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Introduction: A Tough Year for Hazel
Hazel is the Strategic Portfolio Manager for her organization.
Last year, she walked nervously into the Portfolio Board’s planning session for the year ahead.
The numbers from the previous year were dismal:
After that meeting, Hazel had several sleepless nights. The Chairman criticized her decision-making, and she knew something had to change.
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The Challenge: Operating Blind
Hazel’s biggest problem was that she was operating blind.
Project data wasn’t consolidated in a single place. There were no visuals, no dashboards, and no clear analytics.
Senior leaders struggled to agree on strategy because they lacked the data to make confident investment decisions.
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A New Approach: Enter Cora SPM
This year, Hazel is approaching the same planning session with a completely different mindset.
She’s prepared — armed with Cora SPM, a tool designed to help her choose the right projects for her portfolio.
With Cora SPM, Hazel can graphically design her portfolio structure to align directly with business strategy.
Working collaboratively with senior management, she has adjusted existing portfolios — something that was previously impossible without a dynamic, visual system.
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Building a Data-Driven Portfolio
Through a simple web-based portal, Hazel gathered over 50 pieces of project inventory data for each project.
Project owners couldn’t skip fields, ensuring she had complete and accurate data for every initiative.
She developed a clear capacity plan for each project — identifying the required skills, timing, risk level, and Net Present Value (NPV).
For the first time, she had everything she needed to make smart, data-driven decisions.
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Data Assessment and Prioritization
Hazel ran an initial portfolio assessment, identifying and removing duplicates across plants by comparing project types and expected outcomes.
Projects that exceeded acceptable cost thresholds or fell outside the company’s risk profile were eliminated.
A prioritization toolset, configured to her organization’s business model, provided a clear ranking of projects based on strategic fit and value.
Once initial assessments were complete, Hazel scored each project’s delivery against strategic objectives, instantly seeing which projects were over- or under-performing — and adjusted accordingly.
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Scenario Planning and Optimization
Hazel developed three scenarios for each portfolio using Cora SPM’s Scenario Comparison component.
The tool’s graphical interface allowed her to easily spot anomalies and refine her selections.
She used the What-If Capacity Planning module to test different resource allocations.
The results showed that by moving 11 projects by just a couple of months, she could deliver 5 additional projects within the same year — maximizing resource utilization.
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Dynamic Budgeting and Strategic Visualization
Next, Hazel dynamically assigned budgets to each initiative, clearly showing how much funding was needed to deliver on each scenario.
She then generated an Automatic Roadmap, filtered by Product Launches, a key metric for her Portfolio Board.
When presenting, Hazel’s dashboard visualizations impressed the board — providing clear overviews of risks, issues, outputs, timelines, resources, budgets, and capacity.
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Smarter, Faster Decision-Making
The Board could instantly see, using the Strategy Widget, how adding or removing initiatives impacted strategic delivery.
Likewise, the Dynamic Funding Widget revealed that adding certain projects would require an increased budget to include them.
With Cora SPM, Hazel and her team now see the immediate impact of every decision — graphically and in real time.
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Results: Measurable Improvement
Last year, decisions were made without understanding their consequences.
This year, decisions are data-backed, visualized, and strategic — leading to better and smarter outcomes.
Cora SPM has had a profound impact on the bottom line, reducing project waste by 8%.
It’s no wonder Hazel now walks with a spring in her step — on her way to meet the CEO to discuss a new director’s position that has just opened up.
