Portfolio, Pipeline and Platform Management create the foundation of New Product Development proficiency and productivity. Companies wanting to improve the output of their innovation efforts have no choice but to build expertise in these approaches. But it is a complex process. No one simple tool or method will address all of the issues in portfolio, pipeline and platform management. The purpose of this very important workshop is to share learnings and experience about the correct approaches to NPD Portfolio, Pipeline and Platform Management. 

The NPD Portfolio, Pipeline and Platform Management Seminar drills deep into the topics, with particular emphasis on how organizations get things done and gain benefits.  It specifically addresses the means by which organizations can greatly improve the strategic impact from and efficiency of their NPD efforts.

As a valuable addition, all participants will also have the opportunity — before the workshop — to benchmark their organization’s current Portfolio, Pipeline and Platform Management capabilities via The Adept Group's database of implementation activities for over 180 companies. This is conducted via an online survey and will be used to aid participants in setting the best approach to implementing and improving practices.  Participation is optional.

By attending this comprehensive workshop you will learn how to: Analyze your organization’s current Portfolio, Pipeline and Platform Management strengths and weaknesses;  Conduct near-term and long-term project prioritization for optimal speed, strategic impact, and resource use efficiency; Overcome the high level of uncertainty about task durations and task outcomes in project planning; Link Pipeline and Portfolio Management to Product Strategy, Platform Management, and the Fuzzy Front-end; Assess and resolve “systemic risks,” whether organizational or strategic, that cut across the NPD portfolio;  Develop and prioritize the right targets for innovation to achieve a high performance portfolio; Create the best graphical views for communicating with top management and overcoming organizational barriers; Combine systems support with organizational processes to enable real-time management of your NPD efforts; and Orchestrate implementations and improvements so as to realize benefits quickly (speed-to-benefits).

Workshop Sessions

Introduction To NPD Portfolio, Pipeline and Platform Management
In this session, you will learn the key sub-processes of Portfolio, Pipeline and Platform Management how to measure portfolio management proficiency and how portfolio management integrates with a broader set of management and business processes.

Case Study: Portfolio and Pipeline Triage
This quick, yet insightful, case study enables participants to explore the underpinnings of good portfolio management. Participants will work with colleagues from other companies, along with assistance from the instructor, to try to correct a poor portfolio and help a hypothetical company get back on the path to desirable growth.

Breakout Discussion: The Current State of Practices/Processes & Improvement Implementation Barriers
Before attending the workshop, participants have the option, free of charge, to benchmark their organization's NPD pipeline and portfolio management practices. Response to an online survey provides comparative measures of Portfolio, Pipeline and Platform Management proficiency, systems and tools, as well as methods and capabilities within your organization. 

During this session, participants will review an analysis of their survey input. We will discuss where companies are in their Portfolio, Pipeline and Platform Management capabilities. Teachings will focus on key implementation stages, success barriers, as well as the most recent cross-industry benchmarks associated with implementing and conducting NPD portfolio management. Please note: recent findings call into question the relevancy of some popular research conducted on NPD portfolio management. (We will be teaching the latest findings.) 

Critical Components of NPD Portfolio, Pipeline and Platform Management 
Six important groups of components make up Portfolio, Pipeline and Platform Management. Managers need to understand each group and the components within them. More importantly, they need to understand how components relate to one another to fully exploit the power of Portfolio, Pipeline and Platform Management. This section of the workshop will explain components through descriptions and examples. 

Spiral-Up Implementation of NPD Portfolio Management: Speeding Benefit Accrual to your Organization
How you implement is just as important as what you implement. In this section of the workshop, you will learn how to implement practices and deploy components so as to:

Keep Portfolio, Pipeline and Platform management on track, and

Quickly gain the most benefits from Portfolio, Pipeline and Platform management. 

This section of the workshop will also lay out key factors that cause implementations to derail and practical approaches to avoiding them. Emphasis throughout this section of the workshop is on gaining and sustaining benefits from Portfolio, Pipeline and Platform Management. 

Implementation Planning and SpiralUp Execution
In this session, participants will be involved in an instructor-lead dialogue focused on potential steps that their organizations may need to take to improve portfolio management proficiency. The dialogue will explore how to make implementation of best practice work. Participants should expect numerous interrelated topics to arise in this dialogue. You will obtain feedback from your peers in other organization and test your mental models of how implementation works against other organizational situations.

Platform Leverage, Product Line Planning, and the Fuzzy Front-end. 
Portfolio, Pipeline and Platform Management is not just about those projects within an organization’s Stage-gate process. During this section of the workshop, participants will learn why and how to include new concept generation and product line planning in Portfolio, Pipeline and Platform Management . Through such inclusion, organizations can amplify the output of new product development. Participants will receive an in-depth review of platform and product line planning, as well as new concept generation process. Establishing the critical links between Portfolio, Pipeline and Platform Management and front-end practices is crucial to realizing significant benefits. 

Alignment to Strategy: How Do You Ensure that De Facto Product Strategy is Consistent with Top Management’s Intended Strategy?
Developing new products is the execution of business strategy. Yet, through pipeline and portfolio management it becomes apparent that these two contributors may not be aligned. Such alignment is necessary to assure that investments in product development projects are consistent with where top management wants to take the business. In this session, participants will learn how to align the pipeline resource allocation and the portfolio mix to business strategy and direction. 

Systems, Supports, and Software Tools: From Excel to Enterprise-wide, Integrated Portfolio, Pipeline and Platform Management . 
Most experts agree that IT support to NPD and portfolio management can and will greatly improve NPD productivity. Organizations no longer have a question of whether they will invest in software and systems to support pipeline and portfolio management. Rather, it is a question of when and how. In this session, participants will learn precursors to IT systems and what companies are using in support of Portfolio, Pipeline and Platform Management, and how such systems are evolving.

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