What Portfolio Management Can Learn from String Theory

When people hear the term string theory, portfolio management isn't usually the first thing that comes to mind. Yet, this comparison holds a surprisingly valuable insight—especially for organizations facing complex transformation challenges, as is often the case within public institutions like the Public Prosecution Service (Openbaar Ministerie). Let this serve as food for thought and inspire you to look at portfolio management through a different lens.

In physics, string theory attempts to trace seemingly disconnected phenomena back to a single underlying principle. What we perceive as distinct particles are, in essence, different vibrations of the very same string.

For portfolio management, this serves as an intriguing metaphor.

After all, within organizations, we frequently see a vast array of projects, programs, transformation initiatives, policy objectives, and IT tracks. On paper, they appear to be separate pieces. In practice, however, they are often different expressions of a single, underlying mission.

Take the Public Prosecution Service (OM), for instance, where this mission is clear: contributing to a just, effective, and future-proof criminal justice process. Viewed from this perspective, digitalization, legislation, operations, and the core primary process are not isolated worlds, but rather different "vibrations" of the exact same strategic string.

From Scattered Initiatives to One Cohesive Mission

This is perhaps the most important lesson.

Many portfolios are still managed as if change initiatives exist in a vacuum—each with its own business case, timeline, governance, urgency, and dependencies on other projects. The result is all too familiar: fragmentation, competition for resources, and debates that focus primarily on individual project priorities rather than their contribution to the bigger picture.

String theory offers an alternative perspective: what if all those initiatives are simply manifestations of the exact same system?

Then the role of portfolio management also shifts. No longer just selecting, planning, and reporting, but above all:

• making coherence visible;

• recognizing underlying patterns;

• making the tension between the short and long term explicit;

• and helping to choose based on system value rather than change initiative value alone.

The invisible dimensions of a portfolio The compact dimensions and the "invisible" determinant. Calabi-Yau manifolds A second lesson comes from the idea that in string theory there are extra dimensions that you do not see directly, but which do determine how the whole behaves.

Such "hidden dimensions" or "Calbi-Yau manifolds" also exist in portfolio management.

Consider:

• political sensitivity;

• societal legitimacy;

• ethical tension;

• dependencies in the supply chain;

• teams' capacity for change;

• and the organization's absorption capacity (projectivity).

These factors are rarely central to a dashboard, but they often determine, more than planning or budget, whether a change initiative truly has a chance of success.

This is particularly relevant in a public context. A change initiative may appear green on paper yet prove vulnerable in practice, because the real risks lie not in the planning but in administrative, legal, or societal dynamics.

The lesson: not everything that is steering is visible. And not everything that is visible is truly steering.

A portfolio is not a spreadsheet, but a system.

In complex environments, linear thinking works only to a limited extent. Change initiative A delays change initiative B. Legislation influences IV. Capacity shortages in one sub-portfolio have repercussions in other parts. A small change in priority can have major consequences at the system level.

That looks more like a connected field than a sum.

Here, the comparison with string theory aligns surprisingly well once again. Not because physics literally explains management, but because it helps to break free from the reflex that everything must be predictable and controllable.

For portfolio management, this means:

• less reliance on false certainty;

• more attention to interactions and dependencies;

• and steering more towards direction, frameworks, and learning capacity.

In other words: not regulating everything down to the last detail in advance, but ensuring that the system can adapt sensibly.

Why this is particularly relevant for public organizations such as the Public Prosecution Service

• Precisely in public organizations, many things come together:

• a major and socially visible change challenge;

• tension between current administrative issues and long-term investments;

• complex dependencies between implementation, digitalization, and legislation;

• ethical and political considerations that have an impact;

• and a portfolio in which not only results, but also legitimacy and diligence count.

In such a context, portfolio management is not merely a planning function. It is also a meaning-making function: helping to clarify what is really at play, what is interconnected, and where the system is becoming unbalanced.

If you look at this through the lens of string theory, three useful questions arise:

1. Which initiatives are truly different forms of the same task?

2. Which invisible dimensions determine our success but receive too little attention?

3. Where are we still managing isolated change initiatives, while we should actually be managing a coherent system?

The practical lesson for portfolio managers

The value of this metaphor lies not in the intellectual game, but in its practical application.

A portfolio manager can immediately use this perspective by explicitly assessing for every initiative:

• to which organizational objective does this truly contribute;

• what dependencies are at play beneath the surface;

• which other initiative is strengthened or weakened by this;

• and whether the chosen priority helps the system as a whole.

That also makes the conversation better. Less about "which change initiative first" and more about "what movement do we want to make as an organization".

Conclusion

String theory does not, of course, prove how to manage a portfolio. It is a fine thought exercise and comparison. But as a conceptual framework, it is potentially surprisingly powerful.

It reminds us that complexity does not always mean that everything stands apart. ometimes, it means precisely that everything is more deeply interconnected than meets the eye.

And perhaps that is precisely the core of good portfolio management: not just looking at change initiatives as separate files, but learning to see how they together form a single governance reality.