Agile Portfolios: A 3-D Approach

Lourdes Medina is a PMO/PPM consultant and coach in Latin-America. With more than 15 years of project and portfolio management experience, with an emphasis on both operational and consulting perspectives, she has worked in a large scope of industries including banking, insurance, retail, insurance, public sector and consumer products.

  Agile   Innovation   Organizational Project Management   Portfolio Management   Strategy   Knowledge Shelf  

Abstract
This article explains the conditions required in projects, programs, strategies, and operations in order to increase portfolio agility—with an approach comprising not only the agility of each of its components, but also the agility of the organization and that of the procedures inherent in portfolio management.

The agility of the portfolio implies taking advantage of possibilities in the industry at a strategic level; that at the tactical level, there is an agile approach to determine priorities and the assignment of resources to the portfolio of projects; and that at an operational and project level, there would be practice adjustments to achieve better performance.

Portfolio agility requires synergy. We cannot consider an agile portfolio if the organization is not agile. We cannot speak of an agile portfolio if its components are not so. In short, we need the organization, the portfolio, and its components to adopt such agility.

Introduction
Let us get started by defining organizational agility as the capacity of an organization to be flexible, adaptable, and sensible before the internal and surrounding changes turn into improvements in their strategic position.

The project portfolio is the one in charge of undertaking strategy and generating the business …

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