Portfolio and Pipeline Management

A large consumer electronics company lacked an integrated process for making decisions about which product development programs to pursue.

• The impact on business performance included product delays, poor rationalization of product development investments, and constant miscommunication between senior management, product marketing and the engineering group.

The management team was constantly in a “war room” mentality with vast disagreement around prioritization of needs. Engineering group of over 300 was constantly jockeyed between product/project priorities making the entire group less efficient.

A portfolio and pipeline management approach was established to help senior leadership make informed decisions about which product development initiatives to pursue.

• Portfolio and pipeline management views were developed to help senior leadership quickly (and visually) understand their portfolio and the implications of their decisions.

Portfolio and pipeline management processes were implemented to ensure these practices would be used for product development decision-making going forward.

After implementation of the portfolio and pipeline management processes, the following improvements were realized:

• Over 15 projects were eliminated, freeing up engineering and project management resources to assist on high priority development initiatives
• Group profits increased by over 26% through the elimination of hiring requisitions, repurposing of product marketing and engineering staff and a streamlined product portfolio