Com­pa­nies face on aver­age three bar­ri­ers in adapt­ing change: com­plex gov­er­nance and approval process­es, con­flict­ing pri­or­i­ties and a lack of resources.

Adap­tive port­fo­lio plan­ning yields sig­nif­i­cant busi­ness suc­cess­es: faster time to mar­ket, align­ing gov­er­nance and fund­ing with pri­or­i­ties and improved respon­sive­ness to change. 

So how do you accom­plish those metrics?

1. Move to con­tin­u­ous plan­ning: Top-down con­tin­u­ous plan­ning gives lead­ers insight into whether port­fo­lios, strate­gies, and fund­ing remain aligned with their busi­ness out­comes. Have a long term goal, that is mea­sur­able, and break it down into iter­a­tive approach­es. And sce­nario plan­ning is a handy tool to mod­el and ana­lyze the impact of pos­si­ble changes and disruptions.

2. Switch to Pro­gram and Prod­uct-cen­tric Plan­ning and Fund­ing instead of Project fund­ing and plan­ning. So focus on Port­fo­lio fund­ing, where val­ue adding is cen­tral. Make out­come-based fund­ing and invest­ment deci­sions, so based on strate­gic align­ment. Pri­or­i­tize port­fo­lios by pro­grams and their asso­ci­at­ed val­ues, so mea­sur­able met­rics as NPV and ROI. This approach enables orga­ni­za­tions to ensure the work deliv­ered is always tied to strategy.

3. Con­nect Roadmaps with Strate­gic Objec­tives. Strate­gic roadmaps are essen­tial, it illus­trates where the com­pa­ny wants to go, and where the com­pa­ny is now. Make roadmaps about busi­ness appli­ca­tions, prod­ucts, ser­vices and tech­no­log­i­cal infra­struc­ture. The end goal is to make a broad­er per­spec­tive for all stake­hold­ers, so the best strate­gic choic­es can be made.

4. Focus on Out­comes and Ben­e­fits. Use KPI’s and OKR’s to spec­i­fy on how your orga­ni­za­tion is going to accom­plish that the focus is on out­comes, ben­e­fits and val­ue instead of results. It’s cru­cial to include all this data in one place to derive the ana­lyt­ics and make informed decisions.

5. Con­duct quar­ter­ly check­points. Quar­ter­ly check­points result in an eval­u­a­tion of the results from the pre­vi­ous quar­ter. Here you can adjust the pol­i­cy in order to get those com­pa­ny goals.