Pictures, prioritizing and puzzling; basic skills of a portfolio manager

Many public organizations struggle with it, prioritizing in the portfolio. The portfolio manager is asked to draw up top 10 lists based on a prioritization, which then leads to a discussion about the prioritization methodology.

However you do it, prioritizing generally does not go well. It is often complicated to map out the complex situations in a portfolio and make it clear to those who have to make decisions. Making top 10 lists certainly does not help with that. That means constantly thinking about how to visualize it in such a way that it gives a good picture and is still not too complicated. In short, portfolio management involves creating clear pictures, puzzling with capacity and prioritizing. We also struggle with prioritization within the Public Prosecution Service . Top 10 lists did not work and multi-factor analysis also did not provide sufficient support. That is why we started thinking from a completely different principle. 1. If the limited capacity on a number of critical resources is a given (and cannot be expanded very quickly), how can we use them as efficiently as possible?

2. What is our most critical constellation of change initiatives that we must deliver based on limited capacity?

3. Can we build the rest of the portfolio around this for the coming years?

4. Prioritizing in top 10's is pointless, think in 'boxes' like categories with a classification and a priority lighthouse based on critical capacity deployment. Then divide % available capacity over the priority boxes.

The reason to start thinking from a completely different principle was simple; “more than 85% of change initiatives are musts”. New laws and regulations, agreements within the criminal justice chain, necessary innovations. In short, hardly anything is left out because everything “must”.

The only thing a portfolio manager can do with this is to push things forward in time, resulting in a huge bow wave of change initiatives waiting in the wings.

It is a given in public organizations that there are continuous adjustments due to laws and regulations and political reality. This is also the case within the Public Prosecution Service . What can you do to create a feasible portfolio and not get completely stuck in the far too great change demand. We have focused on five points:

1. Think at least 2-5 years ahead and develop different scenarios that you can follow; it sounds like a song on repeat but it is the only way to get out of a stalled or deadlocked portfolio planning

2. Plan around the most critical constellation and allow as many change initiatives as possible that do not use critical capacity to proceed, even if they may not be the highest priority.

3. “Open street principle”; we can include change initiatives in already planned or to be planned work with minimal effort because we already have the “open street”

4. Flexibility; we have structured the portfolio in such a way that we can always quickly schedule initiatives when there is room, because we always look ahead every quarter

5. Central capacity management; on the portfolio table we look at the idea of ​​a change initiative from how we can best plan it and, if necessary, whether it could be done with the 'Open Street Principle'.

Our work within OM portfolio management is pictures, prioritization and puzzling on a daily basis