Portfolio and Strategy

A Product Portfolio does not happen. O.K. sometimes it does, but in fact in order to reach a certain goal, your goal, You need to have a stringent development strategy and this development strategy needs to be managed, i.e. be aligned with an overall strategy, needs to recognize time horizons, needs to realize that capacity is limited and thus needs to have an internal prioritization.

The Workforce Portfolio needs to exhibit the same characteristics as the Product Portfolio. It however is in the leading role in the mid term horizon. The Workforce Portfolio has to be more progressive than the Product Portfolio because the workforce generates the value that is delivered by the products. There is no chicken and egg problem. The lead is clearly with the products when it is about the definition of the future portfolio or portfolio vision. In the intermediate time frame the Workforce Portfolio is clearly in the lead.

For both Portfolios, the concept of splitting capacity between

run the business, i.e. operate and maintain
grow the business, i.e. enhance and expand
transform the business, i.e. innovate and drive

needs to be understood. For more details on the concept you may refer to Gartner’s Run-Grow-Transform model.

When discussing portfolio management, we actually are not looking for methods of how to decide in which basket to put our eggs. It is that PLUS keeping an eye on running and growing and transforming the business. Depending on the character of the organization or rather the vision for the character of the organization (conservative or innovative) put more or less capacity is put into the different areas from satisfying committed business, extending current business areas and developing future business.

Portfolio management provides guardrails to reference business relevant decisions to fix points and it needs to be taken to the next level of Portfolio Management.

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