“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.  It is always the result of high intention, sincere effort, and intelligent execution; it represents the wise choice of many alternatives – choice, not chance, determines your destiny.” 

Aristotle

With respect to a process that most certainly raises the hackles on many folks, I couldn’t think of a better way to describe the intent behind why having a Portfolio Review & Governance process is so important than this quote from Aristotle.

As an organization, we align around a certain set of goals every year to help drive the business forward. Not every idea makes the final cut, but this painstaking process is necessary to focus everyone on the core set of major work initiatives to bring about the biggest impact. These major work initiatives are often aligned by business lines, product lines, geographic lines, etc, and get broken down into distinct blocks of work delivered over the course of due time via an agreed upon product roadmap.

Sounds simple enough, right? What could possibly be so difficult in delivering against what we said was so important? Well, as Product Management leaders I am quite certain you have experienced some of these … competitive disruptions, acquisitions, a new major customer/partner, a leadership change inside the organization, a critical system failure, a pandemic, etc. I’ve personally experienced changes due to all of these and I’m certain this is not an exhaustive list.

What is critical is not managing towards an expectation of preventing change, but rather having the confidence to manage through the change WHEN it does occur. Not if, when.