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Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Five Minutes PM podcast. This time of the year is very common that we start to identify and to start to analyze the projects we'll be doing next year. Right? So most of the companies are starting to think about, okay, which Project we should do in which product we should not do and Why making a simple decision. It is so complex. Why is it so hard for us to keep things simple? And then I created basically three kinds of answers or three kinds of reasons for you make in our life.
So Complex when we are selecting projects in the portfolio environment, the first one is that people are not used to selecting based on criteria. They are used to select based on desires. Since like, Ohh. I think because my gut feeling is that this project is a good So. This is my criteria for this project is a good or the project is not good So and this is not reasonable criteria. So people drive their interest, and there yeah.
Desires in not clear, tangible and measurable criteria. The second thing is that even when you create criteria, you create such abstract criteria that people cannot measure that I can hang on. The way I want is like, okay, do the most beautiful person. It depends. It depends on which kind of criteria are clear criteria because beauty is a subject topic; it's like projects. So even risk. I need to make a clear understanding of what is it low, medium, and high risk on my Project environment in terms of its that the people end their organization.
They have the true belief that I can do everything in place for them. I put this as, as the last one, because for me, this is one of the most critical, you know, remember every single week we start planning our week, we put a huge amount of tasks to be done, right? And this helps us just with one thing to create a very depressive Friday that you are not able to deliver what you propose it back then. So its a very, very important because their organizations do the same.
At the end of the year, their organizations are selecting their projects. And then they say, Oh, so we need to do everything. We need to be doing all these projects. And then, one year later, they see that they don't have resources. They don't have money; they don't have a strategy. They don't have, you know, the driver to do everything because it's impossible because our dreams are always much higher than the reality. We live in a constraint at the reality and not our dreams.
It can fit everything, but the reality is different. So why I'm saying this is because we need to create the process, and we need to trust the process. So when you are selecting a project for a portfolio, you need first to identify the projects. The second one you need to create a set of clear criteria is what does the driver for their organization for the next two to three, four, five years? What is the key driver? His cost is what then the, what do you do just after that?
You need to wait to give them a specific way to every single criterion. Okay? The criteria a is more important than B risk is more important than profit or vice versa. I need to understand this, and then I need to apply. And I need to believe that the results are a reason I can not do all this process to gamble the process in order to decide what I need to do, but it's or something that will support your decision-making process. And it is Simple; trust me, each is not rocket science.
It's something that you can do in a very simple and reliable way, but first, you need to understand these limits. Again. I remember when I started working with Project. So there is no time and money to do everything you need to select. And the selection is always painful. It's always painful because when we opt to do something, we are opting out of another thing. And maybe in the future, we can conclude that we made a poor decision, but so we need to decide that this part of the natural risk of every single organization, every single government and every single project manager if you were not able to do that, you are not able to work as a portfolio manager to work, helping your organization to address properly what should be done in time, what should not be done.
Okay. Think about that and see you next week with another Five Minutes PM Podcast.
