Managing Ambiguity When Evaluating and Selecting New Ideas in Project Portfolio Management

Evaluating and selecting new ideas are central activities in project portfolio management (PPM). PPM dominant approach assumes that both ideas and decision criteria are clearly defined at their evaluation. It does not take into consideration ambiguous situations in which ideas are not fully understood, or there are opposing opinions about their potential. We explore evaluation of ideas when PPM decision makers experience ambiguity. We found that decision makers allow ideas to be developed further, which helps them to understand purposes, reveal benefits and construct judgments. However, it also affects resource allocation because it requires resources that had already been assigned.