This document discusses how portfolio management is needed beyond traditional product management as companies scale up. It begins by explaining when portfolio management becomes essential, such as when there are multiple teams, dependencies between initiatives, or competing goals. It then covers how to bring portfolio management to empowered product teams through defining goals, aligning initiatives, and implementing responsive re-allocation of resources. The document concludes by discussing replacing roadmaps with a responsive portfolio that focuses on driving business outcomes through defining goals, planning for dependencies, and using allocation and responsive re-allocation to prioritize initiatives.

1. 1
Product Management Is
Not Enough For ScaleUp
CPOs
BECKY FLINT, CEO, DRAGONBOAT
RACHEL WESTON ROWELL, SVP, PRODUCT & TECH COE, INSIGHT PARTNERS

2. Empower Outcome-driven Product
Becky Flint
Founder & CEO
Scaled product teams & built product
portfolio management for

3. Empower Outcome-driven Product
Agenda
Part 1 - When to Scale from Product Management to Portfolio
Management
Part 2 - How to Bring Portfolio Management to Empowered Teams
Part 3 - Replace Your Roadmap with a Responsive Portfolio

4. Empower Outcome-driven Product
When to Scale from
Product Management To
Portfolio Management
#1

5. Empower Outcome-driven Product
We are stalled by too many
dependencies and too many
competing initiatives. Prioritization
alone is not enough.
We need to design and rollout
portfolio management.
Hmm…
Is PayPal a product or a
portfolio (of many products)?
VP, Tech & Biz Ops

6. Empower Outcome-driven Product
A Brief History & Types Of Portfolios
(Separable) Product Portfolio
Install VPN
Set up Okta
Provision Zoom access
(Separable) Project Portfolio “One Product” Portfolio
Checking Savings Credit Card
Lending Investing

7. Empower Outcome-driven Product
An Intertwined “One Product” Portfolio
Consumer Merchant
Payment Risk

8. Empower Outcome-driven Product
Some examples of “One Product” Portfolio
Spotify Instagram Google Search

9. Empower Outcome-driven Product
(RE/DEFINE): PORTFOLIO MANAGEMENT
is about how to evaluate and allocate
on various investment options
based on desired outcomes

10. Multidimensional Portfolio Management
Multiple
goals
Multiple
segments
Multiple
Components

11. Empower Outcome-driven Product
When does portfolio management become essential?
Multiple teams
Dependencies
Competing goals
Product/ use case expansion

12. Empower Outcome-driven Product
When - Competing / Conflicting Goals
Reduce cost Prevent fraud
Frictionless
buying
Increase payment
volume
Consumer Merchant
Payment Risk

13. Portfolio Dependencies
Consumer Merchant
Payment Risk

14. Empower Outcome-driven Product
DEFINITION: RESPONSIVE PORTFOLIO MANAGEMENT
Outcome focused teams apply responsive
PPM - adjusting desired outcomes
periodically based on the state of market
and business.

15. Empower Outcome-driven Product
Reduce
allocation
to healthy
goal
Reallocate to
under performing
goals
Responsive Re/allocation

16. Product Management vs Portfolio Management
Product goals Portfolio goals
Cross team collaboration
Outcome roadmaps, replacing
Feature Factory
Customer inspired product
management
Top down alignment, bottoms up
innovation and cross team visibility
Multi-team, multi-quarter
initiatives
Single team iterations
Full stack teams
Product Roadmaps
Customer Feedback management
“Portfolio” rollup dashboard

17. Empower Outcome-driven Product
How to Bring
Portfolio Management to
Empowered Product Teams
2

18. 18
Money Transfer
The world’s payment
infrastructure in one API
2019 2021

19. 19
Bring Responsive
Portfolio
Management to
Empowered
Teams
Start with a Change agent
Reimagine your problem and product space
Agile rollout
Responsive Portfolio Practice
Implement a Responsive PPM tool
the right tool to facilitate the changes to the right practice
1
3
2

20. 20
The “Rock, Pebble, Sand” Product Management
Prioritizing Product
Feedback
bugs
Enhancement
V2, V3
Big features
(mobile app)
Product
roadmap

21. 21
Product Leaders - Define “Jars” and their sizes
Jars represent portfolio dimensions, e.g. goals
Size represent target resource allocation
Each Jar has its own prioritization criteria
Change Jars and sizes as business and market
evolves
The “Rock, Pebble,
Sand & Jars” Product
Portfolio Management
Use Allocation + Prioritization
for Portfolio Decisions

22. 22
Define Goals and Target Allocation

23. 23
Align Initiatives with Portfolio Goals before Action Plan

24. 24
Rollout: From Feature based to Outcome based Planning
Define the
right “Jars”
Shared
Goals

25. Empower Outcome-driven Product
Reduce
allocation
to healthy
goal
Reallocate to
under performing
goals
Rollout: “Quarterly” Responsive Re/allocation

26. Empower Outcome-driven Product
● Full stack team structure
● User journey team structure
● Domain team structure
No matter how you
structure your scaling team,
90% of product teams face
dependencies
Rollout: From Individual Teams to Collaborative Teams
to tackle multi team multi quarter initiatives

27. Empower Outcome-driven Product
Effective Dependency Management Directly Correlates to
Better Business Outcomes & More Cohesive User Experiences

28. Empower Outcome-driven Product
Rollout: Forecast Resourcing Needs to Scale by Data
Prioritize teams to staff or skills to hire based on business needs

29. The Right Portfolio workflow:
Left to Right Product Management workflow
The top and bottom portfolio alignment, allocation
and visibility
Collaboration across teams and functions
Integrated, automated, data informed
Adopt The Right
Tool To Facilitate
The Best Practice

30. 30
Bring Portfolio Management to Empowered Teams
Adopt The Right
Tool To
Facilitate
Agile Roll Out
Of The Portfolio
Practice
A Change Agent:
Re/Imagine The
Portfolio

31. Empower Outcome-driven Product
Replace Your Roadmap
With A Responsive Portfolio
To Drive Outcomes
3

32. 32
1
2
3
Define & get
buy-in on
product goals/
OKRs
Negotiate and
plan amongst
dependencies
Not feature
factory,
outcome-driven
portfolio
From Product Leader to Business Leader

33. 33
#1 Define and get buy-in on Product Goals / OKRs
Converting business goals to product goals relies on aligning product and portfolio strategy
The process is traditionally called “Strategic planning”
Lack of higher level product objectives across teams results in incrementalism and silo
● Only focus on one area (shiny objects)
● Move on too quickly
● No allocation
● Break big goals to smaller ones
before handover to teams
Don'ts
● Account for both new and existing
market
● Plan for v2, v3 based on initial test
● Set allocation
● Share goals across teams
Dos

34. 34
Business Goal - Grow Revenue by 60% YoY
Near term +
long term
goals
Core market
New market
40%
30%
20%
10%

35. 35
#2 Negotiate and Plan Dependencies
- Allocation + prioritization
- Visualize and plan dependencies
- Feature sequence
- Product Experience sequence
- Resource reliance (shared)
- Smart tracking and alert
- Not micromanaging but can still spot
risks early to prevent disasters

36. Empower Outcome-driven Product
Effective Dependency Management Directly Correlates to
Better Business Outcomes & More Cohesive User Experiences

37. Empower Outcome-driven Product
● Groomed product backlog
● Full stack teams
● Feedback-driven
roadmapping
#3 Feature Roadmaps ⇒ Outcome Driven Product
● Align, allocate, prioritize
● Shared goals, effective
dependency management
● Responsive re/allocation

38. Empower Outcome-driven Product
Reduce
allocation
to healthy
goal
Reallocate to
under performing
goals
Allocation and Responsive Re/allocation

39. responsiveppm.org dragonboat.io programmanager.org
Additional Resources