Impact guaranteed
business improvements

5 solid portfolio principles to balance business planning with agility

by | Jun 23, 2025 | Blog

  1. home
  2. >
  3. Blog
  4. >
  5. 5 solid portfolio principles...

By Rens Nooyens

Where portfolio turns strategy into reality, how to deal with the increasing demand for agility?

These five portfolio principles have served their value in my past two decades in project portfolio management:

1. Start with the end in mind: be transparent about how initiatives contribute to strategic objectives and ensure the portfolio as a whole meets them.

2. Set for success: assure the ability to deliver, based on available resources, timing, technology, dependencies, etc.

3. Rank the stars: set clear priorities based on added value, with the order for resourcing and resolving any future issues.

4. Future funneling: commit to the short term, plan the mid term, and provide direction for the long term, leaving an increasing level of flexibility to respond over time.

5. Continuous feedback: use frequent, short-termed feedback loops to scrutinize progress, assumptions, help requests, and allow for corrective measures.

These portfolio principles ensure that strategy can be achieved through executing a prioritized and feasible portfolio that is resilient and adaptive to changing circumstances and needs.

These principles are built for action. Let’s connect — our experts at The Independables are ready for the challenge.

0 Comments

More:

Choose your Change

Choose your Change

Introduction In this article, we’ll explore transformation vs continuous improvement and how each change method affects business success. In an ever-changing world, you have to choose your change! In today’s fast-paced business environment, companies must change...

Networked Organisations (part 2)

Networked Organisations (part 2)

In my last blog, I spoke about the idea to extend our options to attract experienced Project Managers by creating a networked organisation. Add freelancers to The Independables pool of resources to extend our offer to our customers. In this blog, I will highlight a...

Networked Organisations (part 2)

Networked Organisations

Before we officially started The Independables over a year ago, we created a business plan to think through our services and offering, financials, and of course, our growth model. In that growth model, we, like most people setting up a new organisation, envisioned a...

Three is the max!

Three is the max!

How many projects can a project manager handle without losing overview or impacting the output quality negatively? Many project managers have one assignment at a time. This allows for in-depth focus and 100% attention for this project. The amount of work to be...

How we deal with the next crisis: shortage of employees

How we deal with the next crisis: shortage of employees

The last few years we have experienced several crises in a row: pandemic, war, supply chain disruptions, shortages, high-energy prices, increasing food prices. Today, we stil feel the impact of the (past) crises and need to adjust to this new reality. And a next...

The key to success in business transformations

The key to success in business transformations

The success rate of business transformations is low, according to different studies (for example: McKinsey – 27% of transformation projects succeed). There are different success factors (and factors, when not addressed seriously, will cause failures), but what is the...

Sense and nonsense of a PMO

Sense and nonsense of a PMO

PMO stands for Project Management Office. It represents an entity that supports the project organisation with all kinds of project related activities. A PMO can be set up with limited responsibility, like taking minutes, archiving documents, apply naming conventions,...

One year The Independables!

One year The Independables!

One year ago, we founded The Independables (official date: 26th of January as registration date at the Chamber of Commerce). What started with an idea, several meetings, brainstorm sessions, dinners, coffees, and beers later is now an official company. And we survived...

Share This