“-Have you had difficulties to choose which projects to fund and which to kill?
-Do you feel you are lacking the right tools to visualize your portfolio?
-Do you even know why you should visualize it?”
We have met up with Jan Sandqvist, CEO at Googol, 
an organization working with innovation solutions to discuss the upcoming workshop at Innovation in Action. We discussed the importance of Portfolio Management when it comes to optimizing for the future and Jan explained how the “iPM challenge” that he will be holding during Innovation in Action makes participants aware of the need for Portfolio Management.
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Portfolio Management could be seen as one key in order to optimize for the future. However, many organizations seem to have problem to succeed with this. According to Jan, almost all companies need to constantly make improvements, in small steps as well as bigger leaps. “By using an appropriate tool for Portfolio Management, it is easier to place your bets and get the desired return on investment with a balanced risk.”, he said.
Even though many people would say that strategy is a key to succes, Jan also describes ‘visual thinking’ as a central part when talking about strategy and portfolio management, meaning that it is easier to make decisions based on the actual situation when everyone involved share the same picture and data. “Visualization, when done in a good way, can be very helpful for staying on topic and discuss what really matters”, Jan said in a statement.
As the CEO of Googol, Jan has a lot of experience regarding common mistakes when it comes to managing portfolios and what companies can do in order to avoid these in an early stage. “Projects and products are often viewed on spreadsheets, but the visualization is lacking. Sometimes the information is only accessible for a few people when more should be involved. In some cases, new initiatives and projects are compared to existing products and decision makers tend to demand a lot of information, that is unknown in early stages, making it difficult to pursue the development of promising ideas. A good overview of the portfolio and a clear understanding of how resources are meant to be spent helps in the decision making process.”
While a company strategy defines ”Why to innovate?” the iPM Challenge helps organizations to understand ”What to Innovate?”. During this workshop, the participants will realize the complexity with portfolio management while facing different challenges. “There are a lot of variables to consider; investment, Net Present Value, Risk level, production capabilities, customer need, resource allocation just to name a few. There is a lot of work to be done during 2,5 hours, but the participants will get an understanding of how powerful a tool for visualization is and as a consequence, that better informed decisions can be made faster.”
Do you feel you are lacking the right tools to visualize your portfolio? Join Googols workshop, “The iPM Challenge” during Innovation in Action, 24-25th of October.