| Course | PM 350 Organizational Project Management (PM/350) |
|---|---|
| Week | 5 |
| Paper type | Portfolio alignment recommendation |
| Length | about 1,090 words, 4 double-spaced pages plus title page and references |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | University of Phoenix |
| Program | BS in Business |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for PM 350 Week 5
Fourteen Projects, Four Goals and Two Database Administrators: Scoring and Balancing a State Lottery's Portfolio
[Student Name]
University of Phoenix
PM/350: Organizational Project Management
Week 5 Assignment
[Instructor Name]
[Date]
The Prairie State Lottery, its projects, scores and figures are composites written for a model paper.
Over four weeks, this course has followed the invented Prairie State Lottery in the Kansas capital as it adopted organizational project management, matched methodologies to projects, improved communication and tightened its financial and operational practices. One question remains: are its 14 projects the right ones? This paper builds a scoring model from the agency's strategy, ranks the projects, tests the ranking against capacity, checks the portfolio's balance and recommends which projects should continue.
Why Alignment Is Hard
Strategy is set by the executive director and the commission; projects start in divisions. Without a link between the two, projects reflect whoever found money first. Meskendahl (2010) proposed a framework in which business strategy shapes how a portfolio is structured and managed, and in which portfolio success, including strategic fit and balance, leads to business success. Shenhar (2004) argued that projects should be managed as strategic tools for business results rather than as operational tasks judged only on time and budget. Both views place project selection inside strategy, which is the job of the portfolio office the lottery created in Week 1.
The Four Strategic Goals
The lottery's strategic plan sets four goals: lift the money sent to state funds each year by at least 3 percent; keep every game secure and beyond suspicion; encourage players to keep their play within healthy limits; and give retailers, who sell almost all tickets, better equipment and service.
The Scoring Model
The leadership team set criteria and weights before any project was scored:
Strategic fit with the four goals: 35 percent.
Financial value, net proceeds gained or costs avoided: 25 percent.
Urgency, including legal or contract deadlines: 20 percent.
Delivery risk, scored so that lower risk earns a higher score: 20 percent.
Every project receives a rating between 1 and 5 against every criterion. Cooper et al. (1999) studied portfolio management in product development and found that the best-performing businesses used explicit, formal portfolio methods and that relying on financial models alone was associated with weaker portfolios; scoring models that included strategic criteria tended to perform better. That finding supports a model in which strategic fit carries the largest weight.
Scores and Ranking
The fourteen projects, scored by the portfolio manager and reviewed by division heads (fit, value, urgency, risk; weighted total):
Retailer terminal replacement: 5, 4, 5, 3; 4.35. Contract ends next year; supports integrity and retailers.
Draw system upgrade: 5, 3, 5, 3; 4.10. Vendor support ends; integrity-critical.
Data center move to cloud: 4, 4, 4, 3; 3.80. Lower costs, security gains.
Responsible gaming helpline expansion: 5, 2, 3, 4; 3.65. Central to the responsible play goal.
Retailer settlement automation: 4, 4, 2, 4; 3.60. Faster payments to retailers; staff savings.
Fraud analytics for prize claims: 5, 3, 2, 3; 3.50. Integrity.
Mobile second-chance app: 3, 3, 2, 3; 2.80. Conditional business case from Week 4.
Instant ticket inventory system: 3, 3, 2, 3; 2.80.
Website rebuild phase two: 3, 2, 2, 4; 2.75.
Retailer training portal: 3, 2, 2, 4; 2.75.
Player research program: 2, 2, 1, 5; 2.40.
Records digitization: 2, 2, 2, 4; 2.40.
Lobby redesign: 1, 1, 1, 5; 1.80.
New intranet: 1, 1, 1, 4; 1.60.
A project that scores 1 on strategic fit has to win on everything else to stay, and these two did not.
Testing Against Capacity
Six of the top ten projects need the agency's two database administrators, and the terminal rollout needs most of the field technicians for 18 months. Running all six database-dependent projects at once would slow each of them. The portfolio office sequenced them by rank: the two top scorers, terminals and the draw system, get first claim on the administrators this year; the data center move starts after the draw upgrade's database work ends in month 7; fraud analytics starts in month 10, when a contracted administrator arrives; the instant ticket inventory system waits until next year. The agency will also contract a third database administrator for 12 months, at about $140,000, since the delay cost of waiting exceeds that amount.
Why Stopping Projects Is Hard
Stopping the lobby redesign and the intranet was the most contested part of the review. Both had sponsors among division heads, both had small budgets and neither had caused problems. The case for stopping them was not that they were bad ideas but that every hour spent on them was an hour not spent on work tied to the agency's goals. The executive director made the decision at the leadership meeting, in person, and thanked the sponsors for their proposals, which can be resubmitted if they are rebuilt around a strategic goal.
Checking Balance
The recommended active portfolio covers all four goals: integrity (terminals, draw system, data center, fraud analytics), responsible play (helpline), retailers (terminals, settlement automation, training portal) and transfers (app, settlement savings). It mixes mandatory replacements with improvements and one growth project, the app, under conditions. Most projects are of medium risk; only the draw system upgrade is high, so it receives the closest oversight.
Recommendation
Nine projects stay active: terminal replacement, draw system upgrade, data center move (starting month 7), helpline expansion, settlement automation, fraud analytics (starting month 10), mobile app with its checkpoint, website phase two and the training portal, the last two using staff the bottleneck projects do not need. Three are deferred to next year: the instant ticket inventory system, player research and records digitization. Two are stopped: the lobby redesign and the new intranet, which serve no strategic goal; their small budgets return to the transfer.
Keeping the Portfolio Aligned
The leadership team will rescore the portfolio each quarter, when new proposals arrive or when conditions change, such as a new law or a vendor failure. Projects that fall below a score of 2.5 will be reviewed for deferral. Benefit owners report results for closed projects at the same meeting, so evidence from finished work informs future scores, and the commission receives the ranked list each quarter.
Conclusion
Aligning the lottery's projects with its strategy meant turning four goals into weighted criteria, scoring all 14 projects with reasons, testing the ranking against the two database administrators and field technicians, checking balance and making choices: nine active, three deferred and two stopped. Quarterly rescoring keeps the portfolio aligned as conditions change. Together with the practices developed earlier in the course, this gives the agency a way to spend its limited people and money on the projects that matter most to the state.
References
Cooper, R. G., Edgett, S. J., & Kleinschmidt, E. J. (1999). New product portfolio management: Practices and performance. Journal of Product Innovation Management, 16(4), 333-351. https://doi.org/10.1111/1540-5885.1640333
Meskendahl, S. (2010). The influence of business strategy on project portfolio management and its success: A conceptual framework. International Journal of Project Management, 28(8), 807-817. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijproman.2010.06.007
Shenhar, A. J. (2004). Strategic project leadership: Toward a strategic approach to project management. R&D Management, 34(5), 569-578. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9310.2004.00363.x
What the PM 350 Week 5 instructions ask
The final PM 350 assignment usually asks students to explain how organizations align projects with strategy and to recommend how a set of projects should be selected, prioritized or balanced. Prompts may ask for a scoring or selection model, an evaluation of projects against strategic goals, a discussion of resource constraints and portfolio balance and a recommendation to leadership on which projects to pursue. Occasionally the prompt adds a reflection on how the organizational practices from earlier weeks make alignment possible. Use the organization from earlier weeks or a provided case, show the criteria, weights and scores and support the analysis with portfolio management research and the standard in APA format.
How this PM 350 Week 5 example is built
Our model takes the lottery's 14 projects and asks which deserve its limited people and money. It restates four goals: more money for the state, games nobody can rig, safer play and better tools for the stores that sell tickets. A scoring model weights strategic fit, financial value, risk and urgency, and each project is scored with brief reasons. The ranking is then tested against capacity, since six projects need the same two database administrators. Balance is checked across goals and between maintenance and growth. The recommendation keeps nine projects active, defers three and stops two, and the paper closes with a quarterly review that rescores projects as conditions change.
PM 350 Week 5 grading rubric: where the points go
Excellent final papers make defensible choices. Graders look for criteria drawn from the organization's stated strategy, weights set before scoring, scores supported by evidence and a ranking tested against resource limits, not just against value. Papers that check balance across goals, risk and time horizons and that recommend stopping or deferring projects, with reasons, score higher than those that approve everything. Explaining how alignment will be maintained over time shows maturity. Portfolio management research and consistent use of course concepts strengthen the work. A readable scoring table or list, a clear recommendation, a logical structure and accurate APA citations earn full credit.
PM 350 Week 5 help: mistakes to avoid
Approving every project is the most common failure in this assignment; a portfolio recommendation that changes nothing has not used the analysis. Another error is weighting criteria after scoring, which lets favorites win. Fix the weights first and write them into the paper before the scores appear. Students also skip capacity: a list ranked by value can still be impossible to deliver if the top projects need the same people. Check the bottleneck. Some papers score projects without reasons, so a grader cannot tell whether a 4 is fair. Add a phrase for each score. Finally, alignment is not a one-time exercise; describe how and when the portfolio will be reviewed. If your scoring model feels arbitrary, a tutor can help you tie each criterion to the strategy.
Related PM 350 sample papers
Other PM 350 week samples
- PM 350 Week 1: Organizational Project Management
- PM 350 Week 2: Phases and Methodologies
- PM 350 Week 3: Communication and Leadership
- PM 350 Week 4: Financial and Operational Practices
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PM 350 Week 5 questions, answered
What does PM 350 Week 5 usually cover?
It usually covers aligning projects with organizational strategy: selection and scoring models, prioritization, resource constraints, portfolio balance and recommendations to leadership about which projects to pursue.
Where can I find a free PM 350 Week 5 sample paper?
The final Week 5 paper above scores and balances fourteen projects at a composite state lottery and recommends a nine-project portfolio; it is available free.
What is a weighted scoring model for projects?
A tool that rates each project on criteria such as strategic fit, value, risk and urgency, multiplies each rating by the criterion's weight and adds the results to rank projects.
What does portfolio balance mean?
A mix of projects that spreads investment sensibly across strategic goals, levels of risk, time horizons and types of work such as maintenance, improvement and growth.
Why should resource capacity affect project selection?
Because projects that rank highly may compete for the same scarce people or equipment. Selecting more than capacity allows slows every project and delays benefits.
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