolio
management (PPM)) is critical to company performance.
This paper is based on a large-scale qualitative study,
which shows that many project-oriented companies do
not perform well when it comes to PPM. This relates to
the inability to accomplish projects that are initiated. In
particular, we identify the following problems: (1) Projects
are not completed according to plan (or they even peter out
*
Corresponding author. Tel.: +45 65504139; fax: +45 65501000.
E-mail addresses: bsb@sam.sdu.dk (B.S. Blichfeldt), pernille@sam.
sdu.dk (P. Eskerod).
1
Tel.: +45 65504154; fax: +45 65501000.
employees feel they lack a broad overview of on-going pro-
jects (especially when the number of on-going projects
increases as more and more projects are not completed
according to plan); and (3) People experience stress as
resources are continuously reallocated across projects in
order to make ends meet. These observations are especially
interesting because the companies were included in the
research project because they were supposed to be espe-
cially experienced in PPM, and because they actually
engage in PPM according to the extant body of literature
on PPM. For example, part of the companies’ PPM
included an effort to pick the best projects on the basis of
explicit or implicit criteria, and an effort to allocate suffi-
cient resources to these projects. However, despite efforts
to practice ‘good’ PPM, these companies experience severe
problems in relation to PPM – especially in letting enough
resources go into the ‘right’ projects. The purpose of this
paper is to confront PPM as advocated by normative the-
ories with actual PPM practices. Hence, the purpose is to
confront PPM theories with PPM as perceived by manag-
ers and other employees for whom PPM is part of, or
affects, their work conditions. However, in this paper, we

0263-7863/$30.00 Ó 2007 Elsevier Ltd and IPMA. All rights reserved.

doi:10.1016/j.ijproman.2007.06.004
358 B.S. Blichfeldt, P. Eskerod / International Journal of Project Management 26 (2008) 357–365
are more interested in PPM as enacted by companies than
in universally true perceptions. Hence, we adhere to
Weick’s [1–3] notion of enactment as the preconceptions
that are used to set aside a portion of the field of experience
for further attention. In regard to PPM, enacted projects
are thus the ones management sets aside for further atten-
tion (i.e. PPM). As such, we focus especially on ways actors
define or enact projects [4] and make sense of how to man-
age the sum of the projects. Drawing on this perspective,
we account for findings that suggest why companies that
do engage in PPM still experience problems.
2. Project portfolio theory
This paper draws on Archer and Ghasemzadeh’s [5, p.
208] definition of project portfolios as ‘‘a group of projects
that are carried out under the sponsorship and/or manage-
ment of a particular organization’’. Henceforth, we define
PPM as the managerial activities that relate to (1) the initial
screening, selection and prioritisation of project proposals,
(2) the concurrent reprioritisation of projects in the portfo-
lio, and (3) the allocation and reallocation of resources to
projects according to priority. For quite some time
researchers have suggested that low completion rates for
new product development (NPD) projects and new product
failure relate to resource deficiencies in key areas [6,7]. Fur-
thermore, while a host of researchers [8–10] have focused
on the dimension of PPM that concerns processes relating
to selection of projects to be included in the portfolio,
research e.g. [11] also increasingly focuses on the day-to-
day management of the project portfolio.
Among the first scholars who focused on PPM, the issue
of choosing the right (number of) projects was especially
emphasised. Thus, these researchers suggested how one
reaches the optimum project portfolio by means of mathe-
matical models (see e.g. [12]). Newer research (e.g. [13])
introduces portfolio theories, which hinge on the premise
that companies generally start more projects than they
would, had they only initiated the number of projects, for
completion of which they have adequate resources. Fur-
thermore, most of these types of PPM models rely on cen-
tral tenets of rational decision-making theory, for example,
an explication of a series of evaluative criteria mostly
related to corporate needs and objectives; an accentuation
of the extent to which each alternative (i.e. project pro-
posal) meets these criteria; and a selection (or prioritisa-
tion) of the projects offering the most value when
evaluated using pre-specified evaluative criteria. In contrast
to these PPM theories, some authors define project portfo-
lios as entities that may encompass more than just projects
that survived rational decision-making processes. For
example, Twiss [14] argues that not all funds are (or should
be) allocated to projects that initially score well using the
criteria that traditional PPM is based on. Instead, Twiss
[14] argues that some (loosely-controlled) funds should be
dedicated to projects of personal interest to employees. Pri-
marily, dedicating loosely-controlled funds to side projects
ensures that employees do not loose interest, allowing
room for creativity. Although scholars such as Twiss [14]
acknowledge that actual project portfolios contain projects
that survived initial screening as an inherent part of PPM,
not to mention unplanned employee-initiated projects, they
are all expected to be subject to some sort of screening. For
example, Twiss [14] suggests that unplanned projects of no
commercial value should be rejected on the basis of some
sort of evaluation. Thus, although Twiss [14], for example,
points to the importance of emergent projects, the PPM lit-
erature emphasises top management’s selection of the right
(number of) projects by employing explicit (and primarily
objective) evaluation criteria.
In recent years, research on PPM has changed, both in
terms of the research questions posed and in terms of the
methodological background used. Dawidson [15, p. 1]
relates to the changes in PPM studies as follows: ‘‘During
the past decade, the research on project portfolio manage-
ment has expanded into a more complete managerial
approach – beside the focus only on tools, techniques
and methods – including aspects on how project portfolio
management is practiced’’. In accordance with other
authors (e.g. [16]), Dawidson thus argues that PPM studies
that focus on PPM as a real-world managerial phenome-
non – although only quite recently established as a research
field – are increasingly setting the agenda for academic dis-
cussions on PPM. Hence, it seems that the research agenda
for PPM studies has (finally) transcended the state of
unempirical research (i.e. the development of tools and
methods for PPM that were not tested for their practical
relevance) and has moved towards studies that also look
upon PPM as it is actually carried out by companies. How-
ever, with a few valuable exceptions (primarily the works of
Dawidson and colleagues), especially recent ‘organisa-
tional’ PPM studies (e.g. [17–19]) seek to offer normative
advice on how to set up PPM, which people to involved,
and how to organise them [15]. As a result, we adhere to
Dawidson’s [15, p. 5] claim that ‘‘. . . the view of how pro-
ject portfolio management decisions really are made in a
squeezed process, the contributions here must be consid-
ered sparser’’. Thus, the empirical study accounted for in
this paper should be seen as a rather exploratory study,
the purpose of which is to contribute to the building of
knowledge on how and why companies do PPM in certain
ways – and especially to the building of knowledge on the
consequences PPM has for project work.
3. Methodology
Over a period of two years, we did empirical research on
how companies manage their entire range of projects, e.g.
renewal projects, strategic projects, IT projects, departmen-
tally specific projects, and production based projects. In
relation to the selection of companies to be included in
the empirical study, a key criterion was that the study
should cover a wide variety of industries. As a result, the
empirical study covers 30 companies from industries as
 B.S. Blichfeldt, P. Eskerod / International Journal of Project Management 26 (2008) 357–365
diverse as, e.g. mobile telephone communications, finances,
energy, pharmaceuticals, toys, software, and foods. How-
ever, due to the fact that we were looking for companies,
where the amount of on-going projects suggested they were
engaged in PPM, the study is biased towards larger compa-
nies as well as companies that define at least a substantial
part of their activities as projects. The degree to which
the companies participated in the study varies. Hence, half
of the companies are labelled ‘inner circle’ companies due
to the fact that we drew extensively on these 15 companies.
For example, in these companies more interviews were
conducted at various points in time and at various organi-
sational levels. Hence, a longitudinal perspective character-
ises the involvement of these companies. The remaining
half of the companies are labelled ‘outer circle’ companies
because their participation in the study has included fewer
top-management interviews, the purpose of which was to
gain insight into ways in which (top) management defines
the content of their project portfolios and manages them.
The primary source of evidence employed was 128 qual-
itative interviews (with one to three interviews conducted in
outer circle companies and 5–18 interviews conducted in
inner circle companies). In addition, data was obtained
from other sources of evidence than interviews, e.g. project
handbooks, project lists, computer systems and databases,
and other company-specific documents. Primarily, this type
of additional data was used by the researchers to prepare
for the next interviews. A final stream of additional data
was obtained as the researchers engaged in a series of
workshops with the companies. The main purpose of these
workshops was to obtain feed-back from the companies on
the researchers’ preliminary interpretations, findings, and
conclusions. Hence, during these workshops, the findings
of the study presented in this article were discussed with
and modified in accordance with feed-back offered by the
companies. In practice, some of the researchers presented
preliminary findings during these workshops and subse-
quently discussed these findings with the company repre-
sentatives, while other researchers observed these
discussions and took notes. These notes were used during
the next phase of analysis in order to ensure that the find-
ings – and especially the choosing of key quotations – actu-
ally resemble PPM as enacted by the informants.
The 128 interviews were done in two series. First, the
preliminary round of interviews was comprised of 38 inter-
views that each lasted from one to two hours. A deliberate
choice was made not to make these preliminary interviews
too structured in order to allow the interviews to affect the
interview guides that were to be used in subsequent inter-
views. All 30 companies participated in this preliminary
round and the interviews were conducted with top or
higher level managers responsible for PPM. Afterwards,
the researchers conducted 90 semi-structured interviews.
Some of these interviews were one-on-one interviews and
others were group interviews with people at the same
organisational level. Apart from interviews with top man-
agers and functional managers, the second series of inter-
359
views also included interviews with project managers and
project team members. Hence, while interviews with top
managers and functional managers especially focused on
issues such as strategy and management, portfolios, organ-
isational culture, organising for PPM, and project manage-
ment, the interviews with project managers and project
team members especially focused on the ways in which
the management of project portfolios affected employees
and their daily work. Hence, the study encompasses a dual-
ity of perspectives, covering the perspectives of those who
do PPM and those who are subject to PPM. In the follow-
ing sections we present the key findings of the study.
4. Many projects and a lack of resources
The most striking finding is that the empirical evidence
obtained at all organisation levels suggests that the 30 com-
panies experience a host of the resource-related problems
and symptoms accounted for in the literature. For exam-
ple, a managing director, an operations manager, and a
vice president in charge of project management stated the
following (all interview quotes in this paper were translated
from Danish to English by the authors):
‘‘Probably, the key characteristic is that all projects get
postponed and postponed.’’
‘‘I dream that one day we will become better at limiting
the number of projects we initiate.’’
‘‘I think that we are reaching the tolerance level regard-
ing how many balls we can juggle with at once . . . I think
that we waste a lot of time on joggling so many balls . . . I
think we could do more by doing fewer projects . . . It is
important that we find the balance between doing a
proper job in choosing between projects and in achiev-
ing a fast process and thus, quantity.’’
Also, the marketing manager in one company argued
that:
‘‘It is a battle for resources. We have a lot more projects
than we are able to work on, we really do . . . I think
there is a tendency to always take too much in.’’
Furthermore, three engineers who are part of a project
team found that:
‘‘Somehow, perhaps, we ought to have more resources,
because we generally have more ideas than we have peo-
ple to do the work.’’
‘‘It is easy to say, ‘you get this amount of time’. But
when it comes down to it, the time simply isn’t available.
I mean, you are assigned a portion of time, but in prac-
tice that portion of time simply doesn’t exist.’’
‘‘I don’t think that we have ever kept a deadline.’’
The lack of resources combined with many (suffering)
projects is not an uncommon finding [20]. The interesting
point is to figure out why companies heavily involved in
project management and PPM (and henceforth a group
of companies that may very well be best practice companies
360 B.S. Blichfeldt, P. Eskerod / International Journal of Project Management 26 (2008) 357–365
in these respects) have not overcome the crunch in
resources for projects. The following sections offer an
explanation.
4.1. Content of project portfolios
Although PPM research tends to emphasise NPD pro-
jects, we found a number of other project types in the com-
panies included in the empirical study. For example, when
addressing the content of the company’s project portfolio,
a sales and marketing director reasoned:
‘‘We have a lot of things we need to develop in relation
to customers. We spend many resources on those things.
Then we have some things we need to develop in terms
of production. We also spend a lot of resources there.
And then we have an organisation that needs to keep
up.’’
Along the same vein, a vice president elaborates on the
project portfolio as follows:
‘‘If we are talking about new products, then we have
around 5–10 projects . . . perhaps more . . . If we are talk-
ing about other types of projects . . ., e.g. organisational
development projects . . . there we have . . . I don’t know
how many of these qualify as projects . . . but we are
building a new plant, I don’t know if that is a pro-
ject . . . we have new production technologies . . . we also
have IT projects . . . IT includes large projects.’’
Although the informants account for a series of different
projects, the most important finding is that actual official
project portfolios appear to contain other types of projects
than NPD projects. Furthermore, it seems that actual,
although not official project portfolios contain projects,
the existence of which is (more or less) unknown to top
management and, thus, not subject to PPM. We apply
the notion ‘enacted portfolios’ in order to set projects sub-
ject to PPM apart from projects not subject to it. Thus,
enacted project portfolios are comprised of the projects
included on the project lists that top managers rely on
when they engage in PPM, e.g. when they compare new
project proposals with each other in order to decide which
projects they will (not) dedicate resources to and, hence,
which projects they will include in project lists; when they
engage in on-going prioritisation of projects on the list
and, hence, when they (re)allocate resources across pro-
jects; when they decide to kill projects; and/or when they
decide to put projects on hold. Thus, enacted project port-
folios include projects whose existence top management is
aware of and the progress (or lack thereof) that top man-
agement takes an active interest in. However, the empirical
study suggests that – apart from ‘enacted’ portfolios – com-
panies engage in a plethora of smaller projects that tie up
valuable (and scarce) resources; although these projects
are never subject to PPM and they do not receive top man-
agement’s attention. The following sections account for the
two subsets of project portfolios (i.e. enacted projects and
projects whose existence management is unaware of) and
are followed by a discussion of ways in which these subsets
compete for resources.
4.2. Projects that are part of enacted project portfolios
All of the 30 companies included in the empirical study
engage in a wide variety of enacted projects. In general,
NPD projects account for a substantial portion of all the
projects the 30 companies engage in. Apart from NPD pro-
jects, enacted project portfolios (i.e. portfolios subject to
PPM) encompass larger renewal projects, e.g. IT projects,
organisational development projects, and strategic projects.
The notion ‘larger renewal projects’ is adopted in order to
account for projects characterised by the following features:
– The origins and end results of the projects are not
(directly) linked to the demand-side,
– Primarily, the aim of the projects is to enhance internal
activities and not to deliver superior value to customers
(directly), and
– The intra-organisational renewal projects cut across
more departments (or even the entire company).
Regarding both types of enacted projects, companies use
stage gate processes characterised by frequent reviews of
on-going projects. However, some key factors discriminate
between management of NPD and renewal projects. First,
the number of projects is a key discriminator as companies
have much fewer on-going renewal projects than NPD pro-
jects. Second, a renewal project typically represents a much
heavier investment than a NPD project does and more of
the renewal projects are initiated by top management as
well as closely monitored by top management throughout
their life-cycles. NPD projects are typically initiated at a
lower level in the organisational hierarchy. Third, larger
renewal projects and NPD projects are not managed in
the same way. For example, after having addressed the
management of NPD projects, a managing director and
an IT manager, respectively, offered the following com-
ments on the management of larger renewal projects:
‘‘I don’t think we are as professional when it comes to
[larger renewal projects]. Or at least, we are not as expe-
rienced. Actually, I think this is an area where we could
improve. And . . . an area where we could use more struc-
ture, more reviews, etc. It is not that we lack seriousness,
we are just not that good at it.’’
‘‘Generally, I feel that we are on top of things in relation
to NPD projects. Renewal projects . . . organisational
improvement projects and projects relating to processes
internally in the company are what I see as prioritised
less.’’
Furthermore, no external customers relate to renewal
projects. One implication of the lack of external clients is
that although top management is highly involved in, or
at least concerned about, renewal projects, often NPD pro-
 B.S. Blichfeldt, P. Eskerod / International Journal of Project Management 26 (2008) 357–365
jects are prioritised before renewal projects (for which it is
much more difficult to suggest bottom-line results). Never-
theless, the largest of the renewal projects are so large and
strategically important that they occupy a prominent posi-
tion in the project portfolio.
4.3. Projects that are not part of enacted project portfolios
Apart from enacted projects, all of the 30 companies
also engage in a wide variety of smaller projects that are
not subject to initial screening; hence, these projects never
become part of enacted project portfolios or PPM. One
R& D manager explained the nature of un-enacted projects
as follows:
‘‘It is those projects that are not formulated, or some-
how documented, or promised to anybody but oneself.
They are mostly things you have started up on your
own. . .’’
The pool of smaller, un-enacted projects includes smal-
ler NPD projects as well as smaller renewal projects (pro-
jects characterised by the features listed previously). Thus,
this cluster of projects is comprised of smaller projects
undertaken by one, or only a few, people located in the
same department. It seems that knowledge about these
kinds of projects only exists at departmental levels. For
example, when asked about the total range of projects that
the company is involved in, the IT-manager in one com-
pany stated:
‘‘I have to say, I don’t know what is going on in the
other departments.’’
Furthermore, a project chief argued that:
‘‘I don’t know exactly what they are doing down there,
but I hope that we have about 10 significant projects
going on.’’
Also, engineers working with operations in the same
company argued that:
‘‘There are lots of project lists. For example, we have a list
in Lotus Notes. It is only the big projects that are regis-
tered there. Nevertheless, people have so many . . .
medium-range tasks and projects . . . I have my own list
that I discuss with [my superior] once every so often.’’
Top management is rarely involved in the smaller pro-
jects because they pop up independently of top manage-
ment’s PPM, while they only affect the work of a very
few people in the organisation during their life cycles. Fur-
thermore, at all organisational levels, it seems that it is per-
fectly acceptable not to seek approval for such projects.
For example, the following arguments were offered by
two engineers:
‘‘There are project portfolio limits in terms of money. If
it is projects or tasks below [EUR 7000], top manage-
ment won’t make a fuss over trifles. It has to cost
361
EUR 100,000 before they spend much time on it at their
meetings.’’
‘‘We are talking about small projects, projects that never
become big enough to make it worthwhile to set the
whole machinery in motion . . . Most of the time, I just
do them without asking anybody.’’
The smaller projects are activities that the individual
employee or a middle manager (or a few people) engage
in when time/other work-related activities allow for it.
Thus, rarely do these activities qualify as real projects in
the minds of managers; hence, they are not integral parts
of the company’s official project portfolio. As a result,
smaller projects are not an integral part of PPM, although
the mere number of smaller projects suggests that this type
of project work is, indeed, alive and kicking, as well as
resources consuming. In fact, the empirical study suggests
that, in practice, smaller projects consume quite a substan-
tial proportion of employee time and resources. Middle
managers (including project managers) seem to have some-
what mixed feelings about the tendency to engage in smal-
ler projects independently of PPM. One project manager
states:
‘‘I could easily start something on my own, but then it is
for me only. Somehow, I think that is as it should be.
But, it would be unfortunate if we all did our own things
independently. Actually, I try to fight against that.’’
As suggested by the above comments, which resemble
empirical evidence across all 30 companies, a lot of smaller,
un-enacted projects seem to exist in all of the companies,
upon which our empirical work is based.
4.4. Ways in which projects compete for resources
The fact that a host of small-scale projects are initiated
and completed, but unknown to (top) management has pro-
found managerial implications for the resources available
for projects included in enacted and, hence, ‘managed’ pro-
ject portfolios. Thus, although each un-enacted project
does not tie up many resources, the number of such pro-
jects suggests that, in sum, they take up a lot of the
resources necessary for the completion of on-going enacted
projects. Furthermore, these small-scale projects take up
resources without ever being screened against the evalua-
tion criteria that are applied when management screens
enacted projects. Although most managers welcome
small-scale projects and bottom-up initiatives, the projects
demonstrate that the demand they put on resources poses a
dilemma.
The progress (or lack thereof) of ‘enacted’ projects is
closely monitored by top management and, thus, the
allocation of resources to such projects is an important
part of PPM. In practice, top management spends much
time and resources balancing the needs of enacted pro-
jects. For example, top management may put a renewal
project on hold (or at least dedicate fewer resources to
362 B.S. Blichfeldt, P. Eskerod / International Journal of Project Management 26 (2008) 357–365
the project) when getting strategically important NPD
projects completed is critical. On the other hand, if top
management decides that a renewal project needs to be
completed quickly, a decision is often made to drain
resources from NPD projects. Cooper and Edgett [21,
p. 50] argue that ‘‘most businesses have immediate devel-
opment needs, projects that must be done. . .’’ and that
‘‘these ‘must do’ projects always exist’’. The empirical
study corroborates the fact that – during their lifecycles –
enacted projects shift priorities. Thus, at a specific point
in time, top management may define a specific renewal pro-
ject (e.g. an IT project) as a must-do project, whereas top
management may very well allow the schedule to slip for
this project at a later stage. Especially this kind of de-pri-
oritisation of renewal projects seems to relate to some
NPD projects turning into must-do projects during their
lifecycle. For example, one functional manager pointed
out that:
‘‘Customer-related projects may make us put other types
of projects on hold. But nothing, nothing at all, should
stop these other [renewal] projects. They might stagnate
for a while, but it shouldn’t stop them.’’
Managers thus seem to be very aware of the fact that
internal projects and NPD projects compete for scarce
resources. For example, when addressing the challenges
of PPM, one marketing manager argued that:
‘‘. . . especially [tension exists] between customer-related
projects and projects steered internally . . . there are lots
of considerations concerning this. Sometimes it goes one
way and sometimes it goes the other.’’
Apart from project selection and approval, especially
management of enacted portfolios thus concerns (1)
resource allocation and sharing across projects, (2) review-
ing the portfolio and hence, project termination, and (3)
reallocation of resources across on-going projects in accor-
dance with shifting project prioritisation. For example, one
IT manager reasoned as follows:
‘‘We have to acknowledge that, nowadays, in a figura-
tive sense, you never have an empty in-box. You can’t
get to the bottom of the pile, because things change all
the time. Thus, you have to be able to reprioritise.
Actually, this is one of the most important managerial
tasks: to always prioritise resources at the right point
in time.’’
Also, one marketing manager argued that especially the
management of project portfolios concerns:
‘‘Trying to push some projects ahead of others.’’
Drawing on the preceding section, a key finding of our
empirical study is that enacted project portfolios are sub-
ject to PPM concordantly with normative PPM theories.
In contrast, smaller projects are not subject to PPM and,
hence, compete for resources in ways that do not align with
PPM theory.
4.5. Why projects subject to PPM fail
The exclusion of smaller projects from the official port-
folio is not concordant with Cooper et al.’s [13,22] sugges-
tion that all projects should be subject to a stage gate
process due to the fact that all projects (and thus, also
small projects) take up resources. Thus, contradictory to
theory, the empirical study suggests that smaller projects
are not integral parts of PPM, although the mere number
of smaller projects identified by the empirical study sug-
gests that these projects are, indeed, an important part of
project work. In fact, the empirical study suggests that, in
practice, smaller projects and tasks consume quite a sub-
stantial proportion of employee time. Even more impor-
tantly, the host of smaller projects does not draw on a
pool of loosely-controlled funds, i.e. funds not tied up
according to pre-specified purposes. Instead, these projects
draw on time and resources that top management has ded-
icated to enacted projects and, thus, smaller projects actu-
ally drain resources from enacted projects. The fact that
resources are spread too thinly across projects emerged
throughout most of the 128 interviews; two engineers sta-
ted, for example:
‘‘You really want to do well [in projects]. It is just that
you don’t always feel that you have the time for it.
You don’t feel you have the time to do your job prop-
erly, get the development projects absolutely fine-tuned
and completed. That can be difficult.’’
‘‘It is difficult to run a project without being disturbed.’’
The existence of smaller un-enacted projects is not the
only reason for resources being drained from enacted pro-
jects. A large amount of other daily work is another impor-
tant factor. Concordant with the PPM literature, the
people in the 30 companies are rarely assigned to projects
full-time. Instead, mostly only a portion of people’s time
is devoted to project work, while the remaining time is ded-
icated to other duties and daily work in their departments.
However, in reality, daily work often predominates and,
consequently, time and resources dedicated to project work
are under pressure. For example, one production manager
stated:
‘‘It is intriguing to do renewal projects. The thing that is
less amusing is when every day is booked with daily
work, because renewal projects then take the back seat
and it stops being intriguing.’’
At lower organisational levels, employees also address
the dilemma of being assigned to both daily work and pro-
jects. For example, when elaborating on their attitudes
towards projects in general, two engineers argued as fol-
lows:
‘‘It depends on the time of the day when I am asked. If
you ask me at the project meetings, etc, then project
work has the highest priority. If you ask me when we
have an important, incoming order, then projects don’t
 B.S. Blichfeldt, P. Eskerod / International Journal of Project Management 26 (2008) 357–365 363

matter at all. When a project lacks results, however, it 5. Managerial implications

resumes highest priority.’’
‘‘Projects are affected profoundly by daily work. A key finding is that the gap between required and avail-
Nobody does projects all the time, so we all have to take able resources is very much attributable to the existence of
daily work into consideration as well. So the production a host of smaller projects that never become part of enacted
flow has first priority and then everything else runs on project portfolios. Thus, at an aggregated level, the empir-
the side.’’ ical study suggests smaller, un-enacted projects qualify as
resources crunchers in so far they are not considered to
Also at higher organisational levels, people are aware of
be a part of enacted project portfolios. In order to over-
the battle for resources between daily work and project
come this crunch in resources, two solutions seem obvious:
work. For example, one managing director stated:
‘‘Once in a while when operations pressure us we 1. Enacting more, i.e. having PPM embrace all projects,
manage top-down. At the moment, the situation is 2. Allocating more resources to a pool of loosely-con-
that across most of the organisation we have thrown trolled resources for the un-enacted projects to draw on.
everything else away in order to only focus on
operations.’’ However, as suggested below, both of these solutions
have their drawbacks.
Given that, apart from daily work, employees (and
especially employees in manufacturing and R&D), as
5.1. Embracing all projects
mentioned previously, initiate a host of smaller projects
for which no time is officially allocated, which means
One solution to the resource crunch is to try to make the
time dedicated to work on enacted projects ends up being
smaller, un-enacted projects an integral part of PPM. Thus,
very sparse in practice. Furthermore, employee motiva-
managers could try to make PPM concordant with Cooper
tion to work on these projects may be even higher than
et al.’s [13,22] suggestion that all projects should be subject
their motivation to work on enacted projects due to the
to PPM. Thus, if all projects – no matter how small they
fact that the end results of these types of smaller projects
are – were included in the official project list that manage-
are highly visible to the individual employee, i.e. the com-
ment relies on when doing PPM, the tendency these pro-
pletion of these projects occurs in the foreseeable future.
jects have to drain the resource pool dedicated to other
Thus, the existence of smaller projects has the negative
projects would disappear. However, the empirical study
side-effect that personnel are spread too thinly across
indicates that the task of including all projects in the pro-
the projects they are supposed to work on. Consequently,
ject list that PPM supervenes on is – in practice – an impos-
although smaller, individual projects do not take up
sible mission. Especially, four major concerns disfavour
many resources, on an aggregate level they take up a
any attempt to generate project lists that encompass all
considerable portion of the resources that top manage-
projects:
ment thought was devoted to other projects by means
of PPM. The fact that smaller projects tie up resources
1. Top management has limited capacity (cognitively as
that have never been assigned to them is addressed as fol-
well as in terms of time) to apply to PPM.
lows by a project chief:
2. It may be difficult to identify and estimate the activities
‘‘For larger projects, the managing director decides on in the projects, and, thereby, carry out detailed resource
the time and money and then I assign people to the pro- management.
jects. As for smaller projects, I think it is more like peo- 3. The resource burden arising from identifying and
ple try to squeeze them in . . .’’ administrating small projects is very high compared to
expected benefits.
Also, one engineer confirms that smaller projects are
4. Bureaucracy induces less employee flexibility and free-
squeezed in as follows:
dom to do independent project work.
‘‘It is as if the projects are often managed from the bot-
tom. Some of us say, for example, ‘it would be smart if At all levels of organisation, our empirical evidence sug-
we did something here’. And then we do it without much gests that smaller, independent projects are desirable. How-
managerial interference.’’ ever, the generation of all-encompassing project lists
qualifies as a rather utopian idea. First, top managers find
This study corroborates the claim made by, e.g. McDon-
that it would be a waste of their valuable time if they were
ough and Spital [11] and Cooper and Edgett [21], that daily
to enact all projects no matter their size. Second, top man-
work is a factor, which induces stress in employees. On top
agement finds that an organisation with no independent
of the conflict between daily work and enacted projects, the
project work would qualify as rather static and un-innova-
small, un-enacted projects and tasks make this pressure
tive. Third, middle managers find that a lot of tasks are
even worse, while, at the same time, top management
completed better if employees initiate and complete them
may not be aware of this issue.
on their own compared to if they had been subject to
364 B.S. Blichfeldt, P. Eskerod / International Journal of Project Management 26 (2008) 357–365
management interference. Last – but certainly not least –
across all 30 companies, employees were very fond of smal-
ler, independent projects. Employees especially appreciate
these projects because they empower them, i.e. working
on these projects makes them feel that they make a differ-
ence and that they are able to control their own work
schedules. Hence, the fact that employees work on their
own projects has a positive, and substantial effect on the
individual employee (an effect we might label increased
self-realization and self-respect). Thus, if management finds
that it is important to facilitate creativity and initiative on
the behalf of employees, then it seems to be a dangerous
strategy to take away a means of creativity and self-
empowerment, i.e. smaller, independent projects that
employees appreciate.
5.2. Setting up a pool of loosely-controlled resources
Due to the severe problems regarding the first solution
(i.e. making PPM all-embracing), another solution would
be to assure that there is the space and resources for
employees to do smaller, independent projects without
these projects becoming subject to PPM. Hence, the second
solution is to set up a pool of loosely-controlled resources
dedicated to projects that are simply too small for top man-
agement to incorporate them into PPM. Thus, manage-
ment could make room for employees to work on
smaller, independent projects of their own choice. A piece
of well-known advice in the project management literature
is to set up an 80/20 rule, i.e. let PPM cover 80 percent of
resources and set aside the remaining 20% for employees to
allocate across smaller projects. In practice, this could be
done by dedicating four days a week to PPM projects
and one day to smaller projects. However, as simple as this
may sound, setting up loosely-controlled resources for
smaller projects to draw upon may prove difficult in prac-
tice. Especially, problems may arise from the following
issues:
1. Daily work getting in the way of work on both enacted
and un-enacted projects.
2. Tight deadlines on a specific project may make it wiser
to focus on that project rather than spread out resources
across more projects.
3. The level of liability on behalf of employees that this
type of strategy is dependent upon.
4. Implementation of this strategy necessitates that man-
agement defines where the boundary between enacted
and un-enacted projects actually lies.
5. It may be problematic that un-enacted projects are not
evaluated or that they are not subject to some sort of
screening like enacted projects are.
In conclusion, it thus seems that a key managerial chal-
lenge is to decide whether individual projects should be
part of PPM. As the generation of all-embracing project
lists is rather problematic, the end result of this decision-
making processes is likely to be the decision not to generate
comprehensive lists. If the end result of the decision-mak-
ing is to not make comprehensive project lists (i.e. lists that
include all minor projects), then management faces two
additional challenges. First, top management has to decide
on the boundary that sets enacted projects apart from un-
enacted ones. Thus, managers have to deliberately decide
which projects should be subject to PPM and which ones
should not be. Second, having decided on degrees of enact-
ment, the challenge is to decide how many resources should
be set aside for the plethora of small projects that do not
appear on the project list. Otherwise, smaller projects will
take up a critical portion of the resources that are – offi-
cially – set aside for the completion of projects subject to
PPM. It is not, we argue, possible to make any rule-of-
thumb to indicate what the extent of top management’s
enactment of projects should be. Especially, this is impos-
sible due to the fact that degrees of enactment hinge upon
top management’s predispositions towards top-down PPM
and employee empowerment. Hence, it especially seems
that top management might reduce the crunch in resources
by means of deliberately deciding on (1) which projects
need top management attention, and (2) which projects
are better left to employees.
6. Research implications
The empirical study elaborates on the ‘‘significant short-
age of resources devoted to NPD’’ that Cooper and Edgett
[21] argue is the fundamental problem ‘‘that plagues most
firms’ product development efforts’’. Our work especially
suggests that the shortage of resources devoted to enacted
projects is not a problem that primarily arises in relation to
top management’s PPM. On the contrary, in-good-faith
top management dedicates resources to enacted projects
on the basis of sound PPM. However, what top managers
do not do is take into account the host of smaller projects
that individuals initiate and – more importantly – top man-
agers ignore (or at least heavily under-estimate) the amount
of resources that these smaller projects tie up. Hence, we
argue that especially the crunch in resources may be attrib-
utable to the un-enacted competition for resources that
smaller projects subject enacted projects to. Consequently,
the key contribution of our empirical work to research is
that it emphasises that if we wish to study PPM (and espe-
cially if we wish to relate PPM to project performance), we
might be better off taking into account the entire range of
projects that actual (not enacted) portfolios are comprised
of. Thus, if we as researchers only enact the projects that
are neatly listed by top management, then our research will
neglect the host of projects that are not subject to PPM,
projects that nonetheless take up valuable, and scarce,
resources. The fact that the empirical study includes inter-
views with managers, i.e. those who do PPM, and inter-
views with personnel at lower organisational levels, i.e.
those whose work is subject to PPM, is the reason why
we were able to identify un-enacted projects. Thus,
 B.S. Blichfeldt, P. Eskerod / International Journal of Project Management 26 (2008) 357–365
researchers interested in PPM should be careful not to rely
too heavily on a management perspective.
7. Conclusion and limitations
The main conclusion is that as long as some projects are
un-enacted, companies may experience a drain on
resources that reduces the time and resources actually
devoted to projects subject to PPM. Hence, each individual
company should decide whether or not all projects should
be part of PPM and if the end result of such a decision is
not to make comprehensive project lists (i.e. lists that
include all minor projects), then management should
decide how many resources should be set aside for the
plethora of small projects that do not appear on the project
list. One way in which the crunch in resources can be
reduced is by ensuring that smaller projects do not take
up a critical portion of the resources that are – officially –
set aside for the completion of projects subject to PPM.
However, due to the exploratory nature of the study
accounted for in this paper, our findings relate far more
to what companies actually do (positive theory in Hunt’s
[23] terms), rather than to what they ought to do (norma-
tive theory in Hunt’s [23] terms). Although generating posi-
tive theory is indeed a crucial first step – especially in
relation to the future of PPM theory – positive theory can-
not, and should not, stand alone. Hence, the key challenges
for PPM theory in the future are to produce normative the-
ory that offers sound suggestions as to how companies can
improve their PPM. Another limitation of our study is that
the empirical part was carried out in a Danish context as
the 30 companies involved are located in Denmark, which
may not be sufficiently representative for companies world-
wide because Denmark has, to a larger extent, a bottom-up
culture. Therefore, the portion of smaller un-enacted pro-
jects may be bigger here than in companies in other coun-
tries. We hope that our study will inspire other researchers
to carry our similar studies in other countries.
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