Adapt to Win

Chapter 12Product Portfolio Management

Product portfolio management is a very particular subtype of portfolio management practiced under and in support of enterprise portfolio management. That is to say that product portfolios are sub portfolios under the enterprise and perhaps under business units or other P&Ls. Enterprise, product, IT, and innovation portfolios all have unique practices, techniques, challenges, and capabilities that apply to them. Comparing product portfolio management to IT portfolio management, for example, the common obstacles to high performance and the capabilities that must be developed to overcome them to achieve excellence are almost opposites of one another.

Chapter 14 on IT portfolio management mostly deals with the capacity management function, while this product portfolio management chapter focuses on demand management tools and techniques. Typically, the greatest opportunities for improvement in IT organizations lie in managing capacity and delivery processes more effectively. On the other hand, product development organizations usually manage capacity and delivery more efficiently than the average IT shop. More often, product development organizations struggle with aligning product investments to strategic objectives, measuring value, and prioritizing features, customers, and markets, which are all elements of demand management.

Product and service lines are profit centers for the corporation. Organizations tend to invest a dramatically higher ...