This unique text provides a holistic systems approach to project portfolio management which includes people, processes, tools, and techniques that work synergistically to produce portfolio decisions with the best chance of success. Accompanied by decision support software and advanced decision making techniques, it guides readers step-by-step through the entire project portfolio management process. This professional guide is also ideal for executive continuing education programs, and as a primary text for graduate level academic courses.

Business Driven Project Portfolio Management covers the top 10 risks that threaten project portfolio management success and offers practical alternatives to help ensure achievement of desired results. Written from a business perspective, it contains the executive insights, management strategy, tactics, processes and architecture needed for the successful implementation, ongoing management, and continual improvement of project portfolio management (PPM) in any organization. Key Features: --Presents actionable tools, techniques and solutions to the top 10 PPM risks and execution difficulties that most organizations and program management offices (PMOs) face --Includes real case examples that organizations and PMOs of all shapes and sizes seeking to effectively management project portfolios will find beneficial --Shares insightful and practical advice from executives of leading PPM providers, coupled with the wisdom of highly experienced operational executives who manage PMOs, use PPM applications, and are responsible for PPM success --WAV offers downloadable PPM-related episodes of The PMO Podcast™, an executive overview presentation of the book's content, solutions to end-of-chapter questions for professors, and 100 practical tips for implementing PPM within your organization — available from the Web Added Value™ Download Resource Center at www.jrosspub.com

If where an organization allocates its resources determines its strategy, why is it that so few companies actively manage the resource allocation process? "Optimizing Corporate Portfolio Management: Aligning Investment Proposals with Organizational Strategy" goes beyond platitudes about why you should use corporate portfolio management (CPM) by offering a practical methodology to bring this powerful discipline to your organization. "Optimizing Corporate Portfolio Management" takes an expansive view of where CPM can be utilized by demonstrating that it can be used across any business line, product group or functional area, e.g., IT, R&D, innovation, marketing, salesforce, capital expenditure, etc. CPM is appropriate anywhere discretionary investments are being selected and executed. As a result, other terms used to describe portfolio management such as IT portfolio management, enterprise portfolio management, and project portfolio management are all merely subsets or slices of CPM. The book is written by Anand Sanwal, an expert on CPM, who has led American Express' CPM discipline (referred to as American Express Investment Optimization). American Express' CPM efforts are widely recognized as the most extensive, substantial and progressive deployment of CPM across any organization. Sanwal avoids academic theories and consultant jargon to ultimately deliver pragmatic and proven recommendations on how to make CPM a reality. The book features a foreword by Gary Crittenden, former CFO and EVP of American Express, and several case studies from leading financial services, technology, and government organizations utilizing CPM. Additionally, the book has received significant praise from thought leaders at Google, HP, American Express, The CFO Executive Board, Gartner, Accenture Marketing Sciences, The Wharton School of Business and many others.

As the articles in this book reveal, investors are confronted with a dizzying array of instruments, strategies, goals and controls, advice and counsel from experts, and a deluge of statistics. However, yesterday's answer often turns out to be tomorrow's wrong number, as markets evolve and fresh information floods in. Yet beneath all this lies the essence of investment, the hidden future. If we held the key to that mystery, we could dispense with experts and thier mountains of statistics. One instrument and strategy would suffice. This book has been written by leading academics from four business schools renowned for thier investment expertise: Chicago Graduate School of Business, LBS, Columbia Business School and the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Together they have produced an invaluable survey of the subject, bringing together fundamental principles, investment practice and cutting edge thinking. What is at the essence of good investment? Mastering Investment offers the answers.

The investment industry is on the cusp of a major shift, from Modern Portfolio Theory (MPT) to Behavioral Finance, with Behavioral Portfolio Management (BMP) the next step in this transition. BPM focuses on how to harness the price distortions that are driven by emotional crowds and use this to create superior portfolios. Once markets and investing are viewed through the lens of behavior, and portfolios are constructed on this basis, investable opportunities become readily apparent. Mastering your emotions is critical to the process and the insights provided by Tom Howard put investors on the path to achieving this. Forty years of Behavioral Science research presents a clear picture of how individuals make decisions; there are few signs of rationality. Indeed, emotional investors sabotage their own efforts in building long-horizon wealth. When this is combined with the misconception that active management is unable to generate superior returns, the typical emotional investor leaves hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars on the table during their investment lifetimes. Howard moves on to show how industry practice, with its use of the style grid, standard deviation, correlation, maximum drawdown and the Sharpe ratio, has entrenched emotion within investing. The result is that investors construct underperforming, bubble-wrapped portfolios. So if an investor masters their own emotions, they still must challenge the emotionally-based conventional wisdom pervasive throughout the industry. Tom Howard explains how to do this. Attention is then given to measureable and persistent behavioral factors. These provide investors with a new source of information that has the potential to transform how they think about portfolio management and dramatically improve performance. Behavioral factors can be used to select the best stocks, the best active managers, and the best markets in which to invest. Once the transition to behavioral finance is made, the emotional measures of MPT will quickly be forgotten and replaced with rational concepts that allow investors to successfully build long-horizon wealth. If you take portfolio construction seriously, it is essential that you make the next step forward towards Behavioral Portfolio Management.

Der Fortsetzungstitel zu "The Warren Buffett Way" vom gleichen Autor. Hagstrom gilt in der Investmentbranche als ausgezeichneter Analytiker, der zudem die Fahigkeit besitzt, komplizierte Sachverhalte einfach und verstandlich zu vermittlen. Das Kernthema des Buches hei?t Focus Investing. Hagstrom erklart anschaulich, was man unter 'Focus Investing' versteht, wie diese Anlagestrategie funktioniert, und wie jeder Anleger sie nutzen kann. Daruber hinaus demonstriert er, wie Buffett seine Aktien zu einem 'Focus Portfolio' zusammenstellt, und warum diese Methode fur Buffetts au?ergewohnliche Gewinne ebenso entscheidend ist, wie die Auswahl der einzelnen Aktienwerte. Auch diese Technik, die hervorragende Ergebnisse verspricht, wird genau erlautert. Hagstrom beschreibt Philosophie und Strategien des Focus Investing ausfuhrlich und zeigt, wie man sie in die Praxis umsetzt. Dabei greift er auf den gro?en Erfahrungsschatz einer Reihe von Experten zuruck, wie z.B. Warren Buffett, John Maynard Keynes, Philip Fisher, Bill Ruane, Lou Simpson und Charlie Munger.

Foundations of Investment Management: Mastering Financial Markets, Asset Classes, and Investment Strategies shows how to navigate today's world of complex financial instruments, investment opportunities, and devastating pitfalls. This reader-friendly guide details stocks, bonds, and alternative investments, who invests in these asset classes, how, and why. It uses real-world examples in addition to citing the latest academic research. Additionally, seven industry experts have co-authored select chapters to greatly expand the depth and utility of this book for the reader. This unique guide is perfect for financial analysts, portfolio managers, client-facing representatives, product specialists, and anybody early in their finance career who wishes to understand how clients, products, and investors relate and interact. Foundations of Investment Management provides a complete overview of the investment management industry; defines key terms and participants; identifies investment vehicles, strategies, and asset classes; and analyzes each strategy focusing on its relative utility and potential inclusion in a well-diversified portfolio. Despite the subject mater's complexity, each topic is distilled in a way that is highly relatable and intuitive, ensuring the reader knows how to better manage their investments or interact with clients. Lastly, every chapter closes with a summary and investment implications to maximize the information presented. Key Features - Defines various fund structures, discusses the growth of the mutual fund industry, explains the benefits and disadvantages of comingled vehicles and details other investment options including fund of funds, annuities, and separately managed accounts - Presents detailed descriptions of different institutional investors; elaborates on their investment considerations, objectives, and reaction functions; and concludes with implications for an institutions' propensity to respond similarly to market developments - Supplies tools and techniques to construct and optimize a fixed income portfolio - Reviews the history of the Bank of England and U.S. Federal Reserve and describes central bank objectives, tools, and reaction functions - Illustrates the difference between investing and speculating by introducing different valuation methods and approaches to developing an investment thesis - Examines the growth of high frequency trading and identifies rebalancing strategies - Identifies different stock investment approaches as well as introduces several equity valuation methods - Describes mean variance optimization and conviction-based portfolio construction approaches - Reviews bond basics including bond income, interest rate sensitivity, and sources of risk such as credit and liquidity - Examines the history of real assets, defines each real asset, details the drivers of their return, and explains how an investor may gain exposure to each asset through the utilization of financial instruments or investment vehicles - Presents the theory behind and history of factors and factor investing from both an academic and practitioner perspective. - Presents the development of our understanding of behavioral biases, explains how these biases impact investment decisions, and provides tips and techniques to avoid their pitfalls