Opleiding: Portfolio Management Lab

Inhoud

What you get out of it
- You can put a portfolio on one page and show how each initiative serves the strategy, and which ones do not.
- You can make customer value explicit before money is committed.
- You can build a business case as a range, with the assumptions that matter and a staged investment proposal.
- You can map who decides, who advises and who executes, and use that map to end repeated discussions.
- You can limit work in progress and make the case for stopping an initiative.
- You leave with a 90-day plan for your own organisation.

Framework-independent
The Lab does not teach a framework and does not ask you to adopt one. It deals with the problems every portfolio has: too much at once, unclear priorities, business cases nobody looks at again, and decisions that are made twice. What you learn fits organisations that work with SAFe Lean Portfolio Management, with strategic portfolio management, with their own method or with no formal method. We use plain language, so everyone at the table can follow.

What it brings your role
- Portfolio managers: a process others carry with you, with clear decision rights and a rhythm that leaders actually use.
- PMO and VMO: the step from reporting on projects to steering on value, with a portfolio process that prepares real decisions.
- Business owners and executives: fewer initiatives at once, and a clear view of what each investment is expected to return.
- Finance and control: funding that can be adjusted during the year, with guardrails that keep accountability intact.
- Programme and project managers: clear priorities and a clear mandate, so you can steer on value as well as on scope, time and budget.
- Product managers: customer value made explicit, and business cases that stay in use after approval.
- Business analysts: a seat at the table before the decision, where your analysis and assumptions shape the business case.
- Enterprise architects: a say when investment choices are made, so technical direction is part of the decision.
- Transformation leaders, enterprise coaches and LACE leaders: a way to bring the portfolio level into the transformation, with leaders who own their part.

Membership of the Connected community
Your place in the Lab includes membership of the Connected community. You exchange knowledge with peers from other organisations and join talks, webinars and round tables. The membership continues after week 12, so the conversations you start in the Lab do not stop there.

How it works
The Lab runs for twelve weeks: three live half-days (weeks 1, 6 and 12) and nine online sessions of 90 minutes, plus a lab assignment of one to two hours a week. The group is deliberately mixed and works together on one shared example case, so nobody has to bring confidential material. Each week you translate what you practised to your own situation.

Programme
Block 1 – Sharpen (weeks 1–5)
- Week 1 (live): the portfolio on the table
- Week 2: from strategy to portfolio
- Week 3: who decides what
- Week 4: making value visible
- Week 5: investing under uncertainty

Block 2 – Choose (week 6)
- Week 6 (live): a played portfolio review with swapped roles and a limited budget

Block 3 – Make it work (weeks 7–12)
- Week 7: flow and capacity
- Week 8: funding and governance
- Week 9: measuring and steering
- Week 10: AI-native portfolio management
- Week 11: making it stick
- Week 12 (live): present and commit

In-house
The Lab is also available in-house. Your complete portfolio team then takes part and works on your own portfolio instead of the example case, so what the team agrees during the Lab are the real agreements. Contact us to discuss dates and set-up.