Considerations of time in project portfolio management

: Martinsuo M

Publisher: European Academy of Management, EURAM

: 2023

: EURAM 2023 Conference

: EURAM Conference

: 978-2-9602195-5-5

: https://researchportal.tuni.fi/en/publications/003e6a64-4048-40c0-bb69-e985e72be214

Time has been considered as a key success criterion and a limited resource in projects. It also causes competition among the projects in a portfolio and tensions across time horizons in portfolio decision making. Research on project portfolios and their management has so far treated time only implicitly and secondarily, by the side of other topics. The purpose of this conceptual paper is to investigate the relevance, meaning, and future possibilities of time in project portfolio management research. The relevance and treatment of time is first covered generally in project studies, continuing with an overview of the objective and subjective coverage of time in project portfolio management research. Future research avenues are proposed on five domains that connect the objective and subjective considerations. The paper suggests that project portfolio management research should increasingly acknowledge the meaning and potential of time, both as a limited and competed resource, as a focal topic of research, and as an issue to be managed deliberately.