An initiative portfolio the PMO can plan and prioritise

Programmes and initiatives in one model-driven app, with a priority index, capacity planning, delay-risk prediction and weekly reports that write themselves.

Example project

Based on a project our team built. Client details are left out or changed, and the demo uses invented data.

Sector: Large service company, PMO
Typical duration: 12 to 20 weeks
Services: Microsoft ecosystem Architecture and consulting

Capacity and demand screen with a heat map of team load by quarter, key figures and charts of demand against capacity

Typical client situation

The PMO of a large service company coordinates dozens of initiatives across operations, finance and client programmes. Every quarter it has to decide which initiatives go ahead, and every unit wants its own.

Challenge

Projects live in spreadsheets and slide decks. Codes are assigned by hand, statuses differ between files, and nobody can say how long a project has been on hold or why it was replanned.

Quarterly planning is a negotiation by email. Without a shared score, the loudest department wins, and responses from each department arrive in different formats and are easy to lose.

Solution

We design a model-driven app on Dataverse with about 27 tables and a set of Power Automate flows. A Programme, Initiative and Activity hierarchy gets automatic codes such as PG-OPS / IN-26-103, and initiatives move through Intake, Shaping, Delivery, Paused, Closed and Dropped, guided by a business process flow from Intake to Handover.

Each initiative gets a priority index, business value minus risk, and the indexes build the longlist, shortlist and committed list for each quarterly planning period. Units answer on the initiative record, replan records count the days paused, and team assignments and lessons learned stay with the initiative. A roadmap by quarter shows the committed work, and a leave calendar runs as a companion app on the same data.

A capacity and demand heat map compares the load of each team with its capacity for the next four quarters and shows where the plan needs a move. A prediction model scores the delay risk of every initiative every morning from replans, pauses, open decisions and team load, and lists the reasons and a suggested action. Every Monday the solution writes a weekly status report for each initiative from task, timesheet and note activity, ready for the lead to review.

Programme, Initiative and Activity hierarchy with automatic codes
Priority index from business value and risk, feeding quarterly lists
Capacity heat map by team and quarter, with the gap in FTE
Delay-risk prediction for every initiative, with the reasons and a suggested action
Weekly status reports written from task, timesheet and note activity
Roadmap by quarter and replan records that count the days paused

Stack

Power Apps (model-driven)
Dataverse
Power Automate
Power BI
Plugins in C#
Microsoft Entra ID

Screens from the demo

We rebuilt this solution as a demo with invented data, so you can see how it works without exposing any client system. Click through it yourself.

Open the interactive demo

Initiative form with a process flow from Intake to Handover, a delay-risk prediction with three reasons and a timeline entry from the risk model — Fig. 1An initiative carries its stage, the priority index, a delay-risk prediction with the reasons and a suggested action, and a timeline of replans.

Weekly report form with a summary written from task and timesheet activity, risks and decisions, and the sources used — Fig. 2The weekly report is written from task, timesheet and note activity, with the health, the risks, the decision needed and the sources it used.

What it is built to deliver

with the same codes and stages for everyone: One portfolio
demand against capacity, team by team: Load visible
early, with reasons and a suggested action: Risks flagged

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