Most of us cannot answer those three questions quickly. That is not a failure of  professionalism. It is the predictable result of running a portfolio on numbers that are  assembled by hand, arrive late, and are never quite owned by anyone. 

Two cost drivers you already know. Three you do not. 

Everyone in this profession knows the project that collapses entirely, and the one that  simply keeps costing more than anyone promised. Total failure and cost overrun. Both  are loud, both get a post-mortem, and every organisation can name examples. 

The other three cost drivers are quiet. They never appear in a business case and nobody  books them to an account. They burn more of your profit than you would believe. In  Zurich I will name all five and I will assess the size of each. 

Additionally, they are not five separate problems. They form a loop: each one feeds the  next, so repairing a single driver lets the other four quietly refill it. That is why one more  reporting tool, or one more governance workshop, does not solve the whole problem.

 Who is telling you this

 I am CEO and founder of Change Factory AG in Lucerne. We run PPM assessments,  redesign processes and governance, and implement PQFORCE as sales and  implementation partner of INTRASOFT AG. 

Before that I look back on fifteen years in international infrastructure at GE Capital, AOL  Germany and Telefónica Germany, in director, board and CTO roles. That is where I  learned what a portfolio costs when nobody keeps the overview. I hold a Dipl.-Ing. in  computer engineering and an M.Sc. in Strategic Management, and I am the author of a  book on board strategy and performance management in Swiss mid-sized companies. 

The software behind the answers 

PQFORCE is a Swiss-built platform for managing projects, portfolios of projects,  resources and the costs behind them in a single place. It is the flagship product of  INTRASOFT, a Swiss SaaS provider building software since 1992. That experience now  runs through PQFORCE, giving project teams and leadership a shared, real-time view of  where a project portfolio stands. 

For banks, cantonal administrations, hospitals, industrial and construction firms  across Switzerland and the DACH region, data sovereignty is not a marketing  argument, but a requirement. That is exactly why PQFORCE is built and hosted  entirely in Switzerland. 

What you will leave with 

A way to assess your own projects and portfolios honestly. An understanding of how the  five drivers reinforce each other. And a method to calculate what they cost you in total,  so you can put the break-even of digitalised PPM in front of your management with  figures that hold up. 

Before you come 

Session details and time are here: https://pmi-switzerland.ch/events/pm conference/where-the-money-really-goes-the-five-silent-cost-drivers-in-project portfolio-management 

And bring one figure with you: what your portfolio spent last year on projects that never  delivered their benefit case. An estimate is enough. Change Factory and PQFORCE share  a booth throughout the day — bring that figure over and we will work out what the rest  of the loop costs you.

Not willing to wait until 29 October? We run the same calculation with your own figures  in thirty minutes: https://calendly.com/changefactory/30min 

Find us at our shared PQFORCE and Change Factory booth, open all day if you want to  keep the conversation going after the talk. 

Take back control: we are waiting for you on 29 October at SIX Convention Point in  Zurich.