“I’ve learned that finding great ideas and portfolio management are very different skills. Both are critical.” Kevin Byun
Your product or service portfolio is the translation layer between an organisation’s strategies and the tangible actions the rest of the organisation needs to take to make these strategies a reality.
This layer is often missing in an organisation, even though using a service portfolio has been advocated in service management for probably 30 years (and yes, it was already in the Purple ITILv 2 book – The Business Perspective.)
Most managers would say they have defined goals, objectives, and policies in response to the organisation’s strategy— but that is not enough!
The problem is that strategy is often so far removed from people’s day-to-day tasks that they just don’t get it. When leadership eventually realises this, they try to make it a management-level problem and ‘instruct’ managers to find a way for employees to understand the strategy.
We propose a different approach. Why don’t exco find ways to express strategy so everyone can understand it? The idea is not new; you will find it in Lean’s Hoshin Kanri and COBIT since version 4 (the goals cascade).
The key is to visualise strategy so that everyone in the organisation understands their role and contribution. For us, the tool is called the organisational portfolio.
The concept of portfolio management is nothing new; what is new is that we propose that your portfolio become the primary view of what the board and exco want the rest of the organisation to do!
The organisation’s PORTFOLIO should become the board and exco’s primary means of giving direction to the rest of the organisation.
This approach has another huge tangible benefit. The board can now see how well the rest of the organisation is doing regarding the given direction because the connection between strategy and daily tasks is now relatively easy to establish.
