The competence Select and balance (Practice 14; only for programme and portfolio management) describes the selecting and balancing of components of programmes and portfolios.

The Select and balance (Practice 14) competence element enable the individual to prioritise, select and re-assess all components within the programme scope, based on clear criteria. Maintaining the balance, consistency and performance is crucial in order to achieve the outputs and outcomes. 

In the management of projects, IPMA has made a distinction between project, programme and portfolio managers. Most of the competence elements are the same, apart from this last one: select and balance. This competence element is for programme/portfolio managers only. When an organization has many projects/programmes running, it must continuously weigh up which of these are the most important. This prioritizing ensures that projects providing the greatest contribution to the strategy get priority over the resources they need. This ranking may sometimes change over the duration of the programme or project, dependent on the circumstances. Selecting and balancing is about finding the optimum balance.

Instructional Objectives:

• Identify the components 
• Analyse the components
• Prioritise the components
• Create an overview of all deliverables
• Predict the performance of the related components
• Facilitate the decisions to be made

45min.