The “Handshake” is a little nugget of Portfolio Gold that you wont find in any book, you can use it to help your portfolio work wonderfully with your key stakeholders. At some point in time your stakeholders will get confused about the services they should expect from you, and equally the information and services that you need from them.

1. Mr Portfolio’s “Handshake”
By Craig Kilford
The “Handshake” is a little nugget of Portfolio Gold that you wont find in any book, you can use it to help your
portfolio work wonderfully with your key stakeholders. At some point in time your stakeholders will get confused
about the services they should expect from you, and equally the information and services that you need from them.
To help clarify relationships and working practices between the porfolio and other teams I have found the concept of
a “Handshake” to be extremely useful because it helps build strong connection, plus everyone likes doing a good
deal. I’ve used this with teams in Finance, IT, HR and Product Development, I’ve also found it really useful for
working with other Portfolio Offices and with 3rd
party organisations that the Portfolio Office has to deal with.
Best wishes, @MrPortfolio

2. To ensure the Portfolio Office realises it’s vision we make sure that
the way we work with other teams in [company name] are defined to
ensure expectations are understood and met from both parties.
Due to the increasingly complex dependency work taking place
within the [portfolio name] and the wider Corporate Dependency
Team, this “Handshake” defines roles, responsibilities, who to
contact, reporting timescales, response time promises and
frequently asked questions.
This is a living document and should be updated as the relationships
with other departments evolves.
Craig Kilford
@MrPortfolio
www.MrPortfolioManagement.com
Our Portfolio Office Vision
To provide top class,
professional portfolio
management services that
are valued by by all
of our Stakeholders.
We achieve this by:
• Checking and double
checking that everything
we do adds value and
achieves quality standards
that we can be proud of.
• Ensuring efficient portfolio
delivery processes are
used to drive Governance
& success
• Sharing accurate and
timely information
• Working collaboratively
as one team
Introduction to the Handshake

3. [Company name] Portfolio Office Central Dependencies Team
Role
• Provide a value add suite of portfolio management
services to the [company name] and all
stakeholders
• Provide [company name] with timely and accurate
dependency information with recommendations for
next steps and key action.
Handshake
Duties
• Embed internal mechanisms that enable effective
management and reporting of portfolio
dependencies at all levels
• Obtain dependency information from the Portfolio
Office and represent the information accurately in
the corporate dependency analysis
Provision of
information
• Provide updated dependency information on
projects as per the agreed Central Dependency
Team dependency Calendar (see appendix *)
• Provide copies of the Corporate Dependancy
Register and Executive Dependency Information to
the Portfolio Office as pet the agreed calendar (see
apendix **)
Reponses
times
• Provision of extra-ordinary information within 12
working hours or less
• Provision of extra-ordinary information within 12
working hours or less
Rules of
Engagement
• The Portfolio Office will work with [ team member
name] relating to any central dependency
information and will ensure the most up to date and
agreed information is shared.
• The Portfolio Office will ensure Director of Change
is aware of information sent to the Central
Dependency Team
• [team member name] will review the Portfolio Office
Register and engage with @MrPortfolio prior to
engaging with project or programme managers
within the Portfolio. This will prevent duplication
and ensure one version of truth is reported
upwards.
HandshakeThe Handshake detail

4. Who do you know that would find this useful?
www.MrPortfolioManagement.com
@MrPortfolio
hi@MrPortfolioManagement.com