We often find ourselves working on the familiar things, things we have had repeated success with and things where we are least likely to fail. We often like to stay in our comfort zone, going with what we know.

That's the easy route. The projects may not always end successfully, but we go into them knowing more and start with a greater chance of success.

It's easy to start familiar projects with confidence, to win our clients over right out of the gate and start fresh with a new project team knowing we are going down a familiar path. The confidence we start these projects with shows to our customers, and it certainly makes it easier to get these projects off on the right foot because we know what we are doing - there really isn't any learning curve. But keep in mind there really isn't much career or professional growth involved, either.

Even the most well-prepared project manager on the most well-planned project will end up dealing with risks. How it affects the project, though, is determined by how well the team deals with those risks.

The best way to deal with risks is to remove them from the project in one way or another. Removing risks can help the project proceed without the distraction and the extra work entailed in dealing with risks left to their own devices. Dealing with any risk involves four key phases.

The chaotic, turbulent, and rapidly changing business environment that has become the new normal, needs Project Portfolio Management (PPM) to drive value. Organizations struggle to prioritize the right initiatives and manifest them at the right time. They are falling behind on their peers and over time put their existence in the market place at risk. 

Volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity (VUCA) are forces that have an immediate impact on an organization’s ability to perform. PPM is the answer to VUCA. It provides a level of structure and concerted, orchestrated organizational behavior that is needed to drive ideas to results.