Decide only once you know the consequences
Play through budget cuts, reschedules and new initiatives in a copy of your portfolio – and only adopt the best variant after approval. Your real portfolio stays untouched until then.
Replanning happens blind today
When the budget is cut or a new initiative lands, there is no safe place to play through the consequences – before they hit.
Excel copies that age instantly
Variants live in detached spreadsheets nobody keeps in sync with reality. By the next meeting the numbers are already wrong.
Nobody sees the real fallout
What a budget cut means across every project, deadline and priority only shows once it is too late to steer against it.
Prioritisation by gut feeling
Without a clean side-by-side comparison, the decision follows the loudest voice instead of the numbers – and can't be justified afterwards.
Decisions evaporate
Once a variant is agreed, someone copies the changes into the real portfolio by hand: error-prone, and with no record of who decided what.
From question to committed variant
Five steps that run entirely inside WORKSPACE.PM – without ever touching the live portfolio.
Branch
Create a scenario based on your portfolio or on an existing scenario.
Play it through
Reschedule, cut, add or drop projects – inside the scenario only.
Compare
Line up to five variants side by side and highlight the deviations.
Approve
Run the best variant through an auditable approval workflow.
Apply
Apply the approved variant to the real portfolio with a conflict check.
Branch risk-free
A sandbox for your entire portfolio
A scenario is a full copy of your portfolio – or of another scenario. You plan freely inside it without a single real project changing. And every scenario shows at a glance how far it deviates from today's reality.
- Pick a basis: extend the live portfolio or an existing scenario
- Central list of all what-if plays with status, creator and source
- Project, budget and score delta versus the baseline per scenario
- As many parallel variants as you like – each independent of the others
Changes in this variant
Added to the portfolio
Budget 480k → 360k
Start 2 months later
Dropped from portfolio
Play out what-ifs
Reschedule, cut, add – no regrets
Inside a scenario you simulate concrete changes: start a project later, cap the budget, raise the priority, add a new initiative or drop one. A change log records exactly how the variant differs from the baseline.
- Add, remove or change fields: budget, dates, priority, status, scoring
- Your real portfolio stays untouched at all times
- Change log: added, changed, removed – compact and at a glance
- Every modification can be adjusted or reverted individually
Compare variants
Up to five futures side by side
Line your variants up next to each other and pin one as the reference. WORKSPACE.PM highlights every deviation per project – budget, dates, status – and shows metric cards per scenario. So the decision follows the numbers, not the gut.
- Up to five scenarios compared directly at once
- Pin one variant as the reference – all deviations are highlighted
- Compare per project: budget, schedule and status
- Metric cards per scenario for a fast overall read
Arrows show deviation from the reference
Impact in numbers
The fallout of a decision, before it lands
Every scenario computes its deltas against the baseline: how does the total budget change, how many projects are added or dropped, how does the portfolio's average score shift? You see the effect before you commit to it.
- Budget delta across the entire portfolio
- Project-count delta: added versus dropped
- Change in the average portfolio score
- All computed live – consistent with the project reality
Approval with a trail
Approve first, then touch reality
A variant isn't simply adopted. It runs through a fixed approval path – Draft, In review, Approved, Applied – with an optional comment on every transition. Who decided what and when is recorded in full.
- Fixed stage path: Draft, In review, Approved, Applied
- Reject and archive as dedicated branches
- A comment on every transition
- Complete approval history with actor, timestamp and comment
History
- Created · L. Weber
- Submitted · L. Weber
- Commented · PMO
- Approved · M. Braun
CRM migration
Budget 480k → 360k
Rollout North
Start Mar → May
App relaunch
Priority High → Medium
Apply to the live portfolio
One click – with a safety net
Once a variant is approved, you apply it to the real portfolio in one click. First a preview shows every field change per project and warns you if reality has shifted since the scenario. The apply runs atomically: all or nothing.
- Preview of every change per project before applying
- Automatic conflict check: a changed live project is detected
- Apply is blocked on conflicts – unless you deliberately override
- Atomic apply instead of copying changes by hand
Won't this become a second job?
No – scenarios are built to give you confidence, not to create work.
Your real portfolio stays safe
Until you deliberately apply a variant, no scenario changes a single real project. Plan as boldly as you like.
The conflict check has your back
If reality has shifted since the scenario, WORKSPACE.PM warns you automatically on apply – instead of silently overwriting.
Governance without extra effort
The approval path and history build up on their own. And when a variant is applied, it can automatically trigger your notifications or workflows.
Scenarios reach into your whole portfolio
What you play through in a scenario later drives budgets, capacity and prioritisation – the same data that feeds cost analysis, allocation and programmes. Scenarios aren't an island tool, they are the foresight of your portfolio steering.
Frequently asked questions
What PMOs and portfolio managers want to know before they start.
No. A scenario is created in one click as a copy of your existing portfolio – so the starting point is always already there. You only model the changes you want to play through.
Never without asking. All changes stay inside the scenario until you deliberately apply an approved variant. Only then – and after a conflict check – do they flow into the real portfolio.
You line up to five scenarios side by side at once and pin one as the reference. Deviations in budget, schedule and status are highlighted per project automatically.
Access is tied to the portfolio permission. Creating, comparing, approving and applying can be governed by roles, and every approval decision is recorded with actor and timestamp.
Yes. Every scenario computes its deltas against the baseline – total budget, project count and average portfolio score – so you see the fallout of a decision before you make it.
Make portfolio decisions with a safety net
Play through your next replan risk-free – 14 days free, without touching the real portfolio.