Pipeline
management is a term applied to a Resource Management process
designed to optimise the outcomes of a 'pipeline' of competing
(usually development) projects.
Traditionally, functional managers are responsible for handling
the flow of projects through their area - but this often leads to
poor overall business performance - as the managers compete within
the organisation for limited resources.
Pipeline management applies Strategic Resource Management
techniques to balance, align and agree priorities across an
organisation.
For example, in a traditional business with 100 product ideas
competing for human, physical and financial resources, it is not
uncommon to find at any time
- 20 projects seeking funds
- 20 funded
- just 1 new project/year coming to fruition.
By mapping and understanding the inter-relationships between
corporate development activities and their associated resource
costs, functional managers are better able to see the resource
implications for individual projects at an early stage an prioritise
on those projects most likely to come to fruition within corporate
time-scales and objectives. In this way, for the same resources, the
100 good ideas in the example above might at any one time become:
- 40 project under resource investigation
- 20 development projects at the specification stage
- 15 in development
- perhaps 6 projects being realised each year
