Each project stacks up on its own. Together, they need the same people.
PortfolioGraph checks the project plans in your portfolio against each other and shows who is booked past capacity, and when.
Its assistant proposes changes to dates, people, budgets and scope. None takes effect until you approve it.
The tour
Watch PortfolioGraph on a sample portfolio
Captions included. The tour covers the portfolio and project layers. All names and figures are invented sample data. There is also a phone version, for sharing.
The problem
Projects are approved one at a time. The people are shared.
Every project is approved on its own.
Each one has its people, schedule and budget, and gets endorsed on that basis.
The constraint is shared people.
The same electrical engineer is allocated to several projects in the same weeks. No individual project plan shows the clash.
The framework ends up in a spreadsheet.
Gate criteria are copied out of the manual into a checklist, and gate decisions go into steering committee minutes. Neither is kept with the plan.
Overbooking shows up as slippage.
By the time dates move, people are already committed, and re-sequencing is harder.
How it works
What you see and do at each layer
PortfolioGraph has three layers: your organisation, its portfolios, and the projects in each portfolio. Each layer below lists what you see there and what you can do.
Organisation
Where people join and portfolios are created
Set who belongs and the portfolios you run, and see who leads each one.
What you see
- Every member, their organisation role and their role in each portfolio, with pending invitations and a dated access history.
What you can do
- People and portfolios. Invite people by email, set their organisation role, and create portfolios.
- Access is given per portfolio. An organisation role alone does not open a portfolio's projects. Each portfolio's governance lead sets its members, and an administrator who joins one is recorded.
Built now. In testing, not yet available: framework import.
Portfolio
Where plans compete for the same people in the same weeks
PortfolioGraph checks the project plans in a portfolio against each other. It flags people booked past capacity, and work scheduled ahead of what it depends on.
What you see
- The spending you record for each project is checked against its budget. Effort that cannot fit the working days left after leave and public holidays is flagged too.
- With stage gating on, the funnel shows each project in the gates at its current stage, and the ideas under review. Demand you forecast for later stages is set against each capability pool's capacity, and shortfalls are flagged.
What you can do
- Change dates, people or capacity. Move a task's dates, change who is allocated to it and at what percentage, or, as governance lead, change a person's capacity. The checks run again after each change. The heatmap and flags show the result.
- Ask about a clash. Ask the assistant why a clash exists and what the options are. When you choose one, it shows each date that would move. Nothing moves until you approve.
- Record and review ideas. Capture ideas, score them for value and effort, align them with goals and review them in cycles, before any becomes a project.
- Set your own stage gates. Each portfolio's governance lead sets its stages and the criteria at each gate. Gates are optional, and apply to projects started, or ideas promoted, after gating is switched on.
- Decide at each gate. With stage gating on, approve, hold, recycle or kill at each gate. Each decision records its criteria, any waivers, and who proposed and decided it.
Built now.
Project
Where each project is planned, changed and reported on
Open any project to see its tasks, dependencies and Gantt, including links to work in other projects.
What you see
- The project's risks, issues, assumptions and constraints, and its budget and recorded spending. The governance lead and the project managers assigned to it also see the email copied to its mailbox.
What you can do
- Build the plan. Describe the project in conversation or upload a brief, and the assistant proposes tasks, dates and risks for you to accept. Or import a task list from CSV or Markdown.
- Change the plan yourself, or through the assistant. Edit tasks, dates, dependencies and allocations directly. Ask the assistant to move a task, and its card lists each date that would move, dependent tasks in the same project included.
- A mailbox for each project. Give a project its own email address. Mail copied to it is logged against the project, and the assistant can propose updates from it for you to approve. Attachments are kept as names, not files.
- Reports generated from the plan. Charters, status reports, resource and budget reports are generated from the graph and download as PDF. The risk, issue, assumption and constraint register exports to Excel.
Built now. In testing, not yet available: project documents kept and searchable, and drafts written from them.
Built and in testing. Not yet available.
Your framework, read into a stage-gate process
An organisation administrator uploads the framework documents. PortfolioGraph uses AI to draft a process, linking each stage and requirement to its source.
- The draft enforces nothing. It proposes a check only where the app has a matching one; the rest is guidance or a checklist item.
- The administrator confirms each proposed check and makes the process available to portfolios.
- Each portfolio's governance lead (who may be the same person) chooses whether to put it in force. Projects not already in the gates stay outside them.
Framework text that is not a confirmed check, such as a spending threshold, is not enforced.
The assistant
An assistant for governance, planning and execution
The assistant works inside one portfolio, within your permissions. It reads the graph, explains what it finds and proposes changes.
Governance.
With stage gating on, ask whether a project is ready for its next gate. The assistant checks each of the gate's criteria and shows which still need a person's sign-off. It also helps score ideas and run review cycles.
Planning.
It turns a description or a brief into proposed tasks, dates and risks, and explains why a clash exists and what the options are.
Execution.
When you ask, it reads a project's mailbox and proposes updates from it, proposes task changes, and generates status reports from the record.
The assistant proposes; you decide.
Changes it proposes to dates, people, budgets and scope take effect only when you approve them on a card.
Roles set what each person can do.
Invite people by email as governance lead, project manager or viewer. Project managers work on their assigned projects, any member can submit an idea, and the assistant can do only what its user may do.
PortfolioGraph uses third-party services, including AI and email services, which may process data outside Australia.
Built now.
Current status
Built now, and what is being considered
PortfolioGraph is in closed alpha. These are built now:
Organisation
- Organisation membership and roles, invitations by email, and an access history
- More than one portfolio in an organisation
Portfolio
- The portfolio graph, with drill-down to each project's tasks, dependencies and Gantt
- Clash detection across the projects in a portfolio
- Utilisation heatmap and resource timeline, on working days net of leave and public holidays; schedule by project and task
- Optional stage gates with your own stages, criteria and gate history
- Forecast demand for later stages against each capability pool's capacity, when stage gating is on
- Ideas capture, scoring and review cycles
- Roles, invitations and project assignments
Project
- Capture by conversation, uploaded briefs, and task lists imported from CSV or Markdown
- A mailbox and communications log for each project
- Reports generated from the graph, as PDF, and the register as Excel
Throughout
- Your approval, on a card, for changes the assistant proposes to dates, people, budgets or scope
- Stable codes for projects, tasks, risks, ideas and people
- Works on a phone, not just a desktop
Built and in testing. Not yet available:
- Framework import: your framework documents read into a stage-gate process, reviewed before any portfolio uses it
- Project documents kept and searchable, and drafts written from them
PortfolioGraph does not include timesheets, cost commitment tracking, connections to scheduling, finance or ticket systems, real-time co-editing, offline use, or workload and clash views across portfolios.
Being considered.
Not yet available, and no dates are committed.
Approvals
- Gate boards with more than one approver, and quorum
- Delegated authority, with approval limits set by project size
- Sponsors outside your organisation approving by email, with the approval recorded
Planning depth
- Trying a change as a scenario before committing to it
- A critical-path view
- Microsoft Project import and export
Status updates
- Status updates sent to sponsors and stakeholders from the project's record
AI deployment choices
- Running the assistant in your own cloud, or on a self-hosted model
About
Who builds PortfolioGraph
PortfolioGraph is built by Gladstone Digital, in Gladstone, Queensland.
Request a demo
Request a PortfolioGraph demo
PortfolioGraph is in closed alpha, and access is by invitation. A demo is the first step. Send a few details below and we will be in touch.
What happens next
- We reply by email to find a time that suits you.
- The demo is a live video call on invented sample data, about 30 minutes. Bring the questions your steering committee would ask.
- If PortfolioGraph suits your portfolio, you may be invited into the alpha.