What is xPM?

Traditional project portfolio management is struggling to keep up. PPM has been a dynamic space for years. We have made great strides in optimizing processes and streamlining projects, but the complexity and accelerating pace of change demand new ways of doing things.

For a while, we talked about Strategic Portfolio Management (SPM), linking portfolios to strategy.

But it’s not enough.

Today’s dynamic landscape demands more than aligning projects. It requires aligning all work across the organization to move strategically in the same direction. Simply looking at our projects and portfolios isn’t enough. We have to consider the entire organization.

It's about doing things the right way — and doing the right things.

For a long time, PPM has been focused on optimizing projects and portfolios. The process and tools are optimized for traditional PPM and tweaked to perfection. But organizations don’t run on projects alone.

In reality, a company is made up of multiple ways of working, agile workflows, product development, operations, daily business functions, and more—all interconnected but often siloed.

This siloed approach creates some key challenges:

• Limited Transparency – it’s a struggle to bridge the gap between portfolios and broader business operations.

• Strategic Misalignment – Execution is often disconnected from strategy, leading to inefficiencies as companies flounder or don’t fully take advantage of cross-departmental synergies.

• Lack of Flexibility – Traditional PPM tools don’t support the full spectrum of work in modern organizations focusing more on forcing people to work according to different processes rather than getting the right work done.

For a while we talked about strategic portfolio management (SPM) in an attempt to fix this. By aligning portfolios with strategy, we took a step closer to selecting our projects with a purpose: to drive strategy and get good return on investments. xPM goes further because it connects all work to strategy, ensuring every effort drives the business forward.

At Context&, we’re all about xPM. For us, the diversity of work means a greater potential for innovation – if you can bridge the gaps and connect the potential. It takes a more flexible approach that can encompass all these elements.

xPM is a paradigm shift. It’s not just another methodology; it’s a new way of viewing work. Instead of managing projects in isolation, xPM ensures every unit of work, whether it’s a project, an operational process, or a hybrid approach, links directly to strategic goals.

This brings in brand new requirements to how we design and define our products. It starts not from a PPM perspective, but with your organizations operational model, going back to basics and looking within the organization. It’s not about finding the perfect tool but designing processes that are tailored to your needs.

And this begins with your strategy. Take a look at your organizational strategy and then compare this to your operational model. They are the drivers for how you understand your organization and the answer to how you create great processes. xPM is the link.

Things like dependencies, resources, skills, and existing projects are all elements that will affect which processes make the most sense – and the best way to track them.

It requires bravery to leave what you know behind and step into the world of custom design processes from the bottom up, but the results are processes that actually execute the strategy and a streamlined organization with just the right amount of processes. Not too much, not too little, but just right.

In short, xPM is about connecting strategy to execution. Proper xPM connects all work to strategy, linking it to strategic drivers. It’s a shift in the way we think about work in an organization.

Gain full visibility across all types of work

Ensure strategic alignment across projects, operations, and business functions

Improve agility by adapting processes to real-world needs

Optimize execution with a tailored approach rather than rigid frameworks

This requires a shift in thinking. Instead of tweaking outdated PPM models, it’s about designing processes from the ground up, ones that fit your strategy, workforce, and operational needs.