Shaping Portfolio Agility

Healthy Portfolio Patterns (#5)

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"It's common for people to say they have a platform strategy that doesn't necessarily resemble a platform strategy so much as a center of dependency hell" - Mark Richards

In Episode 3, we explored the influence of Moore's Zone to Win model on understanding the portfolio ecosystem. Episode 4 explored the role of purpose, context, and structure in modeling the ecosystem you have and starting to look at it through Lean eyes. In this episode, we combine these ideas with the portfolio examples defined in the SAFe Portfolio article Eric contributed to last year. This sets the stage for exploring leveraging the examples to make sense of the portfolio ecosystem you have today and begin to think about the one you'd like to have tomorrow.

In this episode, we cover:

  • (00:39) Episode Intro
  • (02:51) Why is understanding the portfolio ecosystem so important?
  • (05:31) What was the thinking behind SAFe's Portfolio examples?
  • (15:49) What is the Single Portfolio example, and when is it too simplistic?
  • (26:37) Which portfolio examples live in the Performance Zone?
  • (54:10) Why are the Productivity Zone examples so useful?
  • (01:06:31) How do you avoid the misconception that an Innovation Portfolio is the only place where innovation happens?
  • (01:13:07) Why do none of the examples naturally map to the Transformation Zone?
  • (01:18:43) Wrap

    • Cast:

    Eric Willeke

    Mark Richards


    Show Notes

    Book References:

    • Zone to Win – Geoffrey Moore

    Other References:

    • SAFe Portfolio Article
    ...more
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    Shaping Portfolio AgilityBy Eric Willeke, Mark Richards