Mitigating risk with a balanced innovation portfolio

Assume that you have a number of projects that you want to execute. You also have a fixed number of resources that can be used to execute these projects (such as innovation managers and programmers). If the resources can be organized for execution so that there are no independencies you can safely execute all projects at the same time. That is, each resource involved is only needed in their designated project and you don’t risk any of the resources becoming a bottleneck for more than one project at any one time.

The problem is that this is not the normal situation.

As soon as projects become interdependent, choices have to be made and the projects need to be prioritized. Projects may become interdependent if they need the same resources. They can also become interdependent if they need the results from another project before they can move forward. Which projects should be prioritized may be self-evident in some cases. However, in many organizations, this is far from obvious. Stakeholders may be more interested in certain projects, and projects can become stigmatized if they are not high on the list. It may seem as if they have “lost out” to another project. Moreover, careers can be tied to the success of a project. Finally, some executives have pet projects. All these social phenomena can lead to a schedule and a prioritization that is less than optimal from a strictly operational perspective. By using a formal process to manage your portfolio of projects, you will generally get a better consensus on which projects gets access to needed resources first. This is true regardless of what type of portfolio you have.

Welcome to the webinar, during which we will dive into the world of mitigating risk and optimizing your portfolio.

The webinar will be led by Johan Persson, a director and expert in scenario planning, commercialization, and portfolio management at Innovation360, and by Magnus Penker, a global strategist and innovation management thought leader at Innovation360.

Time: 8 am EST, Oct 6th, 2020

About Magnus Penker

Magnus Penker is an internationally renowned thought leader on innovation, sustainability, and business transformation. He is often a speaker at prestigious global forums and events, such as the Global Peter Drucker Forum, at top-ranked international business and design schools, and at meetings run by a variety of associations, including some of the world’s largest companies. Mr. Penker is currently writing a five-volume series on business innovation titled The Complete Guide to Business Innovation and he is an editor for the International Journal of Innovation Science. He has been honored by the Business Worldwide Magazine as the ‘Most Innovative CEO Sweden 2016’ and named as one of the Global Top 100 CEOs in 2018 by CEO Monthly. Additionally, he has launched 10 start-ups as well as acquired, turned around, and sold 30+ SMEs all over Europe.

About Johan Persson

Johan is an innovation consultant and entrepreneur with more than 15 years of experience in strategizing, scenario planning, innovation management, leadership, and technology scouting as well as in investing in and financing early-stage technology projects. He focuses on the commercialization of new innovations and managing innovation portfolios as well as scenario planning and decision-making under uncertainty.

Johan has an MBA from INSEAD with a focus on entrepreneurship and innovation and an MSc in engineering physics from Luleå University of Technology in Sweden. He studied materials physics at postgraduate level at the Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden.