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Strategy & Portfolio Management

Why portfolio management teams struggle to deliver value

Portfolio Management Teams:

The Five Dysfunctions of Portfolio Management Teams

How to ensure that agile and devops teams realize the strategic organizational goals

SAFe portfolio management in practice

safe-portfolio-management-in-practice

How to ensure that agile and devops teams realize the strategic organizational goals? 
Traditional portfolio management is based on multi-year and annual plans for projects and programs, with associated budgets and management. The portfolio is evaluated over the course of a financial year and priorities are recalibrated. Because the vast majority of technology is developed in an agile way, or even devops, this conflicts with the traditional portfolio cycle. Because agile teams do not commit to the long term; you don't have to expect any planning from these teams. Agile teams are accountable with reviews (demo) every two weeks; progress reporting as an accountability mechanism is a far cry. What is the guarantee worth to a portfolio manager that the capacity is properly allocated? How do you ensure that the realization of the agile teams is in line with the organizational strategy and therefore the portfolio?

Ron Mostert

People find it difficult to make choices and mainly driven by costs, not by value

Managing value with portfolio management

Daniil silantev io Ywos PYC0 U unsplash

In organizations with many IT initiatives (development of front-end, ERP system, data platform, infrastructure, etc.) the following sometimes occurs: There is a lack of coherence between all these initiatives, people find it difficult to make choices and are mainly driven by costs, not by value. Decision-making starts slowly and it takes a long time before initiatives are realized. All this does not benefit the working atmosphere, which may make it difficult to retain employees

Sander Spanjaard

Managing value with portfolio management – Part 1

Guidelines for portfoliomanagement

Managing value with portfolio management – 2

Organizations with multiple development forms share a common goal: realizing value. Portfolio management enables the highest value by continuously managing this in a coherent manner. This follow-up provides a set of handles.

Managing value with portfolio management – Part 2

Tips for portfolio organization, the portfolio process and continuous improvement thereof.

Managing value with portfolio management – 3

In the first part of this blog series I indicated that there can be several forms of development in an organization, but always with a common goal: realizing value. With portfolio management you find each other by continuously managing this in a coherent manner. In the follow-up blog I provided a set of concrete tools to continuously manage the highest value in a coherent manner. In this third and concluding part, I provide tips for portfolio organization, the portfolio process and continuous improvement thereof.

Managing value with portfolio management – Part 3

Agility and Stability Go Hand in Hand

Agile Portfolio Management:

Agile Portfolio Management in the Public Domain: Agility and Stability Go Hand in Hand

In 2025, the Dutch government faces an ever-increasing challenge: maintaining stability and course between technological innovations, social expectations and the implementation of laws and regulations. Citizens and society demand reliable services and consistent policy, while speed and agility have become indispensable to respond effectively to technological innovations and social expectations. However, many government organizations are still bound to traditional structures that hinder agility and innovation. This contradiction makes it difficult to act decisively and with a focus on the future.

Agile Portfolio Management in the (Dutch) Public Domain

Key insights from the Highberg Portfolio Management Round Table

Highberg Portfolio Management Round Table

People business meeting high angle

On June 24, 2025, Highberg hosted 25 portfolio managers to share challenges and best practices. Key insights included: clear and adaptive governance, realistic planning for lean budgets, early and simple KPI setting, and prioritizing initiatives based on strategic value. The event showed that effective portfolio management balances structure with flexibility and focuses on real value delivery. Participants agreed to continue these exchanges every six months.

Bas Wolting

Positive impact when implementing Lean/Agile portfolio management made clear

implementing Lean/Agile portfolio management

Implementatie Lean Agile portfoliomanagement

Many organizations have ambitious IT plans. Therefore, the desire is to roll out Agile more broadly. Rightly so, because with Agile, realizing ambitious IT plans becomes more achievable. At the same time, the transformation to Agile is a major challenge that can only succeed with sufficient support. Many organizations struggle with the question: how do I communicate in an approachable, concrete and fun way why Agile also further professionalizes our way of working outside of IT and teams?  
Highberg worked with the Education Executive Agency (Dienst Uitvoering Onderwijs, hereafter: DUO) to solve this question.

Belgian supermarket chain pioneers hybrid portfolio model, merging agile and traditional

Portfolio magic: Agile meets traditional

Portfolio-magic-Agile-meets-traditional

Over a period of six months, a group of consultants supported one of the major supermarket chains in Belgium to define a hybrid portfolio management model that would combine traditional and agile practices and processes. The intended goal of the hybrid portfolio set-up was to enable and streamline the execution of app and website products through agile development teams in a waterfall environment. The hybrid portfolio management model would be trialed as part of the launch of a new business unit and continuously improved along the way as the implementation takes place. 
With the launch of a new business unit, the company wants to centralize the competencies required to develop and launch website and app products. From experience with other product execution in traditional business units, the management team found the lead time and predictability thereof to be low and wanted to prevent similar challenges for the new business unit. Management also experienced misalignment in product priorities and therefore the cascading of strategy to execution. Highberg was asked to identify key challenges in the traditional set-up of business units and to propose a hybrid model that would prevent the same challenges and enable ultimate success.

Valerie Gögel

Business woman teaching document some colleagues

All healthy organizations, public or private, share the same challenge: more ideas for initiatives than there are people and resources to design, develop, build or implement them. And thus organizations look for ways to ensure the most promising ideas get priority over others. Strategies are formulated to focus them, business case review processes are defined and budget controls are put in place. This is where the portfolio management function becomes a critical capability.
Read more about the five dysfunctions of Portfolio Management Teams below.

The Five Dysfunctions of Portfolio Management Teams

The Five Dysfunctions of Portfolio Management Teams

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